Quotes About Knowledge

Some people have difficulty telling the difference between something great and something they've simply heard of.

Memoirs give the knowledge about the author and his environment. They are different from biography. Memoirs do not get ahead, and the man who writes a biography looks at his future like at a very simple thing.

some people have difficulty telling the difference between something great and something they've simply heard of.

The prerequisite of originality is the art of forgetting, at the proper moment, what we know.

Scientists are peeping toms at the keyhole of eternity.

Comic discovery is paradox stated-scientific discovery is paradox resolved.

The distance between the library and the bedroom is astronomical

The ultimate truth is penultimately always a falsehood. He who will be proved right in the end appears to be wrong and harmful before it.

Theoretical physics is no longer concerned with things, but with the mathematical relations between abstractions which are the residue of the vanished things.

Without the hard little bits of marble which are called 'facts' or 'data' one cannot compose a mosaic; what matters, however, are not so much of the individual bits, but the successive patterns into which you arrange them, then break them up and rearrange them.

The philosophy of nature evolved by occasional leaps and bounds alternating with delusional pursuits, culs-de-sac, regressions, periods of blindness, and amnesia. The great discoveries which determined its course were sometimes the unexpected by-products of a chase after quite different hares. At other times, the process of discovery consisted merely in the cleaning away of the rubbish that blocked the path, or in the rearranging of existing items of knowledge in a different pattern.

Noi toÈ›i am crezut c? istoria ar putea fi tratat? ca o experien?? de fizic?. Deosebirea este c? în fizic? poÈ›i repeta o experien?? de o mie de ori, dar în istorie o singur? dat?.[...] - ?i acum ce s? facem? întreb? Ivanov. S? st?m cu mâinile încruciÈ™ate pentru c? urm?rile unei acÈ›iuni nu pot fi pe deplin prev?zute È™i de aici rezult? c? orice acÈ›iune este d?un?toare?

We are indeed a blind race,' wrote a contemporary scientist, 'and the next generation, blind to its own blindness, will be amazed at ours.

HALE, with a tasty love of intellectual pursuit

Matthew Thatcher, in his first year at the hall, had drawn and written guides for the cooks and boys, so that all the baron's people were, with much effort, brought up to the level of knowledge equal to that of a juvenile squirrel.

Buying books would be a good thing if one could also buy the time to read them; but as a rule the purchase of books is mistaken for the appropriation of their contents.

Reading is thinking with someone else's head instead of ones own.

The more unintelligent a man is, the less mysterious existence seems to him.

Truth is no harlot who throws her arms round the neck of him who does not desire her; on the contrary, she is so coy a beauty that even the man who sacrifices everything to her can still not be certain of her favors.

To free a man from error is to give, not to take away. Knowledge that a thing is false is a truth. Error always does harm; sooner or later it will bring mischief to the man who harbors it.

Whatever torch we kindle, and whatever space it may illuminate, our horizon will always remain encircled by the depth of night.

What give all that is tragic, whatever its form, the characteristic of the sublime, is the first inkling of the knowledge that the world and life can give no satisfaction, and are not worth our investment in them. The tragic spirit consists in this. Accordingly it leads to resignation.

Scholars are those who have read in books, but thinkers, men of genius, world-enlighteners, and reformers of the human race are those who have read directly in the book of the world.

Students and scholars of all kinds and of every age aim, as a rule, only at information, not insight. They make it a point of honour to have information about everything, every stone, plant, battle, or experiment and about all books, collectively and individually. It never occurs to them that information is merely a means to insight, but in itself is of little or no value.