Whoseover interrupts the conversation of others to make a display of his own wisdom, certainly betrays his ignorance.
Sa'adi (1184-1283/1291?) Persian poet [a.k.a. Sa'di, Moslih Eddin Sa'adi, Mushrif-ud-Din Abdullah, Muslih-ud-Din Mushrif ibn Abdullah, Mosleh al-Din Saadi Shirazi, Shaikh Mosslehedin Saadi Shirazi]
Gulistān [Rose Garden, گُلِستان], ch. 8 “Rules for Conduct in Life,” Maxim 82 (1258) [tr. Gladwin (1806)]
(Source)
Alternate translations:
Whoever interrupts the conversation of others to display the extent of his wisdom, will assuredly discover the depth of his folly.
[tr. Eastwick (1852), #82]
Who interrupts the conversation of others that they may know his excellence, they will become acquainted only with the degree of his folly.
[tr. Burton (1888), #58]
Whoever interrupts the conversation of others to make a display of his own fund of knowledge, makes notorious his own stock of ignorance.
[tr. Ross (1900), #96]
If any one interrupts the speech of others in order that people may know his stock of learning, they will discover the extent of his ignorance.
[tr. Platts (1904), #86]
Those whose conversation has been interrupted by a man trying to show off his intelligence will know him instead by the depth of his ignorance.
[tr. Rehatsek/Newman (2004), #84]
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Book lovers are thought by unbookish people to be gentle and unworldly, and perhaps a few of them are so. But there are others who will lie and scheme and steal to get books as wildly and unconscionably as the dope-taker in pursuit of his drug. They may not want the books to read immediately, or at all; they want them to possess, to range on their shelves, to have at command. They want books as a Turk is thought to want concubines — not to be hastily deflowered, but to be kept at their master’s call, and enjoyed more often in thought than in reality.
Robertson Davies (1913-1995) Canadian author, editor, publisher
Tempest-Tost, ch. 6 (1951)
