Sa'adi -- Gulistān [Rose Garden, گُلِستان], ch. 8 “Rules for Conduct in Life,” Maxim 82 (1258) [tr. Gladwin (1806)]

Dave — Fri, 01 Sep 2023 16:03:47 +0000

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]

Davies, Robertson -- Tempest-Tost, ch. 6 (1951)

Dave — Sun, 01 Feb 2004 16:00:00 +0000

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)

WIST Quotations

Sa'adi -- Gulistān [Rose Garden, گُلِستان], ch. 8 “Rules for Conduct in Life,” Maxim 82 (1258) [tr. Gladwin (1806)]

Davies, Robertson -- Tempest-Tost, ch. 6 (1951)