“A single conversation across the table with a wise man is better than ten years’ mere study of books.” –Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
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The featured image is “Home Again” (1903) by Louis C. Moeller, and is in the public domain, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
Wordsworth, that is a hard sell for me and I think you overstate it. Assuming we could find a wise man in our age to start with!… they are limited to their time and place, a mere mortal of our era. I prefer the collected cream of the crop from the ages. No single wise man, even Solomon, can compete with a gallery of the ages. In ten years I could sit at the feet of so many of the past’s greats and sit in on the conversation between them. Indeed we would not know a wise man, perhaps a practical man and think that wisdom alone, but not a wise man but for the great conversation with those who came before.
Ryan, those were pretty much my thoughts as well. I’d correct one thing though, although the middle name is close, the quote was from Longfellow not Wordsworth.