Skip to content

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:

Only by knowledge of that which is not thyself, shall thyself be learned.

Robert Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Earl of Lytton

For all the talk you hear about knowledge being such a wonderful thing, instinct is worth forty of it for real unerringness.

Mark Twain Tom Sawyer Abroad (1894)

If you want knowledge, you must take part in the practice of changing reality.

Mao Zedong On Practice (1937)

The acquisition of knowledge is the voyage of humanity, isn't it?

William Shatner

Words plainly force and overrule the understanding, and throw all into confusion, and lead men away into numberless empty controversies and idle fancies.

Francis Bacon Novum Organum (1620)

The expectancy of an eternal salvation will reconcile everyone with his neighbor, with his friend, and with his enemy in an understanding of the essential.

Søren Kierkegaard

Every assimilation of any poem is a translation.

Suman Pokhrel Translator's Note in Bhaarat: Shashwat Aawaj (2019)

We live in a golden age of ignorance, and Trump and Brexit are part of that.

Robert N. Proctor

We seem to know a lot about knowledge. What is remarkable, though, is how little we know about ignorance.

Robert N. Proctor Agnotology (2008)

Death presses heavily on that man, who, being but too well known to others, dies in ignorance of himself.

Seneca the Younger

Nothing can be more unjust than the ignorant man, who thinks that nothing is well done by himself.

Terence

Alas, how dreadful knowledge of the truth can be when there's no help in truth!

Sophocles

We know accurately only when we know little; with knowledge doubt increases.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Sprüche in Prosa. Quote reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922)

Every increase of knowledge may possibly render depravity more depraved, as well as it may increase the strength of virtue. It is in itself only power; and its value depends on its application.

Sydney Smith

Knowledge, in truth, is the great sun in the firmament. Life and power are scattered with all its beams.

Daniel Webster address delivered at the laying of the Corner-Stone of Bunker Hill Monument (1825)

Much learning shows how little mortals know;
Much wealth, how little worldlings can enjoy.

Edward Young Night-Thoughts (1742)

It's always possible to wake someone from sleep, but no amount of noise will wake someone who is pretending to be asleep.

Jonathan Safran Foer Eating Animals (2009)

There are, however, some potentates I would kill by any and all means at my disposal. They are Ignorance, Superstition, and Bigotry — the most sinister and tyrannical rulers on earth.

Emma Goldman Responding to audience questions during a speech in Detroit (1898)

You must acquire the best knowledge first, and without delay; it is the height of madness to learn what you will later have to unlearn.

Erasmus Letter to Christian Northoff (1497)

The knowable world is incomplete if seen from any one point of view, incoherent if seen from all points of view at once, and empty if seen from nowhere in particular.

Richard Shweder Why do Men Barbecue? (2003)

Related topics