quotations about knowledge
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
The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge.
STEPHEN HAWKING
attributed, The Prism and the Rainbow
Knowledge alone doth not amount to Virtue; but certainly there is no Virtue without Knowledge.
BENJAMIN WHICHCOTE
Moral and Religious Aphorisms
An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest.
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
The Way to Wealth: Ben Franklin on Money and Success
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 but an instrument, which the profligate and the flagitious may use as well as the brave and the just.
HORACE MANN
Thoughts
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
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
If you cannot make knowledge your servant, make it your friend.
BALTASAR GRACIAN
The Art of Worldly Wisdom
Our human knowledge is a candle burnt
On a dim altar to a sun-vast Truth.
SRI AUROBINDO
Gems from Sri Aurobindo
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
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
Is not the fraction which you know, in relation to their totality, what a single number is to infinity?
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Seraphita
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
What we know is built on what we do not know.
EDWARD COUNSEL
Maxims
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
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
The only fence against the world is a thorough knowledge of it.
JOHN LOCKE
Some Thoughts Concerning Education
The end of man is knowledge but there's one thing he can't know. He can't know whether knowledge will save him or kill him. He will be killed, all right, but he can't know whether he is killed because of the knowledge which he has got or because of the knowledge which he hasn't got and which if he had it would save him.
ROBERT PENN WARREN
All the King's Men
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