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Quotes about knowledge

236 quotes from 164 people

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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
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
Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high
Where knowledge is free
Rabindranath Tagore1861–1941Where the Mind Is Without Fear (1912), Gitanjali (1912)In context
- Freedom
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
It is clear that there is no classification of the Universe that is not arbitrary and full of conjectures. The reason for this is very simple: we do not know what kind of thing the universe is.
Jorge Luis Borges1899–1986The Analytical Language of John Wilkins
- Philosophy
I would rather live in a world where my life is surrounded by mystery than live in a world so small that my mind could comprehend it.
Harry Emerson Fosdick1878–1969Riverside Sermons (1958), p. 22
But though all our knowledge begins with experience, it by no means follows, that all arises out of experience.
Immanuel Kant1724–1804Critique of Pure Reason (1781; 1787), B 1
- Experience
What I really need is to get clear about what I must do, not what I must know, except insofar as knowledge must precede every act.
Søren Kierkegaard1813–1855Journal entry, Gilleleie (1 August 1835) Journals 1A
I have taken all knowledge to be my province.
Francis Bacon1561–1626Letter to Lord Burghley (ca. 1593)
While in theory randomness is an intrinsic property, in practice, randomness is incomplete information.
Nassim Nicholas Talebborn 1960The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable (2007), p. 198
- Luck
It is the duty of the human understanding to understand that there are things which it cannot understand, and what those things are.
Søren Kierkegaard1813–1855The Journals of Søren Kierkegaard, 1840s, 1847
If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts; but if he will be content to begin with doubts he shall end in certainties.
Francis Bacon1561–1626The Advancement of Learning (1605), Book I, v, 8
- Thinking
I liked the idea that a piece of information is really defined only by what it’s related to, and how it’s related. There really is little else to meaning. The structure is everything.
Tim Berners-Leeborn 1955Weaving the Web (1999)
- Philosophy
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)
I know more than I can express in words, and the little I can express would not have been expressed, had I not known more.
Vladimir Nabokov1899–1977Strong Opinions (1973), p. 45
- Writing