Define 'Wisdom'

Humour me as I toke.

Prompted by EFerrari's thread on accusations of racism directed at Sonia Sotomayor, I looked up the entire speech. I'll repost the paragraph from which the particular words are extracted.

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"Whether born from experience or inherent physiological or cultural
differences, a possibility I abhor less or discount less than my colleague Judge
Cedarbaum, our gender and national origins may and will make a difference in our
judging. Justice O'Connor has often been cited as saying that a wise old man and
wise old woman will reach the same conclusion m deciding cases. I am not so sure
Justice 0'Connor is the author of that line since Professor Resnik attributes that line
to Supreme Court Justice Coyle. I am also not so sure that I agree with the
statement. First, as Professor Martha Minnow has noted, there can never be a
universal definition of wise. Second, I would hope that a wise Latina woman with
the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion
than a white male who hasn't lived that life."
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Now, I've wrestled with the definition of wisdom for a long time. I believe that innately I have a pretty good definition, but have always wondered....

Can you define wisdom WITHOUT using the word 'wise'?

Or, in other words, an understanding within your mind that you feel no need to question, because you have some incontrovertible sense that it is just true.

but it's not a definition. What about creationists who have an 'inner knowing' that the earth is 6000 years old? Wise?

I love that people like you raise this issue.

You look both ways on the street before you take your foot off the curb and put it down on the road with the expectation that you will cross the street and survive.

Gives the best result for the current issue at hand.

In other words, use a condom.

Ready to go ding, ding.....then I scrolled down.

'Intelligence tells you smoking is unhealthy, wisdom tells you to stop.'

-paraphrased from the late and way awesome, Gary Gygax

but wtf is "charisma"? ;-)

The scars and callouses of experience, coupled with a loving heart and strong resolve to preserve one's personal integrity MAY lead to attaining wisdom.

being therefore able to project future outcomes and acting intelligently. In other words having the ability to connect dots in all things. Especially the dots of action/reaction and past/present/future

edited to make a wise edit

The state of mind in which one comes to understand he or she does not know everything.

That attitude being the willingness to keep an open mind while integrating the knowledge learned from painful experience, both that of yourself and others.

The wise person always keeps in mind that he never has full knowledge of anything and that the world is a chaotic and random place that can never be fully predicted.

We almost always learn more from our errors and failures than we do from our successes, the wise person has taken the lessons from his failures to heart and integrated those lessons into his worldview.

The wise person admits mistakes and failures, indeed he embraces those mistakes and failures fully.

Which is why it is possible to be very intelligent and yet not achieve wisdom, there are plenty of smart people who cannot admit to error.

GEORGE BERNARD SHAW:
No question is so difficult to answer as that to which the answer is obvious.



NORMAN COUSINS:
Wisdom consists of the anticipation of consequences.

GEORGE BERNARD SHAW:
We are made wise not by the recollection of our past, but by the responsibility for our future.



DIETRICH BONHOEFFER:
To understand reality is not the same as to know about outward events. It is to perceive the essential nature of things. The best-informed man is not necessarily the wisest. Indeed there is a danger that precisely in the multiplicity of his knowledge he will lose sight of what is essential. But on the other hand, knowledge of an apparently trivial detail quite often makes it possible to see into the depth of things. And so the wise man will seek to acquire the best possible knowledge about events, but always without becoming dependent upon this knowledge. To recognize the significant in the factual is wisdom.



GEORG C. LICHTENBERG:
One's first step in wisdom is to question everything - and one's last is to come to terms with everything.


DOC CHILDRE AND DEBORAH ROZMAN:
It is no longer enough to be smart -- all the technological tools in the world add meaning and value only if they enhance our core values, the deepest part of our heart. Acquiring knowledge is no guarantee of practical, useful application. Wisdom implies a mature integration of appropriate knowledge, a seasoned ability to filter the inessential from the essential.

:toast:

I'm very happy to see discussions like this here. Who could argue?

Regardless of who you are, thank you for posting. Thank you.

"Knowledge"

I have all my days knowledge sought
with nar’ a glimpse at wisdom.
Knowledge can, after all, be bought
and its cost not at all burdensome.

A wise person could look like anyone.
An educated one more distinct.
A wise one spends much time alone-
an underdeveloped social instinct.

And has not knowledge created its own
monuments to the skill of the learned.
I've seen the glow of the Santa Anna dome,
and, oh! the money such creations earned.

What, may I ask, do the wise have to show
for their reign this past millennium?
It's God, not they, who makes things grow,
and He'll protect us from spent plutonium.

Those who seek wisdom for wisdom's sake
have a difficult time I'll assure.
For truth is something that's hard to fake
and once out impossible to secure.

And could not I, with this knowledge gained
convince those foolhardy folks
(though all the while they are being feigned)
Knowledge becomes Wisdom when it molts?

not voting republican, that would at least make you a little wise, however slight it might be!