"Just as the philanthropist is the nuisance..." - Quote by Oscar Wilde
Just as the philanthropist is the nuisance of the ethical sphere, so the nuisance of the intellectual sphere is the man who is so occupied in trying to educate others, that he has never had any time to educate himself.
More by Oscar Wilde
“As for begging, it is safer to beg than to take, but it is finer to take than to beg”
“What seems to us as bitter trials are often blessings in disguise for which we are later, in the fullness of time and understanding, very grateful for!”
“Your machinery is beautiful. Your society people have apologized to me for the envious ridicule with which your newspapers have referred to me. Your newspapers are comic but never amusing. Your Water Tower is a castellated monstrosity with pepperboxes stuck all over it. I am amazed that any people could so abuse Gothic art and make a structure not like a water tower but like a tower of a medieval castle. It should be torn down. It is a shame to spend so much money on buildings with such an unsatisfactory result. Your city looks positively dreary.”
More on Education
“If we learned to walk and talk the way we learn to read and write, everyone would limp and stutter.”
“I remember my mother and father arguing about light bulbs because my father thought he could save money by putting 25-watt bulbs instead of 60-watt bulbs and my mother was trying to explain to him that her children needed to learn to read so that they could go to college. He couldn't see that.”
“If you make one gift this year, make it the gift of knowledge.”
More on Philanthropy
“In the philanthropy game, you're going for different outcomes: saving childhood lives, having kids grow up - because they don't have malnutrition or disease - that they achieve their full potential. We take for Warren [Buffett] things that, because he's very intelligent about the world but doesn't get to go out in Africa and see what we see, we've taken and say to him where we stand and it's basically a very positive report that his gift has made a phenomenal difference.”
“A first-generation fortune is the most likely to be given away, but once a fortune is inherited it's less likely that a very high percentage will go back to society.”
“The good particular men may do separately, in relieving the sick, is small, compared with what they may do collectively.”