quotations about knowledge
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
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
That is the beginning of knowledge--the discovery of something we do not understand.
FRANK HERBERT
God Emperor of Dune
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
The world grows more enlightened. Knowledge is more equally diffused.
JOHN ADAMS
Discourses on Davila
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
It's a hard talk for a man to say I don't know; it hurts his pride: but should not the pretending he does, hurt it much more?
FULKE GREVILLE
Maxims
Seek knowledge from the purest source.
EDWARD COUNSEL
Maxims
We just do not see how very specialized the use of "I know" is.
LUDWIG WITTGENSTEIN
On Certainty
A man who is ready to converse but has nothing to say worth hearing, is a well without water; he that is rich in knowledge but reserved is a well without a bucket.
JOHN THORNTON
Maxims and Directions for Youth
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
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
An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest.
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
The Way to Wealth: Ben Franklin on Money and Success
Folks don't like to have somebody around knowin' more than they do. It aggravates 'em.
HARPER LEE
To Kill a Mockingbird
Is not the fraction which you know, in relation to their totality, what a single number is to infinity?
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Seraphita
Knowledge grows exponentially. The more we know, the greater our ability to learn, and the faster we expand our knowledge base.
DAN BROWN
The Lost Symbol
Our human knowledge is a candle burnt
On a dim altar to a sun-vast Truth.
SRI AUROBINDO
Gems from Sri Aurobindo
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
The misapplication of our knowledge is, in general, more injurious to our happiness and interest, than either the privations of ignorance, or the disqualifications of inexperience.
NORMAN MACDONALD
Maxims and Moral Reflections
The world of knowledge takes a crazy turn
When teachers themselves are taught to learn.
BERTOLT BRECHT
Life of Galileo