Not a Dancer But a Wrestler | Sayings of the Sages pt.5

Sharing the Sententiae I Find Here in My Digital Commonplace Book of Wisdom

In addition to the Teacher being a wise man, he constantly taught the people knowledge; he weighed, explored, and arranged many proverbs. Ecclesiastes 12:9 CSB

Thinkers, scholars, philosophers, etc., used to assemble commonplace books around their field of study and have them printed up to sell to the public in order that others might benefit from their selections and come to understand a bit more about their respective fields and/or glean wisdom from the sages of the past. Unfortunately this practice has fallen out of fashion, but I’m bringing it back right here on my Substack!

Sayings of the Sages is the digital version of my pocket proverbs treasury commonplace book of wisdom. I keep a golden Leuchtturm1917 A6 pocket notebook in a black Horween leather cover from NormanCahn. I bring it will me just about everywhere I go and when I find a wise saying (sententia), I put it in my treasury commonplace book. It’s a treasury CPB because I don’t add any of my own thoughts like I would in a manuscript CPB—this one is just a storehouse for wise quotes I find—and I find them all over the place. For more on the different kinds of commonplace books, check out this post here:

But back to Sayings of the Sages.

In this entry, I have quotes from the Spartans, the Book of Proverbs, Georg Lichtenberg, Marcus Aurelius, Yellowstone (TV series), Alfred Bester, C.S. Lewis, Isaac Asimov, J.R.R. Tolkien, and Blaise Pascal—amongst others.

These commonplace book entries are for my paid subscribers but I will give my free subs a few of the sententiae to wet your beak and hopefully a few more of you will want to up grade to paid in order to help support my work. Let’s jump in:

Sayings of the Sages

The right defense against false sentiments is to inculcate just sentiments. By starving the sensibility of our pupils we only make them easier prey to the propogandist when he comes. For famished nature will be avenged and a hard heart is no infallible protection against a soft head.
C.S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man, 14. 

A scoffer seeks wisdom in vain, but knowledge is easy for a man of understanding. 
Proverbs 14:6 

Prediction is hard, especially about the future. 
Unknown. Citied by Melanie Mitchell in AI for Thinking Humans, 276 

When somebody was praising an orator for his ability to magnify small points, he said “In my opinion it’s not a good cobbler who fits large shoes on small feet.” 
Sayings of Spartans, Agesilaus Eurypontid, in on Sparta by Plutarch pg. 138 

The fly that does not want to be swatted is safest if it sits on the fly-swat. 
Georg Lichtenberg, The Waste Books, Notebook 1, pg. 142

Not a dancer but a wrestler: waiting, poised and dug in, for sudden assaults. 
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations Book 7:61, pg. 95