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Wisdom made him old and wary
Banishing the Lords of Faery.
Wisdom made a breach and battered
Babylon to bits: she scattered
To the hedges and ditches
All our nursery gnomes and witches.

— Robert Graves Fairies and Fusiliers (1917)

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Wisdom

More quotes by Robert Graves

Truth-loving Persians do not dwell upon
The trivial skirmish fought near Marathon.

New beginnings and new shoots
Spring again from hidden roots
Pull or stab or cut or burn,
Love must ever yet return.

Fairies and Fusiliers (1917)

The remarkable thing about Shakespeare is that he is really very good — in spite of all the people who say he is very good.

Children born of fairy stock
Never need for shirt or frock,
Never want for food or fire,
Always get their heart's desire...

Fairies and Fusiliers (1917)

Faults in English prose derive not so much from lack of knowledge, intelligence or art as from lack of thought, patience or goodwill.

The Reader Over Your Shoulder (1943)

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If the fool would persist in his folly he would become wise.

William Blake The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (1790)

'The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.'

William Shakespeare As You Like It (1599)

It takes extraordinary wisdom and self-control to accept that many things have a logic we do not understand that is smarter than our own.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms (2010)

Young men think old men are fools; but old men know young men are fools.

George Chapman All Fools (1605)

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Robert Graves (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.