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  "Knowing The Place and Knowing The Way", and an excerpt from Montaigne

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Author Topic:   "Knowing The Place and Knowing The Way", and an excerpt from Montaigne
Valus
Knowflake

Posts: 2018
From:
Registered: Apr 2009

posted December 29, 2009 03:40 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for Valus     Edit/Delete Message
We seem to hear our own perceptions echoed in the words of great thinkers, and are tempted to make light of their gifts. But while we snatch at the bright and dark fruits they bear, in recognition, as they bear them, we scarcely notice the paths they have cut and/or taken us by. Though we may have been to the berry patch before, we may not have known the way there, or back.

What a world of difference exists between knowing the place, and knowing the way; between knowing a truth, and knowing where it fits. It is as if we were to say that we know a man, when we only know of him, having merely gathered some fragmentary and inchoate impressions of him at a distance.

Catching sight of a vague smear on the horizon and asking yourself, "Land?", is not the same as seeing sand and trees delineated, and exclaiming, "Land!" What we apprehend only squintingly, and from a vast distance, is still vastly unknown to us. Nonetheless, whenever the first man cries, "Land!", every man whose suspicions are thereby confirmed will claim the discovery for his own.


~ Valus,
"On Knowing"


©2010 Valus

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Valus
Knowflake

Posts: 2018
From:
Registered: Apr 2009

posted December 30, 2009 10:12 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for Valus     Edit/Delete Message

Anyone answers suitably enough for me, if he only directs his answer to what I say. But when he begins to wander and loses his point and himself, I call him to order with hot and hasty words, and I fall into a headstrong, malicious, domineering strain, of which I am afterwards ashamed. But it is impossible to deal fairly with a fool: it ruins my judgment as well as disturbs my conscience.

But this is to take things other than they are? Perhaps I do; and I therefore blame my impatience, and find it as vicious in a man who is right as in one who is wrong. Besides, there is no greater or more enduring folly than to become angry at the twaddle of the world. How many ridiculous things, even in my own opinion, do I say every day? And how many more, God knows, in the opinion of others? We are not annoyed upon meeting a hunchback, and why then are we enraged at meeting a malformed mind? In fine, we must live among the living and let the water flow under the bridge without care, or, at least, without anxiety.

Every apt word is not to be accepted at its face value. Most men are rich in borrowed words, and many say a good thing without knowing it. In the heat of debate, I have sometimes launched sallies that carried me further than I hoped or planned: I paid them out only by number, but they were pocketed by weight.

Then, these general statements that I see so common signify nothing. This is to greet a crowd with one sweeping salute; whereas, if you really knew your men, you would bow to them individually and mention them by name.

Every day I hear fools talk sense; but let us examine where they got it and how far they understand it. You lend them a hand, but to what avail? They snatch up your explaination: "That is just what I was about to say -- it was precisely my thought -- if I didn't express it so, it was for lack of language." Play them along! Cunning must be used to correct this profound stupidity; it would be inhuman and unjust to relieve men who stand in no need of it and are worse for it. I love to let them sink deeper into the mire -- so deep that, if it is at all possible, they will at last realize their error.


~ Montaigne,
from his essay,
"My Diversions"

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SunChild
Moderator

Posts: 578
From: Melbourne. Victoria. Australia
Registered: Apr 2009

posted December 31, 2009 03:24 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for SunChild     Edit/Delete Message
I love what you wrote on "knowing", superb!

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Valus
Knowflake

Posts: 2018
From:
Registered: Apr 2009

posted December 31, 2009 01:42 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for Valus     Edit/Delete Message

Thank you, SunChild.

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