Quotes: Winter. Wisdom.

Winter
Snow reduces the landscape to its essential patterns.
Winter 8 Chester County snowscape is the landscape of the other seasons edited of its weedy summer detail, reduced to its basic patterns in field, forest, watercourse, hedgerow...squint your eyes at the snowscape, these patterns are further reduced to arrangements of pure form, shape, line, light and shadow. Browning, Notes from Turtle Creek.

Wisdom
Wisdom begins in wonder.
Wisdom 145 ‘Ah, that shows the lover of wisdom,’ Socrates said, ‘for wisdom begins in wonder.’ E. Hamilton. The Greek Way.

The belief that he is wise is the plague of man.
Wisdom 301 Montaigne: “The conviction of wisdom is the plague of man.” Eiseley, The Star Thrower

Plato did not say he was wise; he only sought wisdom.
Wisdom 6 …he [Plato] did not claim to have wisdom, but only to seek it…. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Plato.

Wise people see the causes of things.
Wisdom 192 Johnson: …since it is the great characteristic of a wise man to see events in their causes…. Boswell, Life of Johnson, Vol. 1.

The wise person desires nothing at all.
Wisdom 637 Dr. Johnson talked with approbation of one who attained to the state of the philosophical wise man, that is, to have no want of anything. Boswell, Life of Johnson, Vol. 1.

Wise people are not always wise.
Wisdom 992 …for wise men are not wise at all hours…. Emerson, The Conduct of Life: Wealth.

The difference between the unwise and the wise: the former wonders at the unusual; the latter wonders at the usual.
Wisdom 609 …that is ever the difference between the wise and the unwise: the latter wonders at what is unusual, the wise man wonders at the usual. Emerson, New England Reformers.

The wise see the miraculous in the common.
Wisdom 47 The invariable mark of wisdom is to see the miraculous in the common. Emerson, Nature.

The wise can learn from a fool.
Wisdom 304 Rabelais: The wise may be instructed by a fool. Plimpton, ed. The Writer’s Chapbook

The wise are always cheerful.
Wisdom 33 The most certain sign of wisdom is a constant cheerfulness. Montaigne, Selected Essays.

The wise always have self-doubt; the opinionated and foolhardy are self assured.
Wisdom 432 …wisdom forbids you to be satisfied with and trust in yourself and always dismisses you discontented and timorous, whereas opinionativeness and foolhardiness fill their hosts with joy and assurance. Montaigne, Selected Essays.

Wisdom is always mixed with 9/10 nonsense or it is not wisdom.
Wisdom 746 Coverdale to Hollingsworth: I wish you could see fit to comprehend…that the profoundest wisdom must be mingled with nine-tenth of nonsense; else it is not worth the breath that utters it. Hawthorne, The Blithedale Romance.

The beginning of wisdom is to wonder at the mystery of existence and life.
Wisdom 171 Albert Schweitzer: the beginning of all wisdom is to be filled with the mystery of existence and of life. Anderson, The Schweitzer Album.

Wisdom 21 …a wise man is not always a good man. Steele, 3/7/1711 The Spectator.

The wise man is conscious of his own inadequacies; the fool feels good about himself because he observes the inadequacies of others.
Wisdom 225 The wise man and the fool: The first is humbled by the sense of his own infirmities; the last is lifted up by the discovery of those which he observed in other men. Addison, 5/24/1711. The Spectator.

Wisdom 245 The Spanish proverb says, “A wise man changes his mind, a fool never will.” Steele, 5/30/1711. The Spectator.

Ideas lengthen the existence of a wise man; passion lengthens the existence of the fool.
Wisdom 293 The hours of a wise man are lengthened by his ideas, as those of a fool are by his passions. Addison, 6/18/1711. The Spectator.

The wise use few words.
Wisdom 344 Chorus: Wise are her words and few…. Aristophanes, Thesmophoriazusae.

Maybe it isn’t foolishness, but so wise that I can not understand it.
Wisdom and foolishness 938 Well, not foolish, then...but wiser it may be than I can fathom. Hawthorne, The Marble Faun.