The Good Book_ A Secular Bible - A. C. Grayling [9]
6. To be wise is to know that amity and peace do not come from nothing, nor do they sustain themselves without help, but require wisdom for their birth and continuance.
7. The gaining of knowledge is accumulation; the acquisition of wisdom is simplification.
8. Wisdom is the recognition of consequences, a respect for causality and the profit in foresight.
9. Wisdom lies in bringing the past to serve the future, and in opening one’s ears to hear the voices of the past.
10. Learning may be had without wisdom, and wisdom without learning; but nothing can overthrow their combination.
11. No one came to be wise who did not sometimes fail;
12. No one came to be wise who did not know how to revise an opinion.
13. The wise change their minds when facts and experience so demand. The fool either does not hear or does not heed.
14. But the wise man knows that even a fool can speak truth.
15. Wisdom belongs to everyone, and is possible everywhere: none need lack it who will only allow experience to teach them.
16. Happy are those who encounter someone wise: he reveals treasure when he reproves and guides.
17. He will teach that as a rock is not shaken by the wind, so the wise are steadfast through both blame and praise.
18. As a deep lake remains peaceful in all seasons, so are the wise when they reflect on good teaching.
19. The question to be asked at the end of each day is, ‘How long will you delay to be wise?’
Chapter 5
1. Told of someone who had made a vast fortune, the wise man asked whether he had also made time to spend it.
2. Told of someone who had conceived a great love for another, the wise man said, ‘It is better to love than to desire.’
3. Told of someone who had children, the wise man said, ‘Let him treat his children as he would cook a small fish.’
4. The wise do not expect always to be healthy, or never to suffer hardship or grief. Instead they prepare.
5. The wise do not expect to master anything worthwhile without effort. Instead they make the effort.
6. The wise do not expect never to have adversaries or to meet disagreement. Instead they contemplate beforehand the best way of making difficulties useful.
7. From an enemy, a difficulty, an illness or a failure, the wise learn much, and grow wiser therefore.
8. The wise know the value of friendship, and that it is wisdom to be a friend to oneself too.
9. For who would harm a friend, instead of seeking the best for him, in advice and deed?
10. As a friend to oneself, can wisdom allow one to do less?
11. The question to be asked at the end of each day is, ‘How long will you delay to be wise?’
Chapter 6
1. The meditation of the wise man is a meditation on life, not on death.
2. The wise see the necessity of things, and by this they free themselves from distress:
3. For the pain arising from loss is mitigated as soon as its inevitability is perceived;
4. And likewise no one pities a newborn baby for being unable to speak or walk, because this is natural to its state.
5. Thus the recognition of necessities is a liberation, and the wise are those who distinguish between necessity and contingency.
6. Emotion is bad if it hinders the mind from thinking. An emotion that opens the mind to contemplate several aspects of things at once is better than one that fixes thought to an obsession.
7. By framing a system of right conduct and practical precepts, one better bears adversity and resists evil.
8. The wise thus remember what is to their true advantage, and the good that follows from friendship, and the fact that men act by the necessity of their nature.
9. The wise thus moderate anger and resentment by understanding the causes of others’ actions;
10. The wise thus reflect on the value of courage, and on the good that can be found even in negative things.
11. The wise ask themselves what they truly seek in wealth, or position, in love, or honour, in victory, or retirement from life;
12. For only clear and distinct ideas of these things guard against false objects of ambition.
13. He who would govern his emotions and appetites by the