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Quotes about knowledge

236 quotes from 164 people

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There are three things extremely hard: steel, a diamond, and to know one’s self.
Benjamin Franklin1706–1790John Maxwell Failing Forward: How to Make the Most of Your Mistakes, Thomas Nelson Inc, 8 March 2000, p. 65.
We dance round in a ring and suppose,
But the Secret sits in the middle and knows.
Robert Frost1874–1963A Witness Tree (1942), “The Secret Sits”
Knowledge is meaningful only if it is reflected in action. The human race has found out the hard way that we are what we do, not just what we think. This is true for kids and adults — for schoolrooms and nations.
Robert Fulghumborn 1937All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten (1986)
Lack of knowledge concerning all the factors and the failure to include them in our integral imposes false conclusions.
Buckminster Fuller1895–1983The Wellspring of Reality
It is not knowledge, but the act of learning, not possession but the act of getting there, which grants the greatest enjoyment.
Carl Friedrich Gauss1777–1855Letter to Farkas Bolyai (2 September 1808)
- Education
Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding.
Kahlil Gibran1883–1931The Prophet (1923), On PainIn context
Scientific knowledge helps us mainly because it makes the wonder to which we are called by nature rather more intelligible.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe1749–1832Maxims and Reflections (1833), Maxim 417, trans. Stopp
- Science
I’ve studied now Philosophy
And Jurisprudence, Medicine,⁠—
And even, alas! Theology,⁠—
From end to end, with labor keen;
And here, poor fool! with all my lore
I stand, no wiser than before:
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe1749–1832Faust (1808), Scene I, spoken by FaustIn context
- Wisdom
For just where fails the comprehension,
A word steps promptly in as deputy.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe1749–1832Faust (1808), Scene IV, spoken by MephistophelesIn context
- Talking
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 Goldman1869–1940Answering questions after a speech in Detroit (1898), as recounted in Living My Life (1931), p. 207
In arguing too, the parson owned his skill,
For e’en tho’ vanquished, he could argue still;
While words of learned length, and thundering sound,
Amazed the gazing rustics ranged around;
And still they gazed, and still the wonder grew,
That one small head could carry all he knew.
Oliver Goldsmith1728–1774The Deserted Village (1770), The Deserted VillageIn context
- Debate
- Education
If you cannot make knowledge your servant, make it your friend.
Baltasar Gracián1601–1658The Art of Worldly Wisdom (1647), Maxim 15 (p. 9)
You don’t get anything worth getting by pretending to know things you don’t know.
Sam Harrisborn 1967Sam Harris, Big Think Sam Harris On Death (July 4, 2007)
Experts can explain anything in the objective world to us, yet we understand our own lives less and less. In short, we live in the postmodern world, where everything is possible and almost nothing is certain.
Václav Havel1936–2011The Need for Transcendence in the Postmodern World (1994)
The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design.
Friedrich Hayek1899–1992The Fatal Conceit: The Errors of Socialism (1988), Ch. 5: The Fatal Conceit.
- Economics