Wisdom

Wisdom is the highest form of ability of a person to use information and knowledge to make right decision or judgment. Thomas Jefferson said, "Wisdom is knowing what to do next. Skill is knowing how to do it. Virtue is doing it." Socrates said, "The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing" adding that "True wisdom comes to each of us when we realize how little we understand about life, ourselves, and the world around us." Buddha said, "Just as treasures are uncovered from the earth, so virtue appears from good deeds, and wisdom appears from a pure and peaceful mind. To walk safely through the maze of human life, one needs the light of wisdom and the guidance of virtue."

There are two kinds of wisdom - the Worldly wisdom and Spiritual wisdom. Worldly wisdom is the wisdom that is considered to be beneficial for gaining worldly things, such as gaining wealth, power, knowledge of the worldly things, gratification of desires or senses etc. Spiritual wisdom is the wisdom that leads to spiritual growth of a person.

Importance of Wisdom
Wisdom is important because it only can lead us to the right path, though information and knowledge are also important. It is information that leads to knowledge and it is knowledge that leads to wisdom. Information and wisdom are thus two tools to reach at certain wisdom. However, there are times when knowledge is lost in information, and wisdom is lost in knowledge.

T S Eliot had ones asked the world -
"Where is the wisdom, we have lost in knowledge?
Where is the knowledge, we have lost in information?"

Therefore we need to be careful about these and keep always in mind that the right path appears only when we apply wisdom. It tells us what to do at a particular situation, especially when there are more than one paths lying before us. However, the question is how to get this wisdom? There can be many answers.

One of the answers is provided by Confucius who said, "By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; Second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest."

A Pilgrimage for Wisdom

We on this site have devised a pilgrimage for wisdom to go through. While going through the pilgrimage on this website, which includes both the worldly and spiritual wisdom, one can find some of the important people and their sayings or quotations, step by step in almost chronological order. One can find good people and bad people. One can also find good saying and a bad one. Our aims and objects include acquainting our readers with both so that they can peer into the human mind throughout ages. It will help them to become wise than ever before, and would be able to differentiate between the good and the bad.

Do not hesitate to start this pilgrimage. Let us start it from the beginning. Let us start it from Ptah-hotep for the time being, the texts of whose writings are said to be the earliest. We are aware of the fact that some of the chapters of the Holy Bible and some Hindu scriptures which were written even before Ptah-hotep, but those are included in subsequent pages because the texts in full completed during later periods. Anonymous Wisdom and Quotes are given is separate page, and proverbs is separately classified pages.