The Wise Man

Science is organized knowledge. Wisdom is organized life.- Immanuel Kant 

I have heard people say that wisdom comes with age.  That the more years you have lived the wiser you are.  The assumption is that experience leads to wisdom.  I would challenge that thought in that I know some older people who are far from wise.  I would say that wisdom comes from taking our experiences and converting them into those learned experiences that form our life.  It is when we allow them to change and mold us that we become wiser people.  

I would also say that wisdom comes from pondering what experience and life bring us.  I think a wise person is one that opens their minds to the greater world.  In saying this it would a child who would have the greatest potential to be wise.  Children when they are young are the most open to learn new things and experience more of the world. It is when adults begin to limit those boundaries that the potential is lost.  Therefore, when adults open their minds like a child and explore the world do they become wise.  

While knowledge is important to becoming wise it does not mean that a person will become wise by getting multiple degrees or reading lots of books.  For knowledge does not equal wisdom and wisdom does not equal knowledge.  Now I am not saying that we should give up on studying and learn all that we can.  What I am saying is that learn and be open to whatever the world has to offer.