Ancient Great Minds

M

Montana Smith

Active member
Rocket Surgeon said:
Wow! You mean someone else made up the phrase?
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Trust those cheeky Cockneys!

This is a classic of Cockney rhyming slang. It has nothing directly to do with shoemakers but originates from cobbler's awls, which are the pointed hand-tools that cobblers use to pierce holes in leather. The rhyme is with balls, or testicles.
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Rocket Surgeon

Rocket Surgeon

Guest
Rocket Surgeon said:
Plato quoted best: I do not think that I know what I do not know.
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When I began to talk with him, [a politician] I could not help thinking that he was not really wise, although he was thought wise by many, and wiser still by himself; and I went and tried to explain to him that he thought himself wise, but was not really wise; and the consequence was that he hated me...

So I left him, saying to myself, as I went away: Well, although I do not suppose that either of us knows anything really beautiful and good, I am better off than he is - for he knows nothing, and thinks that he knows.

[Poets]are like diviners or soothsayers who also say many fine things, but do not understand the meaning of them...and I further observed that upon the strength of their poetry they believed themselves to be the wisest of men in other things in which they were not wise.

At last I went to the artisans, ...and I was sure that they knew many fine things; and in this I was not mistaken. But I observed that even the good artisans fell into the same error as the poets; because they were good workmen they thought that they also knew all sorts of high matters, and this defect in them overshadowed their wisdom
 
Goodeknight

Goodeknight

New member
Rocket Surgeon said:
When I began to talk with him, [a politician] I could not help thinking that he was not really wise, although he was thought wise by many, and wiser still by himself; and I went and tried to explain to him that he thought himself wise, but was not really wise; and the consequence was that he hated me...

So I left him, saying to myself, as I went away: Well, although I do not suppose that either of us knows anything really beautiful and good, I am better off than he is - for he knows nothing, and thinks that he knows.

[Poets]are like diviners or soothsayers who also say many fine things, but do not understand the meaning of them...and I further observed that upon the strength of their poetry they believed themselves to be the wisest of men in other things in which they were not wise.

At last I went to the artisans, ...and I was sure that they knew many fine things; and in this I was not mistaken. But I observed that even the good artisans fell into the same error as the poets; because they were good workmen they thought that they also knew all sorts of high matters, and this defect in them overshadowed their wisdom
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Wow, almost 2500 years and not much has changed, in politics or the arts and sciences. I've always found it interesting that it seems so easy to see the flaws and faults of others, while being practically oblivious to our own, which are probably obvious to others.
 
Rocket Surgeon

Rocket Surgeon

Guest
goodeknight said:
Wow, almost 2500 years and not much has changed, in politics or the arts and sciences.
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Human nature hasn't changed much.

goodeknight said:
I've always found it interesting that it seems so easy to see the flaws and faults of others, while being practically oblivious to our own, which are probably obvious to others.
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What I find more interesting, beyond finding fault, goes back to the concept that understanding or mastering one discipline somehow makes one knowledgeable in some other discipline.
 
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