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.
The superior man understands what is right; the inferior man understands what will sell.
Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.
And by the way, it’s knowledge that moves mountains, you know, not faith.
Every one is least known to himself, and it is very difficult for a man to know himself.
Nature has given us the seeds of knowledge, not knowledge itself.
By too much knowledge they bring it about that they know nothing.
Knowledge and human power are synonymous, since the ignorance of the cause frustrates the effect.
Knowledge is the only fountain, both of the love and the principles of human liberty.
No human mind can comprehend all the knowledge which guides the actions of society.
Not to know what happened before one was born is always to be a child.