quotations about knowledge
Learned men fall into error oftenest by mistaking knowledge for wisdom.
AUSTIN O'MALLEY
Keystones of Thought
Knowledge alone doth not amount to Virtue; but certainly there is no Virtue without Knowledge.
BENJAMIN WHICHCOTE
Moral and Religious Aphorisms
Knowledge without conscience is but the ruin of the soul.
FRANÇOIS RABELAIS
Pantagruel
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
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
Knowledge will soon become folly, when good sense ceases to be its guardian.
WELLINS CALCOTT
Thoughts Moral and Divine
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
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
All our knowledge brings us nearer to our ignorance.
T. S. ELIOT
The Rock
That is the beginning of knowledge--the discovery of something we do not understand.
FRANK HERBERT
God Emperor of Dune
You have to live to really know things.
DAN SIMMONS
Hyperion
The further we advance in knowledge, the more simplicity shall we discover in those primary rules that regulate all the apparently endless, complicated, and multiform operations of the Godhead.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON
Lacon
Knowledge often cuts the root that supports it.
EDWARD COUNSEL
Maxims
How dreadful knowledge of the truth can be when there's no help in truth!
SOPHOCLES
Oedipus Rex
All knowledge hurts.
CASSANDRA CLARE
City of Bones
Information is the mortar that both builds and destroys empires.
TOBSHA LEARNER
The Witch of Cologne
The one thing we do not know is the limit of the knowable.
JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU
Emile
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
The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge.
STEPHEN HAWKING
attributed, The Prism and the Rainbow
Everybody knows something, and nobody knows everything.
DUSTY BAKER
Esquire, Apr. 2004