Quotes About Knowledge

Fools say that they learn by experience. I prefer to profit by others' experience.

Events in life mean nothing if you do not reflect on them in a deep way, and ideas from books are pointless if they have no application to life as you live it.

The key then to attaining this higher level of intelligence is to make our years of study qualitatively rich. We don't simply absorb information - we internalize it and make it our own by finding some way to put this knowledge to practical use.

It is not much good being wise among fools and sane among lunatics.

If you come across any special trait of meanness or stupidity . . . you must be careful not to let it annoy or distress you, but to look upon it merely as an addition to your knowledge—a new fact to be considered in studying the character of humanity. Your attitude towards it will be that of the mineralogist who stumbles upon a very characteristic specimen of a mineral. —Arthur Schopenhauer

Learn to use the knowledge of the past and you will look like a genius, even when you are really just a clever borrower.

You are like a hunter: your knowledge of every detail of the forest and of the ecosystem as a whole will give you many more options for survival and success.

If you come across any special trait of meanness or stupidity … you must be careful not to let it annoy or distress you, but to look upon it merely as an addition to your knowledge—a new fact to be considered in studying the character of humanity. Your attitude towards it will be that of the mineralogist who stumbles upon a very characteristic specimen of a mineral. —Arthur Schopenhauer

Strategy] is more than a science: it is the application of knowledge to practical life, the development of thought capable of modifying the original guiding idea in the light of ever-changing situations; it is the art of acting under the pressure of the most difficult conditions. HELMUTH VON MOLTKE, 1800–1891

If you have the kind of intelligence and instinct that will point you in the right direction, playing the rebel will not be dangerous. But if you are mediocre ... you are better off learning from your predecessor's knowledge and experience, which are based on something real.

You must value learning above everything else.

Read more books than those who have a formal education, developing this into a lifelong habit.

I never read any treatises on strategy. . . . When we fight, we do not take any books with us. MAO TSE-TUNG, 1893–1976

Practical knowledge is the ultimate commodity, and is what will pay you dividends for decades to come—far more than the paltry increase in pay you might receive at some seemingly lucrative position that offers fewer learning opportunities

It is a great folly to hope that other men will harmonize with us; I have never hoped this. I have always regarded each man as an independent individual, whom I endeavored to understand with all his peculiarities, but from whom I desired no further sympathy. In this way have I been enabled to converse with every man, and thus alone is produced the knowledge of various characters and the dexterity necessary for the conduct of life. —JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE

Strategy] is more than a science: it is the application of knowledge to practical life, the development of thought capable of modifying the original guiding idea in the light of ever-changing situations; it is the art of acting under the pressure of the most difficult conditions.

What it hasn't got is not worth having, and what it doesn't know is not worth knowing.

Do not be defeated by the Feeling that there is too much for you to know. That is a myth of the oppressor. You are Capable of understanding life. And it is yours alone. And only this time.

What I want you to do for me is this: I want to understand certain things and tell them to others. To do it, I have to get them right, so they are hard to resist. Stay with me until I can do this. Afterwards, you can go where you want.

You cannot build a complete memory with a single memory tool any more than you can build a complete building with a single carpentry tool.

If to do were as easy as to know what were good to do, chapels had been churches, and poor men's cottages princes' palaces. PORTIA, IN The Merchant of Venice, I

It's not actually that hard to be an expert on Iran. You only need to know two phrases: I don't know and it depends.

Anything, I eventually learned, is preferable to war; but that knowledge is something every man must learn for himself—usually at considerable expense.

If it's really education you want for Nathan,' Buell said, 'have him read the papers, so he'll know what's going on in the world, and why. Teach him to be interested in everything he doesn't understand - interested enough to find out about it from books or people that aren't afraid to tell the truth.