Quotes About Knowledge

I want to know everything; my curiosity is boundless

Philosophy is that activity by which the meaning of propositions is established or discovered; it is a question of what the propositions actually mean. The content, soul, and spirit of science naturally consist in what is ultimately meant by its sentences; the philosophical activity of rendering significant is thus the alpha and omega of all scientific knowledge. [Moritz Schlick interpreting Ludwig Wittgenstein's position]

He concluded one of his books with the words: "He seems to me a very foolish man and very wretched, who will not increase his understanding while he is in the world, and ever wish and long to reach that endless life where all shall be made clear.

Man's exile is ignorance; his home is knowledge," said the twelfth-century Bishop Honorius of Autun. And Saint Anselm of Canterbury: "I do not seek to understand that I may believe, but I believe that I may understand.

Logic may be conceived as ruling out what is absolutely impossible, and thus determining the field of what in the absence of empirical knowledge is abstractly possible.

Many remarkable advances in knowledge have resulted from our questioning the truth of propositions which we previously regarded as "self-evident." And a critical study of human beliefs reveals how much "interpretation" is present in what at first sight seems like "immediate knowledge.

See? Memories aren't happy, they're sad. Don't you know anything?

Your mummy and daddy love you very much,' she'd say. 'But people can't fry potatoes after they're dead. Don't you know anything?

A good expository paper will benefit far more people than most research papers. A good text is worth a thousand of the usual trifles that appear in research journals.

The feeling that one must be an authority in a subject to say anything about it is unfounded. We are all laymen outside the field of our own specialty,

Geometry . . . is the science that it hath pleased God hitherto to bestow on mankind. —THOMAS HOBBES

Because the knowledge of counting, adding, subtracting, and the like is regarded as a preparation for "life" we are taught it mechanically from early childhood. The practice takes precedence over the principles. No doubt this introduction to life is not especially cheering.

The distance between taking social action and having the knowledge is as wide as the mouth of the Mississippi.

The purpose of learning is growth, and our minds, unlike our bodies, can continue growing as we continue to live.

Reading is a basic tool in the living of a good life.

The person who says he knows what he thinks but cannot express it usually does not know what he thinks.

a good book can teach you about the world and about yourself. You learn more than how to read better; you also learn more about life. You become wiser. Not just more knowledgeable - books that provide nothing but information can produce that result. But wiser, in the sense that you are more deeply aware of the great and enduring truths of human life.

The great authors were great readers, and one way to understand them is to read the books they read.

Wonder is the beginning of wisdom in learning from books as well as from nature.

If a book is easy and fits nicely into all your language conventions and thought forms, then you probably will not grow much from reading it. It may be entertaining, but not enlarging to your understanding. It's the hard books that count. Raking is easy, but all you get is leaves; digging is hard, but you might find diamonds.

If you ask a living teacher a question, he will probably answer you. If you are puzzled by what he says, you can save yourself the trouble of thinking by asking him what he means. If, however, you ask a book a question, you must answer it yourself. In this respect a book is like nature or the world. When you question it, it answers you only to the extent that you do the work of thinking an analysis yourself.

The truly great books are the few books that are over everybody's head all of the time.

There have always been literate ignoramuses who have read too widely and not well. The Greeks had a name for such a mixture of learning and folly which might be applied to the bookish but poorly read of all ages. They are all sophomores .

You must accept the truth from whatever source it comes.