How Do We Recognize a Wise Person?

Within the Haggadah * for Passover we read about four sons.  One is wise, one is wicked, one is simple, and one is unable to even formulate a question.  Each one speaks:

A wise person, what does he say?  "What are the observances [of Passover] that the L-rd, our G-d, commanded you?"

His Holiness, the previous Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Joseph Isaac Schneersohn, parsed the wording in the Haggadah this way —

A wise person, what is he?  [He is what] he says.

So, we recognize the qualities of a person by how they speak, and what they speak about.

Notes:

Haggadah - hah GAH dah;  The account of the Exodus that is recited at home before, during, and after the night meals on the first two nights of Passover.  This meal, with prayers and with reciting the Haggadah, is called the Seder (SAY der).