Does Age Bring Wisdom?

Archbishop Desmond Tutu
Anti-Apartheid Cleric
"In the traditional village there used to be those who are called elders. They would say to young people, "Sometimes the best way of winning an argument is not to have an argument at all." It seems so obvious: most of the time, when you are provoked, you want to give as good as you got; and that often does not resolve the problem, it just exacerbates it because the other person also gets upset and wants to give back as much as they've got.

Actually, anger is natural and it is something to be welcomed. Imagine someone seeing a child being abused and saying, "Oh well, this doesn't matter." You'd say there was something jolly well wrong with that person."

• Andrew Zuckerman's Book, "Wisdom"