quotations about knowledge
You must know all there is to know in your particular field and keep on the alert for new knowledge. The least difference in knowledge between you and another man may spell his success and your failure.
HENRY FORD
Theosophist Magazine, Feb. 1930
When the panting and thirsting soul first drinks the delicious waters of truth, when the moral and intellectual tastes and desires first seize the fragrant fruits that flourish in the garden of knowledge, then does the child catch a glimpse and foretaste of heaven.
HORACE MANN
Thoughts
The real scholar learns how to evolve the unknown from the known, and draws near the master.
JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE
The Maxims and Reflections of Goethe
The one thing we do not know is the limit of the knowable.
JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU
Emile
The knowledge which we have acquired ought not to resemble a great shop without order, and without an inventory; we ought to know what we possess, and be able to make it serve us in need.
GOTTFRIED WILHELM LEIBNIZ
attributed, Day's Collacon
Knowledge itself is power.
FRANCIS BACON
Meditations Sacrae
Knowledge is twofold and consists not only in an affirmation of what is true, but in the negation of what is false.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON
Lacon
How dangerous is the acquirement of knowledge and how much happier that man is who believes his native town to be the world, than he who aspires to be greater than his nature will allow.
MARY SHELLEY
Frankenstein
Hence the strong attraction which magic and science alike have exercised on the human mind; hence the powerful stimulus that both have given to the pursuit of knowledge. They lure the weary enquirer, the footsore seeker, on through the wilderness of disappointment in the present by their endless promises of the future: they take him up to the top of an exceeding high mountain and show him, beyond the dark clouds and rolling mists at his feet, a vision of the celestial city, far off, it may be, but radiant with unearthly splendour, bathed in the light of dreams.
JAMES FRAZER
The Golden Bough
By enlarging your knowledge of things, you will find your knowledge of self is enlarged.
CHARLES DE LINT
"The Pochade Box", The Ivory and the Horn
There is, perhaps, one universal truth about all forms of human cognition: the ability to deal with knowledge is hugely exceeded by the potential knowledge contained in man's environment. To cope with this diversity, man's perception, his memory, and his thought processes early become governed by strategies for protecting his limited capacities from the confusion of overloading. We tend to perceive things schematically, for example, rather than in detail, or we represent a class of diverse things by some sort of averaged "typical instance."
JEROME S. BRUNER
Art as a Mode of Knowing
The most that any of us know, is the least of that which is to be known.
BENJAMIN WHICHCOTE
Moral and Religious Aphorisms
The knowledge of man is as the waters, some descending from above, and some springing from beneath: the one informed by the light of nature, the other inspired by divine revelation.
FRANCIS BACON
The Advancement of Learning
Religion has treated knowledge sometimes as an enemy, sometimes as a hostage; often as a captive, and more often as a child: but knowledge has become of age; and religion must either renounce her acquaintance, or introduce her as a companion and respect her as a friend.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON
Lacon
Is knowledge the pearl of price? That, too, may be purchased -- by steady application, and long solitary hours of study and reflection. Bestow these, and you shall be wise.
ANNA LETITIA BARBAULD
Tales, Poems and Essays
Few can tell what they know without also showing what they do not know.
IVAN PANIN
Thoughts
All knowledge, when separated from justice and virtue, is seen to be cunning and not wisdom.
PLATO
Menexenus
All I want is to know things. The black gulph of the infinite is before me ...
H. P. LOVECRAFT
letter to Frank Belknap, February 27, 1931
With the growth of knowledge our ideas must from time to time be organized afresh. The change takes place usually in accordance with new maxims as they arise, but it always remains provisional.
JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE
The Maxims and Reflections of Goethe
To receive instruction and knowledge is as natural as to receive the light of the sun, if a man opens his eyes.
BENJAMIN WHICHCOTE
Moral and Religious Aphorisms