Quotes About Knowledge

It was like living in a library, and that was where I had always been happiest.

The wider we read the freer we become.

The trouble with a book is that you never know what's in it until it's too late.' I thought to myself, 'Too late for what?

None can know the human mind. No, not if he read every thought man ever wrote. Every word written is like a child striking a flame against the darkness.

I was only good at one thing: words. I had read more, much more, than anybody else, and I knew how words worked in the way that some boys knew how engines worked.

We know the world by and through our bodies.

Most of us can only see the world we know.

en la escuela siempre

I nodded. He threw his paper at me. Here, keep up with the world, even if you don't want to join it.

The trouble with books is that you don't know what's in them 'till is too late

I libri sono per me una casa. I libri non fanno una casa, sono una casa, nel senso che, così come apri una porta, apri un libro e ci entri.

Le chiesi perchè non voleva libri in casa e lei rispose: Il guaio di un libro è che scopri cosa contiene solo quando è troppo tardi. Io pensai: Troppo tardi per cosa? Cominciai a leggere di nascosto [...] ogni volta che aprivo le pagine di un libro mi chiedevo se questa volta sarebbe stato troppo tardi: avrei dovuto un sorso fatale che mi avrebbe trasformato per sempre.

Boeken zijn werelden. Iemand die leest, heeft geen enkele moeite meerdere universums te accepteren.

there is no real advance in human reason, for what we gain in one direction we lose in another; for all minds start from the same point, and as the time spent in learning what others have thought is so much time lost in learning to think for ourselves, we have more acquired knowledge and less vigor of mind. Our minds like our arms are accustomed to use tools for everything, and to do nothing for themselves.

Among the many short cuts to science, we badly need someone to teach us the art of learning with difficulty.

If one divided all of human science into two parts - the one common to all men, the other particular to the learned - the latter would be quite small in comparison with the former. But we are hardly aware of what is generally attained, because it is attained without thought and even before the age of reason; because, moreover, learning is noticed only by its differences, and as in algebraic equations, common quantities count for nothing.

The wisest writers devote themselves to what a man ought to know, without asking what a child is capable of learning.

Généralement, les gens qui savant peu parlent becoup, et les gens qui savant beaucoup parlent peu.

La jeunesse est le temps d'étudier la sagesse; la vieillesse est le temps de la pratiquer.

if you study in order to instruct, and herbalize only to become author or professor, all its attractive charms vanish, and plants, being no longer considered but as instruments of our passions, no more real pleasure can result from the study of them. Our end, then, is not to gain knowledge, but to make others sensible of our acquirements;

How many centuries must have elapsed before men reached the point of seeing any other fire than that in the sky?

Even if philosophers were in a position to discover truth, who among them would be interested in it? Each knows well that his system is not better founded than the others; but he supports it because it is his.

It is by the activity of our passions, that our reason improves: we covet knowledge merely because we covet enjoyment, and it is impossible to conceive why a man exempt from fears and desires should take the trouble to reason.

Doubt with regard to what we ought to know is a condition too violent for the human mind; it cannot long be endured; in spite of itself the mind decides one way or another, and it prefers to be deceived rather than to believe nothing.