Such is the nature of men, that howsoever they may acknowledge many others to be more witty, or more eloquent, or more learned; yet they will hardly believe there be many so wise as themselves.
quote by Thomas Hobbes

Submitted by Lucian Velea
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First Year University Expereinces
I learned why it is not wise to skip class often
I learned that skipping homework in university is not the same as skipping homework in high school
I learned what it feels like to be awake for over 2 days
I learned how to smoke pot from a bong
I learned how to compose an essay the day before it's due
I learned that the Freshman 15 is no joke
I learned how to do laundry
I learned to pretend to be happy
I learned to multitask
I learned to be more sociable
I learned why my parents and teachers warned me about the difficulty of university
I learned that failing is expensive
I learned small things, like freshly washed bed sheets, make me happy
I learned to lie
I learned how expensive alcohol is
I learned what it feels like to be a failure
I type this rant while skipping my business ethics class as I further delay the composition of my psychology term paper
poem by Michelle Cow

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With An Acceptance To Acknowledge
Early in my life,
I learned to navigate.
And appreciate what I initiated.
Mistakes I have made.
And not one did I excuse.
I admit I have a low tolerance for weepers.
Perhaps I understand them too much.
I have yet to witness the sharing of sorrows,
Mend anything to become productive.
Early in my life,
I learned to navigate.
And appreciate what I initiated.
But the loneliness of doing that alone,
I abandoned to socialize with others.
Needless to say...
Some lessons learned should never be abandoned.
Early in my life,
I learned to navigate.
And appreciate what I initiated.
With an acceptance to acknowledge,
Some lessons learned should never be abandoned.
poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar

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Chinese Wisdom
In crisis, wisdom growth,
And gained.
Intelligence endowed,
But wisdom is learned.
Wise men listen more,
Talk no nonsense.
Wise men may be learned
But learned men may not be wise.
A silent fool can pass for a wise man.
Silence is golden & wise,
Silence is the trusted friend of wisdom.
It is easy to blame our memory
when our judgment is at fault.
It takes a tree ten years to mature;
It takes a man one hundred years to form.
We grow old fast,
We grow wise slowly.
Youth can look only forward,
but age can also look backward.
Maturity and wisdom
take a lifetime to achieve.
Achieving maturity does not
Grow with age.
Wisdom grows when
Ones learned to avoid the wrongs.
Stand for the rights.
Biggest flaw of ones
Has a lot of flaws and
Not correcting them,
Not avoiding them.
Life is a learning journey
To discover who we are,
Learning as if life is
one continuous lesson.
Wisdom is attained by learning
when to hold one’s tongue.
Discretion is the trusted friend of wisdom.
A wise head must possess a closed mouth.
Compiled & adapted by Lawrence Hiung
poem by Lawrence Hiung

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An Orator’s Complaint
How many the troubles that wait
On mortals!—especially those
Who endeavour in eloquent prose
To expound their views, and orate.
Did you ever attempt to speak
When you hadn't a word to say?
Did you find that it wouldn't pay,
And subside, feeling dreadfully weak?
Did you ever, when going ahead
In a fervid defence of the Stage,
Get checked in your noble rage
By somehow losing your thread?
Did you ever rise to reply
To a toast (say 'The Volunteers'),
And evoke loud laughter and cheers,
When you didn't exactly know why?
Did you ever wax witty, and when
You had smashed an opponent quite small,
Did he seem not to mind it at all,
But get up and smash you again?
If any or all of these things
Have happened to you (as to me),
I think you'll be found to agree
With yours truly, when sadly he sings:
'How many the troubles that wait
On mortals!—especially those
Who endeavour in eloquent prose
To expound their views, and orate.'
poem by Robert Fuller Murray

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Though lust do masque in ne'er so strange disguise she's oft found witty, but is never wise.
quote by John Webster

Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Conversation should be pleasant without scurrility, witty without affectation, free without indecency, learned without conceitedness, novel without falsehood.
quote by William Shakespeare

Submitted by Dan Costinaş
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A witty woman is a treasure; a witty beauty is a power.
quote by George Meredith

Submitted by Lucian Velea
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You are wise, witty and wonderful, but you spend too much time reading this sort of stuff.
quote by Frank Crane

Submitted by Lucian Velea
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With A Finding Of More Life To Live
If I sat back and thought,
About those battles I fought to win...
I would never have come to appreciate,
The ability to clear my mind...
To say what was on it to get it out,
With a finding of more life to live.
And to leave if for what it is,
Without carrying the weight...
Of who became offended by my honesty.
I've learned not to burden myself,
With judgements made by others...
On my shoulders.
I've learned to acknowledge,
My back and shoulders aren't meant for that.
poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar

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A Relapse
I thought that I had done with fleshly things,
That in the azure of high thought my soul
Had learned to fly on less substantial wings
To a new Heaven, a sublimer goal.
I thought that I was wise beneath the cowl
Of my dead hopes, beyond all power of Spring's
Most eloquent music to again cajole,
And that my service was the King of Kings.
--But look, alas, how thoughtless thought can be,
For to me thinking thus one ventured in
Bearing a letter and I read your name.
Then in an instant through my limbs a flame
Of pleasure ran, and wrought such change in me
That I was eager for all loveliest sin.
poem by Wilfrid Scawen Blunt

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There's no possibility of being witty without a little ill-nature.
quote by Richard Brinsley Sheridan

Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Witty’s fight against the wind
It has been spoken that Witty, a boy from the village
it has been waggish, he has grieved everybody, it has seemed,
and everybody has envied him.
birds have only pecked from his palm
because they have become inured to him.
A slow wind has breathed over the village
and Witty has been amazed from it,
when the wind intensifies, the wind has blown out his hat.
he has followed vainly his hat with the look
but the hat has disappeared entirely.
The wind has blown then with force
to take houses and palings
and to destroy almost everything.
All the people have run cowardly
Witty has only coped with the wind because he has been a care-crow.
poem by Valentin Gabriel Cristea

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Learned...
from being homeless,
i learned the value of home!
from being hungry,
i learned the value of being fed.
from being sick,
i learned the value of health.
from being left alone,
i learned the value of love.
from being confined in a cell,
i learned the value of freedom.
from being persecuted,
i learned the value of human rights.
from being an infidel,
i learned to see the face of god...
poem by Eric Cockrell

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No one who achieves success does so without acknowledging the help of others. The wise and confident acknowledge this help with gratitude.
quote by Alfred North Whitehead

Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The best and safest thing is to keep a balance in your life, acknowledge the great powers around us and in us. If you can do that, and live that way, you are really a wise man.
No man was ever eloquent by trying to be eloquent, but only by being so.
quote by George Henry Lewes

Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The Red Cockatoo
Sent as a present from Annam
A red cockatoo.
Coloured like the peach-tree blossom,
Speaking with the speech of men.
And they did to it what is always done
To the learned and eloquent.
They took a cage with stout bars
And shut it up inside.

Histories make men wise poets, witty the mathematics, subtle natural philosophy, deep moral, grave logic and rhetoric, able to contend.
quote by Francis Bacon

Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The improver of natural knowledge absolutely refuses to acknowledge authority, as such. For him, scepticism is the highest of duties; blind faith the one unpardonable sin. And it cannot be otherwise, for every great advance in natural knowledge has involved the absolute rejection of authority, the cherishing of the keenest scepticism, the annihilation of the spirit of blind faith; and the most ardent votary of science holds his firmest convictions, not because the men he most venerates hold them; not because their verity is testified by portents and wonders; but because his experience teaches him that whenever he chooses to bring these convictions into contact with their primary source, Nature — whenever he thinks fit to test them by appealing to experiment and to observation — Nature will confirm them. The man of science has learned to believe in justification, not by faith, but by verification.
quote by Thomas Henry Huxley

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But what I will do is I'll acknowledge it and if it can be of any help the fact that I do acknowledge it then maybe other people will benefit from it because I do have somewhat of a public forum being in the line of work I am.
quote by Joe Mantegna

Submitted by Lucian Velea
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