The Quotable Sir John
“If we become increasingly humble about how little we know, we may be more eager to search.”
The Quotable Sir John
Variant: If we become increasingly humble about how little we know, we may be more eager to search.
Help us to complete the source, original and additional information
John Marks Templeton 22
stock investor, businessman and philanthropist 1912–2008Related quotes
Preface (1982), p. xv.
Europe and the People Without History, 1982
Testimony in The Public Television Act of 1967 : Hearings Before the Subcommittee on Communications, by the United States Congress, p. 167
Context: Our society is changing so rapidly that none of us can know what it is or where it is going. All of us who are mature feel that there are historic principles of behavior and morality, of things that we all believe in that are being lost, not because young people couldn't believe in them, but because there is no language for translating them into contemporary terms.
The search for that language, the search for the ways to tell young people what we know as we grow older — the permanent and wonderful things about life — will be one of the great functions of this system. We are losing this generation. We all know that. We need a way to get them back.

In Search of a Better World (1984)
Context: There are uncertain truths — even true statements that we may take to be false — but there are no uncertain certainties.
Since we can never know anything for sure, it is simply not worth searching for certainty; but it is well worth searching for truth; and we do this chiefly by searching for mistakes, so that we have to correct them.

TV Series and Specials (Includes DVDs), Trick of the Mind (2004–2006)

Homilies on the Gospel of Saint John http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf114.iv.xxiii.html, Homily XXI
"The Truth" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7sB0yvjSwpw (27 January 2008)

“We are nothing; what we search for is everything.”
Wir sind nichts; was wir suchen, ist alles.
Fragment von Hyperion, aus: Neue Thalia, Vierter Band, Hrsg. Friedrich Schiller, Georg Joachim Göschen, Leipzig 1793, S. 220
Original: Wir sind nichts; was wir suchen, ist alles. - Fragment von Hyperion, aus: Neue Thalia, Vierter Band, Hrsg. Friedrich Schiller, Georg Joachim Göschen, Leipzig 1793, S. 220

Source: "AP Interview: Yanukovych admits mistakes on Crimea" in Associated Press https://apnews.com/article/8b795952e78a47a3beff026800eb508a (2 April 2014)