Is It Worth Being Wise?

February 2007

A few days ago I finally figured out something I've wondered about
for 25 years: the relationship between wisdom and intelligence.
Anyone can see they're not the same by the number of people who are
smart, but not very wise. And yet intelligence and wisdom do seem
related. How?

What is wisdom? I'd say it's knowing what to do in a lot of
situations. I'm not trying to make a deep point here about the
true nature of wisdom, just to figure out how we use the word. A
wise person is someone who usually knows the right thing to do.

And yet isn't being smart also knowing what to do in certain
situations? For example, knowing what to do when the teacher tells
your elementary school class to add all the numbers from 1 to 100?
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