Quote of the Day: wisdom in action

[timelets]

Success in Herodotus, as Carolyn Dewald has pointed out, comes to those who have a practical wisdom, an adaptability that at times looks very much like that of the trickster figure of folklore – or, to take the obvious Greek example, like Odysseus. The ‘wisdom’ of a successful character may appear as the trickery whereby Themistocles manages to get the Greeks to fight the Persians in the advantageous setting off Salamis: as Herodotus presents it, the idea was not Themistocles’ own, but borrowed from a certain Mnesiphilus – yet it was Themistocles who actually made it happen (8.57– 63).
The historian, therefore, is interested not simply in the possession of wisdom but also in the ability to put it into action. That is what counts in history; understanding the situation but being unable to affect it is, as one of Herodotus’ characters says, ‘the most grievous pain of all for human beings’ (9.16).

John Marincola, Chapter 1 - Herodotus and the poetry of the past pp. 13-28.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CCOL052183001X.002

Wise people don't suffer the Not Invented Here syndrome. Also, this could be an interesting discussion wrt learned helplessness as a coping mechanism for "the most grievous pain"