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.
Wisdom and intellect is every man's friend, ignorance and illiteracy are his enemies.
My favorite definition of evil is that it is militant ignorance.
A man may choose whether he will have abstemiousness and knowledge, or claret and ignorance.
C++ is a language strongly optimized for liars and people who go by guesswork and ignorance.
Those at too great a distance may, I am well aware, mistake ignorance for perspective.
Children's talent to endure stems from their ignorance of alternatives.