quotations about knowledge
Knowledge without follow-through is worse than no knowledge at all. because if you're guessing and it doesn't work out you can just say, shit, the gods are against me. but if you know and don't do, you've got attics and dark halls in your mind to walk up and down in and wonder about. this ain't healthy, leads to unpleasant evenings, too much to drink and the shredding machine.
CHARLES BUKOWSKI
Notes of a Dirty Old Man
The most that any of us know, is the least of that which is to be known.
BENJAMIN WHICHCOTE
Moral and Religious Aphorisms
To receive instruction and knowledge is as natural as to receive the light of the sun, if a man opens his eyes.
BENJAMIN WHICHCOTE
Moral and Religious Aphorisms
Religion has treated knowledge sometimes as an enemy, sometimes as a hostage; often as a captive, and more often as a child: but knowledge has become of age; and religion must either renounce her acquaintance, or introduce her as a companion and respect her as a friend.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON
Lacon
The real scholar learns how to evolve the unknown from the known, and draws near the master.
JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE
The Maxims and Reflections of Goethe
How dreadful knowledge of the truth can be when there's no help in truth!
SOPHOCLES
Oedipus Rex
What we know is built on what we do not know.
EDWARD COUNSEL
Maxims
A youth's knowledge is like a cheap shotgun--likely to do as much damage to the owner as to the game.
AUSTIN O'MALLEY
Keystones of Thought
Although humans have existed on this planet for perhaps 2 million years, the rapid climb to modern civilization within the last 200 years was possible due to the fact that the growth of scientific knowledge is exponential; that is, its rate of expansion is proportional to how much is already known. The more we know, the faster we can know more. For example, we have amassed more knowledge since World War II than all the knowledge amassed in our 2-million-year evolution on this planet. In fact, the amount of knowledge that our scientists gain doubles approximately every 10 to 20 years.
MICHIO KAKU
Hyperspace
The less we know, the longer the explanation.
BRIAN HERBERT & KEVEN J. ANDERSON
Dune: House Corrino
Knowledge is power. Power to do evil ... or power to do good. Power itself is not evil. So knowledge itself is not evil.
VERONICA ROTH
Allegiant
Knowledge acquired too rapidly and without being personally supplemented is never very productive.
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
The Reflections of Lichtenberg
Knowledge enormous makes a God of me.
JOHN KEATS
Hyperion
All types of knowledge, ultimately mean self knowledge.
BRUCE LEE
Bruce Lee: The Lost Interview, 1971
Knowledge will soon become folly, when good sense ceases to be its guardian.
WELLINS CALCOTT
Thoughts Moral and Divine
The one thing we do not know is the limit of the knowable.
JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU
Emile
Knowledge is an unending adventure at the edge of uncertainty.
FRANK HERBERT
Children of Dune
All I want is to know things. The black gulph of the infinite is before me ...
H. P. LOVECRAFT
letter to Frank Belknap, February 27, 1931
There is far greater peril in buying knowledge than in buying meat and drink: the one you purchase of the wholesale or retail dealer, and carry them away in other vessels, and before you receive them into the body as food, you may deposit them at home and call in any experienced friend who knows what is good to be eaten or drunken, and what not, and how much, and when; and hence the danger of purchasing them is not so great. But when you buy the wares of knowledge you cannot carry them away in another vessel; they have been sold to you, and you must take them into the soul and go your way, either greatly harmed or greatly benefited by the lesson.
PLATO
Protagoras
Nothing really known can continue to be acutely fascinating.
H. P. LOVECRAFT
letter to Clark Ashton Smith, November 7, 1930