No. I firmly believe that every single person I meet has something to teach me if my mind and heart is open to it. Sometimes the best I can come up with is that I don't ever want to be like that person and then make sure that I don't. Usually, however, I learn something positive that I can take away and that makes me value that person even more. Everyone is a teacher. We are all learning as we go and when we stop learning is a very, very sad day.
I have a file of about 70 pages of quotes that I've been collecting for 50 years. They are from all kinds of people from all walks of life Here's one of my favorite quotes, "You must learn from the mistakes of others. You can’t possibly live long enough to make them all yourself."
~Sam Levenson
"You must learn from the mistakes of others. You can’t possibly live long enough to make them all yourself." - Sam Levenson
I thought that was one of my original lines! sigh . . . I just looked up Sam Levenson, he was 44 years older than me. Thank you for your reply. I'm happy with my personal motto for this "A" Community: "We're all here to learn"
SonnyMiaPH: Sorry I stole your thunder so-to-speak. LOL I have always said that I could resist anything but temptation thinking that I had "invented" that phrase. Nope, found out a couple of years ago that I must have read it somewhere because Oscar Wilde came up with it. I was so bummed. So, I know how you feel. I like your "We're all here to learn" and if I use it, I will try to remember to give you credit!
Aw! that was meant to be a joke, you can see it in "my face." . . . but this one is not a joke, sigh, don't know how to say it to you, but, sigh, really so awkward every time I try to say it, sigh, but, sigh, here goes: I'm, aaaahhh, one guy who, aaaah, doesn't like to, aaaaah, get credit for anything . . . wow thanks! took me a long time to type that. LOL!
No, if the wisdom in a set of words speaks to me I hear them loud and clear regardless where I find them or hear them.
Yes, "from tenement halls and subway walls, if your ear is to the ground."
I think that everything is relative. Words that offer significance to us can come from your worst among us. Let me explain how words of "wisdom" can be relative. I'm all about helping make the world a more just place for all. However, these words of wisdom anger me. "Black lives matter" To some they hold an essential message, a message I'm aware of and value, but the message became (at least to me) is cops lives don't matter. Words are words, and they relay our thoughts to a limited degree, they can drive great change as they did in Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. speech, "I had a dream." There are too many occasions where cops killed black people when they had no justification to do that. However, the Black lives movement is forgetting an essential aspect of their message to America. "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin "BUT BY THE CONTENT OF THEIR CHARACTER."" So my point is not to bash Black lives matter but rather to point out how words of wisdom can be wise words, but that's not the same as the implementation of those words.
"Wisdom comes with age", so they say. It can also come from some alley or any street corner. Words of wisdom can be wise words if we sort of "practice what we preach". . . and, I like that line: "BY THE CONTENT OF THEIR CHARACTER".
No, there probably thousand of sources of great words of wisdom.
Here is one I like just off the top of my head from Tracie Harris of the show 'The Atheist Experience'.
“You either have a God who sends child rapists to rape children or you have a God who simply watches it and says, ‘When you’re done, I’m going to punish you.’If I could stop a person from raping a child, I would. That’s the difference between me and your God.”
No such shows or tv programs here in the Philippines, a 99.99% religious country and predominantly Christian with thousands of registered denominations.
I hope they have it in YouTube.
A good friend of mine, a Catholic Bishop, gave me a book as a birthday gift last year, "The Evolution of Gods: The Scientific Origin of Gods and Religions", which up till now is still in it's plastic wrapper together with several other similar books.
They say "the worst man speaks the wisest" . . . most of the time I tend to agree with that quote I first heard from drunken hobos arguing in some street corner in Manila when I was still a kid.
They say "there's beauty everywhere" - yes, if you care to look. LOL
So, there also must be wisdom everywhere - yes, if you care to use all your senses. LMAO
From out of all those holy books and novels and movies and songs and what-have-you, this line by Sherilyn Fenn from the film Two Moon Junction stuck to me like epoxy:
"ALL YOU ARE IS BETWEEN YOUR LEGS"
Maybe you could explain why you find that wise?
A lot of my well-meaning friends have told me that line repeatedly, in one form or another, specially the women - old and young - with regards my money-making skills which are almost nill. But they all knew me as a jolly good fellow, lovable and huggable (I'm kinda small) and a good lover . . . of nature and its creations.