How we cite our quotes: Citations follow this format: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
Nevertheless, to anybody who can hold the Present at its worth without being inappreciative of the Past, it may be forgiven, if to such an one the solitary old hulk at Portsmouth, Nelson's Victory, seems to float there, not alone as the decaying monument of a fame incorruptible, but also as a poetic reproach, softened by its picturesqueness, to the Monitors and yet mightier hulls of the European ironclads. (4.3)
Here, the narrator is simply characterizing a particular attitude that allows one to be appreciative of old battle ships. But look again at the line, one "who can hold the Present at its worth without being inappreciative of the Past." To what extent can this line be taken as a definition of wisdom? If you don't think that it's part of a definition, then how would you change it to make it one?
Quote #2
"But between you and me now, don't you think there is a queer streak of pedantic running through him? Yes, like the King's yarn in a coil of navy rope?" (7.2)
In this scene, the narrator is explaining how some of the sailors think that Captain Vere is too learned and highfalutin to be a Sea Captain. What's the difference between being pedantic and being wise? How is it possible to accumulate knowledge that leads to wisdom instead of knowledge that just leads to intelligence?
Quote #3
Years, and those experiences which befall certain shrewder men subordinated lifelong to the will of superiors, all this had developed in the Dansker the pithy guarded cynicism that was his leading characteristic. (9.15)
No character in Billy Budd is presented as being wiser than the old Dansker. To what extent is wisdom "pithy guarded cynicism"? Focus in on the "pithy" aspect. Why is it that the wise always seem to say less than people want them to? How is what they choose not to say also a part of their wisdom?
Quote #4
Had the foretopman been conscious of having done or said anything to provoke the ill will of the official, it would have been different with him, and his sight might have been purged if not sharpened. As it was, innocence was his blinder. (17.4)
Here, we get one of the narrator's many explanations of Billy's essential innocence. Is innocence compatible with wisdom? Is knowledge and experience necessarily opposed to innocence?
Quote #5
Though something exceptional in the moral quality of Captain Vere made him, in earnest encounter with a fellow man, a veritable touchstone of that man's essential nature, yet now as to Claggart and what was really going on in him his feeling partook less of intuitional conviction than of strong suspicion clogged by strange dubieties. (18.21)
To what extent is wisdom a "moral quality"? To what extent is it just a question of intelligence? What is the difference between intelligence and morality? What is it about Claggart that clogs Vere's "intuitional conviction"?
Quote #6
Though at the time Captain Vere was quite ignorant of Billy's liability to vocal impediment, he now immediately divined it, since vividly Billy's aspect recalled to him that of a bright young schoolmate of his whom he had once seen struck by much the same startling impotence in the act of eagerly rising in the class to be foremost in response to a testing question put to it by the master. (19.6)
Take this quote in relation to the one above it. There, Vere was said to be "a veritable touchstone of that man's essential nature." What is it about his memory that allows Vere to empathize with Billy when he could not empathize with Claggart? Why is Billy easier for Vere's intuitions to get a grasp on than Claggart is?
Quote #7
[Captain Vere:] "Quite aside from any conceivable motive actuating the master-at-arms, and irrespective of the provocation to the blow, a martial court must needs in the present case confine its attention to the blow's consequence, which consequence justly is to be deemed not otherwise than as the striker's deed." (21.19)
Vere is here narrowing the focus of the debate for the drumhead court by confining the question of Billy's guilt or innocence to his deeds alone. He is also, more or less, acting as a mouthpiece for military law. Is this wise counsel? Can there be wisdom in just following orders, in just doing what one is told? Can there be wisdom in not listening to one's own private conscience?
Quote #8
After scanning their faces he stood less as mustering his thoughts for expression than as one inly deliberating how best to put them to well-meaning men not intellectually mature, men with whom it was necessary to demonstrate certain principles that were axioms to himself. Similar impatience as to talking is perhaps one reason that deters some minds from addressing any popular assemblies. (21.25)
Here is the narrator's take on how Vere prepares his words for the drumhead court. Is the description too condescending to the other members of the court, or does it seem an accurate description of what it is like for an intelligent person to address a crowd? How do wisdom and intelligence isolate men from one another?
Quote #9
It was presently brought up, the chaplain attending him. It was noted at the time, and remarked upon afterwards, that in this final scene the good man evinced little or nothing of the perfunctory. (25.2)
As Billy is being prepared for execution, the chaplain does not seem to be acting strictly according to his duties. As we see elsewhere, he doesn't make a large effort to impose his religious beliefs on Billy Budd. Why is this so? Is there wisdom in the chaplain's attitude toward Budd?
Quote #10
Their knowledge followed it from ship to dockyard and again from dockyard to ship, still pursuing it even when at last reduced to a mere dockyard boom. To them a chip of it was as a piece of the Cross. Ignorant though they were of the secret facts of the tragedy, and not thinking but that the penalty was somehow unavoidably inflicted from the naval point of view, for all that, they instinctively felt that Billy was a sort of man as incapable of mutiny as of wilful murder. (30.1)
The narrator here notes that although the other sailors were ignorant of all the ins and outs of Billy's tragedy, they instinctively felt that Billy was incapable of mutiny. Is wisdom compatible with ignorance? To what extent is wisdom just refined instinct?