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Knowledge Quotes

Francis Bacon, Shakespeare, John Locke, Samuel Johnson and Einstein are all near the top, which gives the page its character: mostly people who thought about how we know things, rather than about how to feel clever. Johnson gives the most useful single line, in Boswell’s Life (1791): “Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information upon it.” Wittgenstein, in On Certainty (1969), says that knowledge is in the end based on acknowledgement.

A lot of the quotes people look for here are flagged. “As for me, all I know is that I know nothing” is credited to Socrates; see the note on the Wisdom page. “Contempt prior to investigation” is credited to Einstein, and a line about putting the Lord at every turn in the refuge of a miracle is credited to Galileo.

Random quote on Knowledge

Most quoted on knowledge:

Just as the fire is the direct cause for cooking, so without Knowledge no emancipation can be had. Compared with all other forms of discipline Knowledge of the Self is the one direct means for liberation.

Adi Shankara Atma Bodha (1987)

I don't know. Poets are always taking the weather so personally. They're always sticking their emotions in things that have no emotions.

J. D. Salinger Nine Stories (1953)

Thou should’st have learnt that Not to Mend
For Me could mean but Not to Know.

Thomas Hardy Poems of the Past and the Present (1901)

If we do not weed the present body of corruption, bribery, perfunctoriness, and ignorance, and establish instead a clean and efficient administration, the day will soon come when the revolution will be started against us.

Chiang Kai-shek

Knowledge make us valuable. When we have knowledge that other people do not readily have, somebody need us. It does not matter what we look like, or where we came from, if we have something that others have a need for.

Ben Carson Think Big (1996)

“Knowledge can be a hindrance to right action,” answered the little man. “There are those who hold that, if we but knew the full ramifications of even our least deeds, the ensuing concatenations of cause and effect would paralyze us with indecision.”

Matthew Hughes Fools Errant (1994)

Consciousness is unquantifiable, a ghost in the machine, barely considered real at all, though in a sense this flickering mosaic of awareness is the only true reality that we can ever know.

Alan Moore

I know up on top you are seeing great sights,
But down here on the bottom,
We too should have rights.

Dr. Seuss Yertle the Turtle (1958)

Knowledge when acquired must be thrown into logical form and we are obliged to adopt the language of logic since only logic has a communicable language.

Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan

The more that you read,
The more things you will know.
The more that you learn,
The more places you'll go.

Dr. Seuss I Can Read With My Eyes Shut! (1978)

Embla lies with each thing,
Ask looks and knows.
Understanding
without explanation
they depart and separate.

John Carder Bush The Creation Edda (1970)

Selective ignorance, a cornerstone of child rearing. You don't put kids under surveillance: it might frighten you. Parents should sit tall in the saddle and look upon their troops with a noble and benevolent and extremely nearsighted gaze.

Garrison Keillor Leaving Home‎ (1987)

We have now swapped information for knowledge, which is not the same thing. I do not want to know.

Brunello Cucinelli

If you think you know all the secrets, you think you know all the cures.

Colum McCann Let the Great World Spin (2009)

He who comes knows only his coming,
He who goes knows only his end.
To be saved from the chasm,
Why cling to the cliff?
Clouds floating low
Never know where the breezes will blow them.

Sengai

Well, now is the time to peel back the foreskin of misconception and apply the wire brush of enlightenment to this mass of sticky half-truths and lies. The truth hurts, but not as much as the consequences of willful ignorance.

Charles Stross Iron Sunrise (2004)

WE CAN ONLY ESCAPE THE BLOODY AND IGNORANT NIGHTMARE OF HISTORY BY EXPLORING ALTERNATIVES WHICH TODAY LOOK FRIGHTENINGLY WEIRD.

Peter J. Carroll PsyberMagick (1995)

Faust had no delusions of Heavenly aid. An involved and benevolent deity would have helped him long years ago when, young, he had yearned for knowledge as achingly as now and with far fewer stains on his soul.

Michael Swanwick Jack Faust (1997)

I believe very strongly in helping other people understand things. There's no point knowing things if you don't help other people know...

Eugenia Cheng Keynote: How to bake "How to Bake Pi (2016)

Jesus knew — knew — that we're carrying the Kingdom of Heaven around with us, inside, where we're all too goddam stupid and sentimental and unimaginative to look? You have to be a son of God to know that kind of stuff.

J. D. Salinger Franny and Zooey (1961)

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