I’ve noticed that people on Substack love wise sayings, which is understandable since we all want some wisdom in our lives. However, one has to be careful with those sayings.
On the one hand, almost all those sayings are false. Not only that, you hardly need to be a genius to see that. But on the other hand, those falsehoods are often getting at important truths. It’s as though there is a truth “nearby” to the falsehood, and the latter is valuable because it usually gets us to focus on the nearby truth. I call such falsehoods virtuous. It’s an illuminating project to take such falsehoods and attempt to articulate some of the truths they are getting at.
With that in mind, here are fifteen wise sayings, all of which are virtuous falsehoods, with accompanying brief comments.
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“Good people are good because they've come to wisdom through failure”.
First, not all or even almost all good people are wise, either through failure or otherwise. So, the quote is false. But the falsehood is getting at an important truth: moral wisdom is usually gained, in part, only through reflecting on personal failures.
“The first problem for all of us, men and women, is not to learn, but to unlearn”.
No matter how you interpret “first problem”, it’s definitely not to unlearn things. Most people need to learn a great deal in order to gain moral, psychological, or intellectual wisdom. So the quote is false. But the falsehood is getting at an important truth: in order to gain overall wisdom, you will have to deny or suspend judgment on many previous important opinions of yours.
“By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; Second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest”.
First, in order to learn wisdom, almost everyone needs all three: reflection, imitation, and experience. No one of those will be sufficient. Second, I see no reason to put reason on a pedestal here, above imitation or experience. But the falsehood is getting at some important truths: gaining overall wisdom can be done in several ways, usually combining reflection, imitation (of wise people), and personal experience; people gain wisdom by emphasizing one of these over the other, with different people using different emphases; wisdom via experience is usually painful.
“The wise person doesn't give the right answers, but poses the right questions”.
Clearly, the wise person often does have the right answers, and will give them. (The same could be said of people who aren’t wise.) So the quote is clearly false. But the falsehood is getting at an important truth: the wise person has opinions far less frequently than merely knowledgeable people, and the wise usually get wisdom via asking key questions.
“Tell me and I'll forget; show me and I may remember; involve me and I'll understand”.
Obviously, sometimes you remember what you’re told, and sometimes you will be involved and yet you won’t understand. So, the quote is false. But the falsehood is getting at an important truth: the best way to learn, in the vast majority of cases, is to be told, to be shown, and most importantly to be involved in action.
“The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing”.
We know lots of things, so it’s hardly wisdom to think otherwise. I know my name, where I’m currently living, that Spain is in Europe, and so on. But the falsehood is getting an important truth: if you’re wise, then you realize that we all know much, much less than we think we know, since our evidence is so often pretty weak.
“Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishment”.
There are zillions of cases in which we reach our goals without discipline (e.g., often sheer interest, without discipline at all, is enough). But the falsehood is getting at an important truth: we tend to underestimate the importance of discipline in reaching our goals.
“It’s not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters”.
Any fool knows that what happens to you is extremely important. A fire burns down your home and kills your son; a business partner commits fraud and ruins your company; those things matter. But the falsehood is getting at an important truth: for a great many unfortunate things that happen to you in life, they need not be terribly upsetting or ruin your plans if you can react to them wisely.
“Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves”.
Not literally everything that irritates us about others can ever lead to any increase in our self-understanding; just think of minor annoyances. Further, often enough we already know the “lesson” that such irritation provides, and new occurrences of the irritating behavior do us no good. But the falsehood is getting at an important truth: in a surprising number of cases, when you find that someone is irritating you, you can learn something important about yourself by asking for a deep reason why you are irritated.
“Trouble shared is trouble halved”.
On some unfortunate occasions, sharing your troubles with a friend or loved one does you no good at all. But the falsehood is getting at an important truth: in a surprising number of cases, if you’re having serious trouble, it can be partially rectified by reaching for help from others.
“The greater danger for most of us lies not in setting our aim too high and falling short; but in setting our aim too low, and achieving our mark”.
There are countless cases in which people got almost nothing but disappointment by aiming for highly ambitious goals (e.g., the many people who fail to become working actors, professional athletes, etc.). But the falsehood is getting at an important truth: if you want to live a richly rewarding life, then in almost all cases you’re going to have to occasionally aim for highly ambitious goals.
“Spectacular achievement is always preceded by unspectacular preparation”.
The use of “always” makes the claim false, since there are cases in which one has a spectacular achievement without a lot of preparation, or unspectacular preparation. But the falsehood is getting an important truth: almost all spectacular achievements in life come about via quite unremarkable, persistent, preparation; so, if you want to achieve something remarkable, be prepared to put in an enormous number of hours of relatively boring preparation.
“The superior man blames himself. The inferior man blames others”.
Obviously, there are exceptions that falsify both quoted claims. But the falsehoods are getting at important truths: when things go wrong in your life, if you’re wise then you will take responsibility for not making sure things didn’t go wrong, but if you’re not wise, then you’ll look to blame forces outside yourself.
“Singleness of purpose is one of the chief essentials for success in life, no matter what may be one’s aim”.
There are countless cases of people finding plenty of success in life while pursuing several projects simultaneously; a great many people work very well that way. But the falsehood is getting at an important truth: often enough, it takes a kind of obsessive single-mindedness in order to achieve certain goals; so, be prepared to make sacrifices in order to reach those goals.
“It’s easier to resist at the beginning than at the end”.
For some endeavors, it’s easy to start them but quite difficult to continue them, when obstacles come up. But the falsehood is getting at an important truth: often enough, the hardest part of any endeavor is getting yourself to start it with vigor; after that, it can be surprising how easy it is to continue with it until success.