...an intellectual instinct which extracts the essence from the phenomena of life, as a bee sucks honey from a flower. In addition to study and reflections, life itself serves as a source.
Attribution disputed; shown as originally published.
About this quote
- What does it mean?
- Wisdom comes from extracting essence from experience, like a bee from a flower, not just study.
- In plain terms
- Learn from life itself, not just books.
- What can you take from it?
- Prioritize direct experience alongside study.
Where it applies
Putting it to work
Questions to consider
- How much do you learn from life vs books?
- What is your source of intuition?
Another view
Study is still necessary to structure experience.
More from Karl von Clausewitz
Knowledge in war is very simple, being concerned with so few subjects, and only with their final results at that. But this does not make its application easy.
Permalink to quote #29 Knowledge must be so absorbed into the mind that it ceases to exist in a separate, objective way.' '...in 1797 the secret of the effectiveness of resisting to …
Permalink to quote #31 Great things alone can make a great mind, and petty things will make a petty mind unless a man rejects them as completely alien.
Permalink to quote #28
Related quotes
If you gotta ask, you'll never know.
Louis ArmstrongLouis Armstrong quote #6 All the lessons of history and experience must be lost upon us if we are content to trust alone to the peculiar advantages we happen to possess.
Martin Van BurenMartin Van Buren quote #2 Our experience is composed rathery of illusions that of wisdom acquired.
Joseph RouxJoseph Roux quote #2