Thank you for joining us for our 5 days per week wisdom and legacy building podcast. This is Day 745 of our trek, and it is time for a 3-minute mini-trek called Wisdom Unplugged. This short nugget of wisdom includes an inspirational quote with a little additional content for today’s trek. Consider this your vitamin supplement of wisdom for today. So let’s jump right in with today’s nugget.
Today’s quote is from Naguib Mahfouz, and it is, “You can tell whether a man is clever by his answers. You can tell whether a man is wise by his questions.”
Is it better to be clever or wise? These are not mutually exclusive to be sure. To be clever is to be shrewd, astute, ingenious, crafty, cunning, or knowing. Each of these synonyms leaves us with a slightly different impression.
A person can be wise and clever. Wise and shrewd. Wise and ingenious. To be clever without wisdom usually leads to arrogance and an inflated ego. A clever person likes to be thought of as wise, but many times their answers are often in the form of sarcasm, which can really hurt another person, which is not at all wise.
When I was younger and starting out my adult life as a business owner, I used to think I was quite witty with my answers, which were usually in the form of sarcasm. It took me many years before I gained enough wisdom to realize that I was hurting many people’s feeling in the process.
The more wisdom I gained, the less clever and overtly sarcastic answers I provided to others. I realized to really help others, it is much better to ask probing questions so that I could really gain insight into the needs of others.
It certainly is best that we ask wise questions first before providing clever and shrewd answers that are filled with wisdom. The fact is Jesus commands us to be shrewd as we trek through this life building His kingdom as is He tells us in Matthew 10:16, “Look, I am sending you out as sheep among...
