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The wise have eyes in their heads, while the fool walks in the darkness; but I came to realize that the same fate overtakes them both.
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Then I said to myself, “The fate of the fool will overtake me also. What then do I gain by being wise?” I said to myself, “This too is meaningless.”
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For the wise, like the fool, will not be long remembered; the days have already come when both have been forgotten. Like the fool, the wise too must die!
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And who knows whether that person will be wise or foolish? Yet they will have control over all the fruit of my toil into which I have poured my effort and skill under the sun. This too is meaningless.
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Advancement Is Meaningless
Better a poor but wise youth than an old but foolish king who no longer knows how to heed a warning.
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What advantage have the wise over fools? What do the poor gain by knowing how to conduct themselves before others?
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The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning, but the heart of fools is in the house of pleasure.
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It is better to heed the rebuke of a wise person than to listen to the song of fools.
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Extortion turns a wise person into a fool, and a bribe corrupts the heart.
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Do not say, “Why were the old days better than these?” For it is not wise to ask such questions.
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Wisdom makes one wise person more powerful than ten rulers in a city.
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All this I tested by wisdom and I said, “I am determined to be wise”— but this was beyond me.
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Who is like the wise? Who knows the explanation of things? A person’s wisdom brightens their face and changes its hard appearance.
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Whoever obeys his command will come to no harm, and the wise heart will know the proper time and procedure.
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then I saw all that God has done. No one can comprehend what goes on under the sun. Despite all their efforts to search it out, no one can discover its meaning. Even if the wise claim they know, they cannot really comprehend it.
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A Common Destiny for All
So I reflected on all this and concluded that the righteous and the wise and what they do are in God’s hands, but no one knows whether love or hate awaits them.
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I have seen something else under the sun: The race is not to the swift or the battle to the strong, nor does food come to the wise or wealth to the brilliant or favor to the learned; but time and chance happen to them all.
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Now there lived in that city a man poor but wise, and he saved the city by his wisdom. But nobody remembered that poor man.
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The quiet words of the wise are more to be heeded than the shouts of a ruler of fools.
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The heart of the wise inclines to the right, but the heart of the fool to the left.
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Words from the mouth of the wise are gracious, but fools are consumed by their own lips.
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The Conclusion of the Matter
Not only was the Teacher wise, but he also imparted knowledge to the people. He pondered and searched out and set in order many proverbs.
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The words of the wise are like goads, their collected sayings like firmly embedded nails—given by one shepherd.
