Quotes About Knowledge

She read books as one would breathe air, to fill up and live.

Eskimo: "If I did not know about God and sin, would I go to hell?" Priest: "No, not if you did not know." Eskimo: "Then why did you tell me?

Similarly, the impulse to keep to yourself what you have learned is not only shameful, it is destructive. Anything you do not give freely and abundantly becomes lost to you. You open your safe and find ashes.

He is careful of what he reads, for that is what he will write. He is careful of what he learns, for that is what he will know.

She read books as one would breathe air, to fill up and live. She read books as one would breathe ether, to sink in and die.

What makes a decision great is not that it has a great outcome. A great decision is the result of a good process, and that process must include an attempt to accurately represent our own state of knowledge. That state of knowledge, in turn, is some variation of "I'm not sure.

Truthseeking, the desire to know the truth regardless of whether the truth aligns with the beliefs we currently hold, is not naturally supported by the way we process information. We might think of ourselves as open-minded and capable of updating our beliefs based on new information, but the research conclusively shows otherwise. Instead of altering our beliefs to fit new information, we do the opposite, altering our interpretation of that information to fit our beliefs.

Experience can be an effective teacher. But, clearly, only some students listen to their teachers.

Here's a secret: All guesses are educated guesses because there is almost no estimate you could make about which you literally know nothing.

The actual outcome casts a shadow over your ability to remember what you knew at the time of the decision.

Memory creep is the reconstruction of your memory of what you knew that hindsight bias creates. MEMORY CREEP When what you know after the fact creeps into your memory of what you knew before the fact.

Be a data sharer. That's what experts do. In fact, that's one of the reasons experts become experts. They understand that sharing data is the best way to move toward accuracy because it extracts insight from your listeners of the highest fidelity.

A lot of experience can be an excellent teacher. A single experience, not so much.

Terms that express likelihoods mean very different things to different people. Using ambiguous terms can lead to confusion and miscommunication with people you want to engage for help. Being more precise, by expressing probabilities as percentages, makes it more likely you'll uncover information that can correct inaccuracies in your beliefs and broaden your knowledge.

The size of the range signals what you know and what you don't know. The larger the range, the less information or the lower the quality of the information informing your estimate, and the more you need to learn. Communicating the size of the range also signals to others that you need their knowledge and perspective to narrow the range.

The goal becomes fixed even as all the inputs that led to choosing that particular goal evolve. The conditions in the world change. Our knowledge changes. The weights we attach to the benefits and costs change. Our preferences and values change.

TED Talk, "The Pursuit of Ignorance.") In the book and the talk, Firestein

Hindsight bias adds to the ruckus caused by knowing the outcome, distorting your memory of what you knew at the time of the decision in two ways: You did know what was going to happen—swapping out your actual view at the time of the decision with a faulty memory of that view to conform to your postoutcome knowledge. You should (or could) have known what was going to happen—to the point of predictability or inevitability.

Memory creep is the reconstruction of your memory of what you knew that hindsight bias creates.

One cannot see the future of something learned.

Conviction profonde que le savoir et les bonnes manières étaient la marque d'une excellence intérieure, innée.

Je suis réduite aux initiales pour désigner celle qui m'apparaît maintenant comme la première des femmes qui se sont relayées auprès de moi, ces passeuses dont le savoir, les gestes et les décisions efficaces, m'ont fait traverser, au mieux, cette épreuve.

Ecrire pour faire advenir un peu de vérité. Mais que cette vérité ne soit pas advenue seulement pour une élite.

The most intense part of her life is the time she spends immersed in the books she has insatiably consumed ever since she learned to read.