quotations about knowledge
All our knowledge brings us nearer to our ignorance.
T. S. ELIOT
The Rock
We can't define anything precisely. If we attempt to, we get into that paralysis of thought that comes to philosophers… one saying to the other: "you don't know what you are talking about!". The second one says: "what do you mean by talking? What do you mean by you? What do you mean by know?"
RICHARD FEYNMAN
The Feynman Lectures on Physics
Knowledge is power. Power to do evil ... or power to do good. Power itself is not evil. So knowledge itself is not evil.
VERONICA ROTH
Allegiant
The greatest piece of folly is that every man thinks himself compelled to hand down what people think they have known.
JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE
The Maxims and Reflections of Goethe
Men have hunger, sleep, fear and carnal intercourse in common with the lower animals. It is only knowledge that a man has more than they. Those men who have not it may be regarded as beasts.
CHANAKYA
Vridda-Chanakya
Knowledge alone doth not amount to Virtue; but certainly there is no Virtue without Knowledge.
BENJAMIN WHICHCOTE
Moral and Religious Aphorisms
As I came not into life with any knowledge of it, and as my likings are for what is old, I busy myself in seeking knowledge there.
CONFUCIUS
The Wisdom of Confucius
You have to live to really know things.
DAN SIMMONS
Hyperion
All our knowledge is the offspring of our perceptions.
LEONARDO DA VINCI
Thoughts on Art and Life
Knowledge is in every country the surest basis of public happiness.
GEORGE WASHINGTON
speech to Congress, Jan. 8, 1790
That is the beginning of knowledge--the discovery of something we do not understand.
FRANK HERBERT
God Emperor of Dune
Knowledge is proud that he has learn'd so much;
Wisdom is humble that he knows no more.
WILLIAM COWPER
The Task
All knowledge hurts.
CASSANDRA CLARE
City of Bones
Knowledge ... shall always bear witness like a clarion to its creator.
LEONARDO DA VINCI
Thoughts on Art and Life
Knowledge is the most democratic source of power.
ALVIN TOFFLER
Powershift
Knowledge often cuts the root that supports it.
EDWARD COUNSEL
Maxims
In the case of various kinds of knowledge, we find that what in former days occupied the energies of men of mature mental ability sinks to the level of information, exercises, and even pastimes for children; and in this educational progress we can see the history of the world’s culture delineated in faint outline.
GEORG WILHELM FRIEDRICH HEGEL
The Phenomenology of Spirit
I don't know what's the matter with people: they don't learn by understanding, they learn by some other way -- by rote or something. Their knowledge is so fragile!
RICHARD FEYNMAN
Surely You're Joking
The surest way of concealing from others the boundaries of one's own knowledge is not to overstep them.
GIACOMO LEOPARDI
Leopardi: Poems and Prose
How dreadful knowledge of the truth can be when there's no help in truth!
SOPHOCLES
Oedipus Rex