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Learn Something from Every Person
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Thursday, 12 July 2007 |
Learn Something from Every Person you meet. Be in the habit of learning something from every man with whom you meet to be the ultimate wise genius.
Be in the habit of learning something from every man with whom you meet
The observance or neglect of this rule will make a wonderful difference in your character long before the time that you are forty years old.
All act upon it, more or less, but few do it as a matter of habit and calculation. Most act upon it as a matter of interest, or of curiosity at the moment. The great difficulty is, we begin too late in life to make every thing contribute to increase our stock of practical information. Sir Walter Scott gives us to understand, that he never met with any man, let his calling be what it might, even the most stupid fellow that ever rubbed down a horse, from whom he could not, by a few moments conversation, learn something which he did not before know, and which was valuable to him. This will account for the fact that he seemed to have a knowledge of every thing. It is quite as important to go through the world with the ears open, as with the eyes open. "When I was young," says Cecil, "my mother had a servant, whose conduct I thought truly wise. A man was hired to brew, and this servant was to watch his method, in order to learn his art. In the course of the process, some thing was done which she did not understand. She asked him, and he abused her with very coarse epithets for her ignorance and stupidity. My mother asked her how she bore such abuse. I would be called, said she, worse names, a thousand times, for the sake of the information I got out of him. " It is a false notion, that we ought to know nothing out of our particular line of study or profession. You will be none the less distinguished in your calling, for having obtained an item of practical knowledge from every man with whom you meet. And every man, in his particular calling, knows things which you do not, and which are decidedly worth knowing.
I do not recommend you to try to learn everything. Far from it. But while you have one great object in view, you can attend to other things which have a bearing on your object. If you were now sent on an express object to a distant part of the country, while the great object before you would be, to do your errand well and expeditiously, ought you not, as you pass along, to use your eyes, and gaze upon the various scenes and objects which lie in your way ? Ought you not to have your ears open, to pick up what information, anecdote, fact, every thing of the kind, you can, and thus return wiser? Would all this hinder you in the least ? And would you not be fitting yourself, by every such acquisition, to be a more agreeable, intelligent, and useful man ?
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