Quotes About Knowledge

Since at least the Sixth Century all librarians have received extensive combat training and are lethal with even the common toothpick.

Civilization is knowledge, even more than it is urbanization, for you cannot have the latter without the former. Everything builds on everything else. And the knowledge of civilization is kept in repositories known as...LIBRARIES, and if books burn, civilization burns with them.

When I see imposters like … Swinburne, [and] Fleay, who know as much early English as my dog, & who fancy they can settle Chaucer difficulties as they blow their noses, then I ridicule or kick them. But earnest students I treat with respect, & am only too glad to learn from them.

Figure 4: Illustration of the T-shaped

Once you have learned how to ask questions—relevant and appropriate and substantial questions—you have learned how to learn and no one can keep you from learning whatever you want or need to know. —NEIL POSTMAN AND CHARLES WEINGARTNER2

Whether one deems our present society wondrous or awful or both, history reveals how we arrived at this point. Understanding our past is central to our ability to understand ourselves and the world around us. We need to know our history, and according to sociologist C. Wright Mills, we know we do.8

Not understanding their past renders many Americans incapable of thinking effectively about our present and future.

People have a right to their own opinions, but not to their own facts. Evidence must be located, not created, and opinions not backed by evidence cannot be given much weight.

People have a right to their own opinions, but not to their own facts.

Old myths never die—they just become embedded in the textbooks. —THOMAS BAILEY

Indeed, history is the only field in which the more courses students take, the stupider they become.

The Truth can set us free.

history textbooks need to disabuse students of the flat-earth myth.

It would be better not to know so many things than to know so many things that are not so. -Josh Billings

Do not try to satisfy your vanity by teaching a great many things. Awaken people's curiosity. It is enough to open minds; do not overload them. —ANATOLE FRANCE

history is the only field in which the more courses students take, the stupider they become.

Surely, in history, "truth should be held sacred, at whatever cost.

Understanding our past is central to our ability to understand ourselves and the world around us.

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.15

Knowledge without wisdom is like water in the sand. ~ Guinean Proverb

Lack of knowledge is darker than night. ~ African Proverb

He, who learns, teaches. ~ Ethiopian Proverb

Wealth, if you use it, comes to an end; learning, if you use it, increases. ~ Swahili Proverb

What did classes matter when she knew everything taught in them? Not learning made her miserable. She decided that she was the crazy one, that she was too different. It was better to stop trying. She started getting C's on her report cards.