NOISE AND RESULTS
The fact that one can make a noise,
Is hardly proof of skill, or poise.
Most braggarts, when they’re put to test,
Produce performance not the best.
To boast is easy, but indeed,
It takes some action to succeed.
A donkey has a noisy bray,
But that is all he has to say.
Some blowers are about the same,
In real results, if not in name.
Just listen to the folks who brag,
And see if their attainments lag!–N.A. LUFBURROW
The Frederick Post (Frederick, Maryland) Mar 16, 1939
THE ARROGANCE OF IGNORANCE
The self complacency of uneducated people is one of the great barriers in the way of improvement. No one can fail to have noticed how dogmatic the man is who knows a very little about any important matter. It is proverbial that the greatest students have only found out how little they know after a lifetime, and another proverb is, “A little learning is a dangerous thing.”
IT is a great step upward for a man to break the shell of his self-conceit, so that he can keep his mind in a receptive mood, and discriminate between wheat and chaff. He cannot grow unless he is willing to learn, and he cannot learn as long as it mortifies him to acknowledge that there is anyone wiser than he.
A great many very ignorant men assume an air of superiority, and by their dogmatic impudence override the very people that could teach them something. This sort of thing does the wise no harm but it keeps the fool a fool to his dying day. It is an excellent plan for young men to associate with their superiors. Don’t choose for companions the men who flatter and make much of you, but cultivate the acquaintance of the wise and good, and you will grow to be wise and good yourselves.
The Reno Evening Gazette (Reno, Nevada) Jan 5, 1881
IGNORANCE
He knew Latin and he knew Greek,
But the plumber who came to mend the tap
Thought him a strangely ignorant chap
Who couldn’t fix faucets when they leak.He stopped with a farmer once to chat
And he looked at straw and called it hay.
And the farmer said as he moved away:
“I’d certainly hate to be dumb as that.”All the ancient writers he could quote,
But sailors laughed when he went to sea
And said: “What an ignorant fool is he
To call such a splendid ship a boat!”So in spite of the knowledge man has earned,
There is so much to this worldly scheme
That down to the last a fool he’ll seem
To the man who knows what he hasn’t learned.
The Gettysburg Times (Gettysburg, Pennsylvania) Jan 21, 1930
