Quotes About Knowledge

Men love to wonder, and that is the seed of our science...

Physics is the basic science. One can easily argue that all other sciences are specialized aspects of physics.

All science has one aim, namely, to find a theory of Nature.

Science is the record of dead religions.

He whose science exceedeth his sense, perisheth by his ignorance.

A dirty book is rarely dusty.

The barber learns to shave at the beards of fools.

Silence is a fence around wisdom.

You know you're a skydiver when you know what the lines mean on a weather map.

How marvelous books are, crossing worlds and centuries, defeating ignorance and, finally, cruel time itself.

Write what you know will always be excellent advice for those who ought not to write at all. Write what you think, what you imagine, what you suspect!

The search for truth is more precious than its possession.

Nicht die Wahrheit, in deren Besitz irgend ein Mensch ist oder zu sein vermeinet, sondern die aufrichtige Mühe, die er angewandt hat, hinter die Wahrheit zu kommen, macht den Wert des Menschen.

Der Blick, des Forschers fand nicht selten mehr, als er zu finden wünschte.

the roasted-paper smell of very old books, and the seared ink of photocopied pages.

Just coming out of your mother's womb does not make you a human being. - Just getting old doesn't make you wise.

Lissy always thought she knew everything.

Science and knowledge changed from year to year, but there had not been wanting those in every age who had found God by searching for Him with all their hearts, and by taking Him at His Word.

I finally understood that I didn't lack pen and paper but my own memorizing mind. It had been given away with a hundred poems, called rote learning, old-fashioned, backward, an enemy of creative thinking, a great human gift disowned.

My dear, no one knows the power of good sense. It hasn't been built up or experimented with sufficiently.

Despite no education, Mrs. Finn always is more in charge of word meanings than I am. She is especially in charge of Good and Bad. My language limitations here are real. My vocabulary is adequate for writing notes and keeping journals but absolutely useless for an active moral life. If I really knew this language, there would surely be in my head, as there is in Webster's or the Dictionary of American Slang, that unreducible verb designed to tell a person like me what to do next.

retrospective smartness

You write from what you know but you write into what you don't know.

If librarianship is the connecting of people to ideas – and I believe that is the truest definition of what we do – it is crucial to remember that we must keep and make available, not just good ideas and noble ideas, but bad ideas, silly ideas, and yes, even dangerous or wicked ideas.