Knowledge and Wisdom
Knowledge and wisdom are two different things. Most of the students at the degree stage pursue prescribed books, even try to understand them and cram their minds with a number of facts and figures without knowing their bearing on life itself and properly realizing the relations among themselves. They do acquire the knowledge of the texts, but they are still away from wisdom. On the other side, a few of their parents, who had had never the benefit of a college education, may be wiser than them without reading those bulky and huge volumes.’ Wisdom may be acquired and often is acquired without books, but knowledge is always of books and is received through them. Though Ranjit Singh was ignorant of books, yet he was one of the wisest and most astute rulers of the world. Kabir, without having even touched ‘pen’ and ‘paper’, became the wisest of all his contemporaries. A learned man is a sort of limited and confined man. He is almost always buried in his books and knows little beyond them. He is a pedant and has no original views to offer. On the other side, a wise man may be least concerned with books. He is generally broad-minded and wise-awake and vigilant. Wordsworth denounced books as barren leaves’ and discovered his haunts among ‘meadows and groves and streams.’ It was his conviction that you could learn both ‘law and impulse’, two ingredients of wisdom, in the realm of nature. To quote Cowper, “Knowledge dwells in heads replete with thoughts of other men; Wisdom in minds attentive to their own.” Needless to say, wisdom is more valuable and venerable than knowledge. A wise man is polite and humble; he never goes bragging about his merits and accomplishments because knows his limitations and vulnerable points too well. On the other hand, a learned man is often haughty and conceited. He begins to parade his learning and thinks that he is superior to everybody It is very difficult to be wise. Tennyson rightly said, “Knowledge comes but wisdom lingers.”
