“You were smart, but there were plenty of people in the world who were smarter than you, and cleverness is sometimes the biggest obstacle. Fortunately, you were also diligent and persistent. Diligence clips the wings of cleverness, allowing it to stay firmly on the ground. Persistence grinds away the sharp edges of cleverness, not allowing it to take shortcuts through things. Cleverness thus clipped can more fully penetrate the nature of things.”
