Literary notes about sapience (AI summary)
In literature, the term sapience is often employed to signify a profound, sometimes divine wisdom that distinguishes the truly knowledgeable. Poetic works frequently associate sapience with the majestic and the transcendent, as when it is linked with divine love and creative power [1, 2, 3]. At the same time, writers have used it with a measure of irony or satire to comment on both human and animal intellect, suggesting a spectrum from innate, noble understanding to a more mundane, even borderline, acumen [4, 5, 6]. Whether describing the exalted quality of divine insight or the everyday claim to intellectual merit, sapience remains a versatile term reflecting an evolving notion of wisdom and erudition [7, 8, 9].
- Of Majestie Divine, Sapience and Love Immense, and all his Father in him shon.
— from Paradise Lost by John Milton - In its archetype it is the Divine wisdom, or sapience, manifested in the creation.
— from The World's Greatest Books — Volume 13 — Religion and Philosophy - O sovran, virtuous, precious of all trees In Paradise! of operation blest To sapience, hitherto obscured, infamed.
— from Paradise Lost by John Milton - How were it, for better or worse, didst thou grunt Contented with sapience—the lot of the swine
— from The Complete Poetic and Dramatic Works of Robert BrowningCambridge Edition by Robert Browning - Five minutes later and she would have escaped said police sapience.
— from Anthony Trent, Master Criminal by Wyndham Martyn - “I think they’re sapient, myself,” Gerd van Riebeek said, “but that’s not as important as the fact that they’re on the very threshold of sapience.
— from Little Fuzzy by H. Beam Piper - wisdom , n. lore , learning , sapience, erudition , knowledge , enlightenment.
— from Putnam's Word Book
A Practical Aid in Expressing Ideas Through the Use of an Exact and Varied Vocabulary by Louis A. (Louis Andrew) Flemming - “I’ll suggest, just to keep the argument going, that speech couldn’t have been invented without pre-existing sapience,” Jack said.
— from Little Fuzzy by H. Beam Piper - Though Sapia nam'd In sapience I excell'd not, gladder far Of others' hurt, than of the good befell me.
— from The Divine Comedy by Dante, Illustrated, Purgatory, Complete by Dante Alighieri