He who opens a school door, closes a prison.
Victor Hugo (1802–1885) was a French novelist and poet, author of Les Misérables and The Hunchback of Notre-Dame. His opposition to Napoleon III kept him in exile in the Channel Islands for nearly twenty years. He campaigned against the death penalty, and more than a million people attended his funeral in Paris.
About this theme: Wisdom
In the Western tradition wisdom is almost always defined by what it is not. Socrates is famous for claiming to know that he knew nothing; that was not modesty but method. Knowledge is a set of facts, wisdom is knowing what to do with them — and, more often, knowing when there are not enough of them.
More by Victor Hugo
More on Wisdom
- Do the difficult things while they are easy and do the great things while they are small.— Lao Tzu
- An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.— Benjamin Franklin
- Talent hits a target no one else can hit; genius hits a target no one else can see.— Arthur Schopenhauer
- He who knows that enough is enough will always have enough.— Lao Tzu
- Do not weep; do not wax indignant. Understand.— Baruch Spinoza