I’ve looked it up multiple times but it never clicked with me, I can hardly see the difference.
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An intelligent person knows how to solve problems, a wise person knows which problems are important to solve.
Like the tomato and fruit salad example, the other I use is intelligence is knowing that the wet stuff falling from the sky is rain, wisdom is knowing to go inside.
Intelligence could be said to knowing things, wisdom is how to act on what you know.
These are pretty subjective terms but I’d say that:
Wisdom is about how much you know.
Intelligence is about your capacity to work things out.
Intelligence is about your mental capabilities, I.E. how fast you learn, how many things you can keep in your mind at once, how easily you can imagine abstract concepts.
Being wise is a lot more about experience, having heard and seen enough things to be able to sort something new into a bigger reference frame.
So someone who is intelligent but not wise is a quick thinker, but will still make mistakes out of lacking experience with the topic.
Someone who is wise but not intelligent knows how the world works, and how to respond to problems but doesn’t necessarily understand why exactly things work, and they take longer to learn something new.
I don’t think it’s a huge distinction, other than technically ‘intelligence’ could be measured to a certain degree with an IQ test for example.
I would say wisdom is a more abstract concept referring to a type of intelligence which cannot be actively learned or taught. Someone who is wise may have lived a long time, experienced many things, and may be able to offer advice to others.
This is purely conjecture though, I’m no expert.
Intelligence is having the knowledge; wisdom is knowing how to apply it.
It’s possible to be very intelligent and yet highly unwise.
Wisdom only really comes with experience and is mostly about how to play safe (in every sense of the word). It often boils down to refraining from unnecessary action in my opinion. Intelligence is about the capacity for problem-solving.
I think being in intelligent is knowing how things work in the moment.
And being wise is for-seeing how things will look and feel.
Intelligent is knowing that tomato is a fruit.
Wise is knowing that tomatoes don’t go into a fruit salad.
(Charismatic is knowing how to make people love a fruit salad with tomatoes)
Intelligence is knowing what things are. Wisdom is knowing how to act and why. Intelligence is generally gained from a book or a teacher. Wisdom is generally gained from experience or a mentor.
Einstein said: “Knowledge is organized science. Wisdom is organized life.”
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