Quotes About Knowledge

In short, we can only learn from our betters.

The possession of the truth is the highest goal of the human mind.

Reading well, which means reading actively, is thus not only a good in itself, nor is it merely a means to advancement in our work or career. It also serves to keep our minds alive and growing.

Perhaps we know more about the world than we used to, and insofar as knowledge is prerequisite to understanding, that is all to the good. But knowledge is not as much a prerequisite to understanding as is commonly supposed. We do not have to know everything about something in order to understand it; too many facts are often as much of an obstacle to understanding as too few. There is a sense in which we moderns are inundated with facts to the detriment of understanding.

As Thomas Hobbes said, "If I read as many books as most men do, I would be as dull-witted as they are.

The mind can atrophy, like the muscles, if it is not used.

The beauty of any work of art is related to the pleasure it gives us when we know it well.

In tackling a difficult book for the first time, read it through without ever stopping to look up or ponder the things you do not understand right away.

A mind not agitated by good questions cannot appreciate the significance of even the best answers. It is easy enough to learn the answers. But to develop actively inquisitive minds, alive with real questions, profound questions—that is another story.

The man who knew an encyclopedia by heart would be in grave danger of incurring the title idiot savant—"learned fool.

É um erro acreditar que ler muito e ler bem são a mesma coisa.

Reading and the Democratic Ideal of Education

If you are reading a book that can increase your understanding, it stands to reason that not all of its words will be completely intelligible to you. If you proceed as if they were all ordinary words, all on the same level of general intelligibility as the words of a newspaper article, you will make no headway toward interpretation of the book. You might just as well be reading a newspaper, for the book cannot enlighten you if you do not try to understand it.

But it may be seriously questioned whether the advent of modern communications media has much enhanced our understanding of the world

The halls of academia are like the halls of a madhouse at midnight.

It is wasteful to read a book slowly that deserves only a fast reading; speed reading skills can help you solve that problem.

Theoretical books teach you that something is the case. Practical books teach you how to do something you want to do or think you should do.

a arte de ler é a técnica de apanhar qualquer tipo de comunicação.

If you read for understanding, reading for information will usually take care of itself.

We must become a nation of truly competent readers, recognizing all that the word competent implies.

Anyone who fails to consult the explanatory notes and the list of abbreviations at the beginning of a dictionary has only himself to blame if he is not able to use it well.

Analytical reading is preeminently for the sake of understanding

At various times in the history of education, a distinction has been made between learning through instruction and learning through discovery.

Informar-se é simplesmente saber que algo é um fato. Esclarecer-se é saber, além de que algo é um fato, do que se trata esse fato: por que ele é assim, quais as conexões que possui com outros fatos, em quais aspectos são iguais, em quais aspectos são diferentes etc.