Quotes About Knowledge

Keep developing your expertise; it sets you apart.

The past is what's written down. It is very quiet; only people who can write make any sound at all.

For having lived long, I have experienced many instances of being obliged by better information, or fuller consideration, to change opinions even on important subjects, which I once thought right, but found to be otherwise.

The only way to answer the question "Are things getting better or are they getting worse?" is to discover whether modern man knows more or is wiser than his ancestors, Weaver argued. And his answer to this question was no. With the scientific revolution, "facts"—particular explanations for how the world works—had replaced "truth"—a general understanding of the meaning of its existence.

TO WRITE SOMETHING down doesn't make it true. But the history of truth is lashed to the history of writing like a mast to a sail.

was doomed to fall short, because of the gap between facts and truth.

Can literacy destroy?

To study the past is to unlock the prison of the present.

No woman can be gotten with child without some knowledg, consent and delight in the acting thereof." Charles J. Hoadly, ed., Records of the Colony or Jurisdiction of New Haven, From May, 1653, to the Union (Hartford: Case, Lockwood, 1858), 123;

It certainly wasn't the chronicle of a king. The yere of our Lord 1537 was a prince born to king Harry th'eight. It was, instead, the story of a poor boy who learns to read and comes to know as much of politics as a prince. This

Study hard, little one. For if you can read, you can slip into the pages of a book and escape into your mind.

It's frustrating when you know all the answers, but nobody bothers to ask you the questions.

When it comes to religion, no one knows anything, especially those who claim to know best.

The trustworthiness of science comes not from certainty, but from its very openness about its uncertainty, always calling into question what we currently understand and being prepared to replace that knowledge with a deeper understanding if something better comes along. In other walks of life, this attitude might be regarded as fickle. But not in science. Scientific progress depends on scientists' unwavering commitment to the qualities of honesty and doubt.

In fact, for a period stretching over seven hundred years, the international language of science was Arabic. For this was the language of the Qur'an, the holy book of Islam, and thus the official language of the vast Islamic Empire that, by the early eighth century CE, stretched from India to Spain.

His (Islamic astronomer al-Farghani) legacy also endures through the Italian writer and poet Dante (1265-1321), who derived most of the astronomical knowledge he included in his DIVINE COMEDY from the writings of al-Farghani (whom he referred to by his Latin name, Alfraganus).

By thinking about what we don't yet know, we can think about how we can best find out. It is the many questions we have asked over the course of our human history that have given us an ever-more-accurate picture of the world we know and love.

Jim Al-Khalili

Okay, Dumb Diary, school has taught me a few things over the years. Once, it taught me the difference between alligators and crocodiles. (Even alligators and crocodiles don't really care. Just avoid both.)

The fact is that if the Christian home, church, and school have done their job well and the student has learned well, he may be one of the few on the earth who understand the real world.

I could no longer pull wands, potions, and light sabers out of books, but when it came to research, give me a well-stocked library and I was a goddamned Merlin.

Librarians: Kicking Ignorance in the Balls for Over 4000 Years

We can know what was, but not what might have been.

That way you are protected with adequate information in case something unexpected comes up.