Community Chat

[Catfancy]

Being smart or being wise?

[PINKdogWOOD]

Wisely smart

[Preds]

Smart can come from books.  Wisdom comes from experience as well.

[Winkk]

Well, I'm not really sure but I think I would prefer to be wise.  I guess if I was smart I would know why I wanted to be wise. But, that didn't answer your question.

[oceantown]

I think of being smart as having intelligence. 

When I think of wisdom, I think of being able to understand a situation, and being able to judge which action should be taken.  To see the whole picture, and make the right decisions in life.

[Puzzle Piece]

Wisdom supposedly comes from age and experience.

Smart is something that is done/known for a present circumstance regardless of age.

[Goldengate8361]

I think they are interchangeable terms, although the connotations already mentioned in others' posts are accurate.

[Laura14]

I think of it as book smart vs common sense.  Common sense wins every time.  

Case in point:  My father went to go pick up his PhD certificate at the school.  When he came out he realized he locked his keys in the car and had to call his immigrant father to come unlock his car door as he stood there with his PhD in his hand.  

[ChynnaBlue]

I've seen a lot of very smart people do really stupid things, so I believe there's definitely a difference.

Smart people know what to do and how to do it, but might not know that just because a thing CAN be done does not mean it SHOULD be done.

A Wise person may or may not know what to do or how to do it, but does know that just because a thing can be done doesn't mean it should be done.

[sidsmom]

Yeah, something like this: