The problem with being intelligent is that you have all that intelligence to use against yourself.
From Taking Everything into Account, one of 296 sayings written by John Sarris over thirty years.
From Alfred’s journal
Rain all morning, so I spent it under the porch eave watching the young man from the blue house try to leave for work. He got to the car three times and came back three times, and the third time he stood in the doorway arguing with nobody, and I could tell from his hands that he was winning. I used to think the cleverest ones had the easiest time of it, that a good mind was a kind of shelter. The problem with being intelligent is that you have all that intelligence to use against yourself. A dull mind can tell you that you are a fool; a sharp one can prove it, with examples, in order, going back years. He did drive off eventually. I do not know whether the argument ended or he just ran out of morning.
He reads what you tell him and writes a page of his journal back, with a few of these chosen for you. It costs nothing and asks for nothing.
Have it on something
More like it
- The student of history is a student of humility.
- Life is the history lesson you get to experience firsthand.
- Wisdom is first the wisdom of the child, meeting life innocently, eagerly, without expectation.
- The old road has lots of twists and turns but few surprises.
- Better to stumble on the right path than stride forward on the wrong one.
- No matter where you look for it, the sun only rises in the east.