From: Isidore of Pelusium, monk
To: An unnamed person
Date: ~410 AD
Context: Isidore observes that those who mistake contradiction for wisdom actually expose their own departure from sound reasoning.
Those who imagine that contradicting things rightly said is a form of wisdom are only attaching infamy to themselves and revealing that they have departed from right reasoning. For truth is wisdom — especially when it is simple and brief. And falsehood is ruinous even when it is dressed in cleverness; the more artfully it is adorned, the more dangerous it is, because more people are taken in by it.
The man who quarrels with a sound argument to display his own ingenuity has confused performance with thought. He is not refuting anything — he is merely making noise in the vicinity of truth. Those who can see the difference will draw their own conclusions about him.
Context:Isidore observes that those who mistake contradiction for wisdom actually expose their own departure from sound reasoning.
Those who imagine that contradicting things rightly said is a form of wisdom are only attaching infamy to themselves and revealing that they have departed from right reasoning. For truth is wisdom — especially when it is simple and brief. And falsehood is ruinous even when it is dressed in cleverness; the more artfully it is adorned, the more dangerous it is, because more people are taken in by it.
The man who quarrels with a sound argument to display his own ingenuity has confused performance with thought. He is not refuting anything — he is merely making noise in the vicinity of truth. Those who can see the difference will draw their own conclusions about him.
Modern English rendering for readability. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek for scholarly use.