Quotes About Knowledge

But shortcuts are dangerous; we cannot delude ourselves that our knowledge is further along than it actually is.

For better or for worse, at this time science is still the most trustworthy mirror of reality, and we ignore it only at our peril.

Few would argue that a simpler consciousness, no matter how harmonious, is preferable to a more complex one. While we might admire the serenity of the lion in repose, the tribesman's untroubled acceptance of his fate, or the child's wholehearted involvement in the present, they cannot offer a model for resolving our predicament. The order based on innocence is now beyond our grasp. Once the fruit is plucked from the tree of knowledge, the way back to Eden is barred forever.

Bertrand Russell, uno de los más grandes filósofos de nuestro siglo, describe cómo logró la felicidad personal: «gradualmente aprendí a ser indiferente a mi yo y mis deficiencias; centré mi atención cada vez más sobre los objetos externos: el estado del mundo, las diversas ramas del conocimiento, los individuos hacia quienes sentía afecto».

Bertrand Russell, one of the greatest philosophers of our century, described how he achieved personal happiness: "Gradually I learned to be indifferent to myself and my deficiencies; I came to center my attention increasingly upon external objects: the state of the world, various branches of knowledge, individuals for whom I felt affection." There could be no better short description of how to build for oneself an autotelic personality.

It is within each person's power to decide whether its order will be restored from the outside, in ways over which we have no control, or whether the order will be the result of an internal pattern that grows organically from our skills and knowledge.

Bertrand Russell, one of the greatest philosophers of our century, described how he achieved personal happiness: "Gradually I learned to be indifferent to myself and my deficiencies; I came to center my attention increasingly upon external objects: the state of the world, various branches of knowledge, individuals for whom I felt affection." There could be no better short description of how to build for oneself an autotelic personality.

Progress is relatively fast in fields that apply knowledge to the material world, such as physics or genetics. But it is painfully slow when knowledge is to be applied to modify our own habits and desires.

Each biblical parable, for instance, tries to encode the hard-won experience of many individuals over unknown eons of time.

A leading philosopher in our study maintains that if a young person wants to learn philosophy these days, he or she would be better advised to become immersed in the domain directly and avoid the field altogether: "I'd tell him to read the great books of philosophy. And I would tell him not to do graduate study at any university. I think all philosophy departments are no good. They are all terrible.

It also seems true that centers of creativity tend to be at the intersection of different cultures, where beliefs, lifestyles, and knowledge mingle and allow individuals to see new combinations of ideas with greater ease. In cultures that are uniform and rigid, it takes a greater investment of attention to achieve new ways of thinking. In other words, creativity is more likely in places where new ideas require less effort to be perceived.

Artists agree that a painter cannot make a creative contribution without looking, and looking, and looking at previous art, and without knowing what other artists and critics consider good and bad art. Writers say that you have to read, read, and read some more, and know what the critics' criteria for good writing are, before you can write creatively yourself.

Edison's or Einstein's discoveries would be inconceivable without the prior knowledge, without the intellectual and social network that stimulated their thinking, and without the social mechanisms that recognized and spread their innovations.

Tuhat kirjaa luettuaan ihminen alkaa aavistaa masentavan totuuden. Kymmenentuhatta kirjaa tekee hänet surulliseksi

My spirit welled up in its joy because I asked myself "why?" The dread key to all true knowledge is "why?

Now we can travel with more books stored in our telephones than the ancient Egyptians kept in their vast library at Alexandria.

Proverbs 2:4–5 challenges the body of Christ to seek the Lord as silver. We must gain the knowledge of Him, for there are hidden things that God will only give to the hungry.

Others admit that God may enjoy them on earth, but only if they are as spiritually mature as the apostle Paul. But the truth is that God will enjoy us while we mature. The knowledge of this is a vital key to turning sincere desire into spiritual maturity.

We must know the power of truth and experience the truth about power.

You could argue we are the most educated people who have ever lived. Why are we wrestling with this question, and why don't we have good answers for it? This is the question. How do we make disciples?

There seem to be three different ways that we learn, but unequivocally, we learn best when there is a dynamic interplay between all three at one time: 1) Classroom/Lecture passing on of information 2) Apprenticeship 3) Immersion

The hard reality is that immersion works only when people are actually fluent in something.

I was teaching introductory geology at Caltech for the first time. I'm not a geologist. I've never taken a single class in geology. If you gave me a handful of different types of rocks, chances are I could identify only a small number of them. I still get confused by the meanings of strike and dip. Luckily, most of my students didn't realize this.

But as I had learned earlier, the trick was not to figure out how not to be stupid, the trick was to be smart instead.