quotations about knowledge
The one thing we do not know is the limit of the knowable.
JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU
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Emile
Although humans have existed on this planet for perhaps 2 million years, the rapid climb to modern civilization within the last 200 years was possible due to the fact that the growth of scientific knowledge is exponential; that is, its rate of expansion is proportional to how much is already known. The more we know, the faster we can know more. For example, we have amassed more knowledge since World War II than all the knowledge amassed in our 2-million-year evolution on this planet. In fact, the amount of knowledge that our scientists gain doubles approximately every 10 to 20 years.
MICHIO KAKU
Hyperspace
Is not the fraction which you know, in relation to their totality, what a single number is to infinity?
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Seraphita
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
All men by nature desire to know.
ARISTOTLE
Metaphysics
Nothing really known can continue to be acutely fascinating.
H. P. LOVECRAFT
letter to Clark Ashton Smith, November 7, 1930
The less we know, the longer the explanation.
BRIAN HERBERT & KEVEN J. ANDERSON
Dune: House Corrino
The most that any of us know, is the least of that which is to be known.
BENJAMIN WHICHCOTE
Moral and Religious Aphorisms
A youth's knowledge is like a cheap shotgun--likely to do as much damage to the owner as to the game.
AUSTIN O'MALLEY
Keystones of Thought
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
Knowledge enormous makes a God of me.
JOHN KEATS
Hyperion
Those afraid of the universe as it really is, those who pretend to nonexistent knowledge and envision a Cosmos centered on human beings will prefer the fleeting comforts of superstition. They avoid rather than confront the world. But those with the courage to explore the weave and structure of the Cosmos, even where it differs profoundly from their wishes and prejudices, will penetrate its deepest mysteries.
CARL SAGAN
Cosmos
All types of knowledge, ultimately mean self knowledge.
BRUCE LEE
Bruce Lee: The Lost Interview, 1971
As with all knowledge, once you knew it, you couldn't imagine how it was that you hadn't known it before.
MARGARET ATWOOD
The Year of the Flood
For knowing is spoken of in three ways: it may be either universal knowledge or knowledge proper to the matter in hand or actualising such knowledge; consequently three kinds of error also are possible.
ARISTOTLE
Prior Analytics
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
There is far greater peril in buying knowledge than in buying meat and drink: the one you purchase of the wholesale or retail dealer, and carry them away in other vessels, and before you receive them into the body as food, you may deposit them at home and call in any experienced friend who knows what is good to be eaten or drunken, and what not, and how much, and when; and hence the danger of purchasing them is not so great. But when you buy the wares of knowledge you cannot carry them away in another vessel; they have been sold to you, and you must take them into the soul and go your way, either greatly harmed or greatly benefited by the lesson.
PLATO
Protagoras
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
Knowledge is an unending adventure at the edge of uncertainty.
FRANK HERBERT
Children of Dune
Knowledge without follow-through is worse than no knowledge at all. because if you're guessing and it doesn't work out you can just say, shit, the gods are against me. but if you know and don't do, you've got attics and dark halls in your mind to walk up and down in and wonder about. this ain't healthy, leads to unpleasant evenings, too much to drink and the shredding machine.
CHARLES BUKOWSKI
Notes of a Dirty Old Man