So, listen, to yourself and to those with whom you are speaking. Your wisdom then consists not of the knowledge you already have, but the continual search for knowledge, which is the highest form of wisdom.
If society is corrupt, but not the individuals within it, then where did the corruption originate? How is it propagated? It’s a one-sided, deeply ideological theory.
People organize their brains with conversation. If they don’t have anyone to tell their story to, they lose their minds. Like hoarders, they cannot unclutter themselves.
The better ambitions have to do with the development of character and ability, rather than status and power. The status you can lose. You carry character with you wherever you go, and it allows you to prevail against adversity.
Every bit of learning is a little death. Every bit of new information challenges a previous conception, forcing it to dissolve into chaos before it can be reborn as something better. Sometimes such deaths virtually destroy us.
To act is literally to manifest preference about one set of possibilities, contrasted with an infinite set of alternatives. If we wish to live, we must act. Acting, we value.
We require routine and tradition. That’s order. Order can become excessive, and that’s not good, but chaos can swamp us, so we drown – and that is also not good. We need to stay on the straight and narrow path.
