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Quotes about knowledge

236 quotes from 164 people

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I’d take the awe of understanding over the awe of ignorance any day.
Douglas Adams1952–2001The Salmon of Doubt (2002)
To furnish the means of acquiring knowledge is … the greatest benefit that can be conferred upon mankind. It prolongs life itself and enlarges the sphere of existence.
John Quincy Adams1767–1848Report on the establishment of the Smithsonian Institution (c. 1846)
- Education
If Virtue & Knowledge are diffus’d among the People, they will never be enslav’d. This will be their great Security.
Samuel Adams1722–1803Letter to James Warren (12 February 1779)
- Virtue
Knowledge is, indeed, that which, next to virtue, truly and essentially raises one man above another.
Joseph Addison1672–1719The Guardian (1713), No. 111
Knowledge is not wisdom, unless used wisely.
JAJ.D. Anderson
- Wisdom
That which is desirable on its own account and for the sake of knowing it is more of the nature of wisdom than that which is desirable on account of its results.
Aristotle384–322 BCMetaphysics, 982a16, Complete Works, vol. 2, p. 1554
- Wisdom
I am bound by my own definition of criticism: a disinterested endeavour to learn and propagate the best that is known and thought in the world.
Matthew Arnold1822–1888The Functions of Criticism at the Present Time (1864)
When people grow wise in one direction, they are sure to make it easier for themselves to grow wise in other directions as well.
Isaac Asimov1920–1992The Roving Mind (1983), Ch. 25
- Wisdom
It is impossible to correct abuses unless we know that they’re going on.
Julian Assangeborn 1971Talk at the Oslo Freedom Forum (April 2010)
- Justice
Ignoring isn’t the same as ignorance, you have to work at it.
Margaret Atwoodborn 1939The Handmaid’s Tale (1985), Chapter 10 (p. 56)
Nothing has such power to broaden the mind as the ability to investigate systematically and truly all that comes under thy observation in life.
Marcus Aurelius121–180III, 11
- Thinking
Inspiration is a slender river of brightness leaping from a vast and eternal knowledge, it exceeds reason more perfectly than reason exceeds the knowledge of the senses.
Sri Aurobindo1872–1950Jnana
- Inspiration
There are two allied powers in man; knowledge and wisdom. Knowledge is so much of the truth seen in a distorted medium as the mind arrives at by groping, wisdom what the eye of divine vision sees in the spirit.
Sri Aurobindo1872–1950Jnana
- Wisdom
Where people wish to attach, they should always be ignorant. To come with a well-informed mind is to come with an inability of administering to the vanity of others, which a sensible person would always wish to avoid.
Jane Austen1775–1817Northanger Abbey (1817), Chapter 14In context
- Intelligence
Knowledge, that tendeth but to satisfaction, is but as a courtesan, which is for pleasure, and not for fruit or generation.
Francis Bacon1561–1626Valerius Terminus: Of the Interpretation of Nature (ca. 1603), in Works, Vol. 1, p. 83; The Works of Francis Bacon (1819), Vol. 2, p. 133