Ecclesiastes 7:19-8:1 (New International Version)

 ¹⁹ Wisdom makes one wise man more powerful
       than ten rulers in a city.

 ²⁰ There is not a righteous man on earth
       who does what is right and never sins.

 ²¹ Do not pay attention to every word people say,
       or you may hear your servant cursing you-

 ²² for you know in your heart
       that many times you yourself have cursed others.

 ²³ All this I tested by wisdom and I said,
       "I am determined to be wise"—
       but this was beyond me.

 ²⁴ Whatever wisdom may be,
       it is far off and most profound—
       who can discover it?

 ²⁵ So I turned my mind to understand,
       to investigate and to search out wisdom and the scheme of things
       and to understand the stupidity of wickedness
       and the madness of folly.

 ²⁶ I find more bitter than death
       the woman who is a snare,
       whose heart is a trap
       and whose hands are chains.
       The man who pleases God will escape her,
       but the sinner she will ensnare.

 ²⁷ "Look," says the Teacher, ^[a] "this is what I have discovered:
       "Adding one thing to another to discover the scheme of things-

 ²⁸ while I was still searching
       but not finding—
       I found one upright man among a thousand,
       but not one upright woman among them all.

 ²⁹ This only have I found:
       God made mankind upright,
       but men have gone in search of many schemes."

Ecclesiastes 8

 ¹ Who is like the wise man?
       Who knows the explanation of things?
       Wisdom brightens a man's face
       and changes its hard appearance.