Maxim no .1.
The Maxims of Ptahhotep (c. 2350 BCE)
Context: Do not be arrogant because of your knowledge, but confer with the ignorant man as with the learned. For knowledge has no limits, and none has yet achieved perfection in it. Good speech is more hidden than malachite, yet it is found in the possession of women slaves at the millstones.
Source: Education of a Wandering Man (1989), Ch. 11
“Only on paper has humanity yet achieved glory, beauty, truth, knowledge, virtue, and abiding love.”
“The man who realizes his ignorance has taken the first step toward knowledge.”
The Rosicrucian Cosmo-Conception (1909) Introduction
Variant translation: The more we learn about the world, and the deeper our learning, the more conscious, clear, and well-defined will be our knowledge of what we do not know, our knowledge of our ignorance. The main source of our ignorance lies in the fact that our knowledge can only be finite, while our ignorance must necessarily be infinite.
Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge (1963)
Context: The more we learn about the world, and the deeper our learning, the more conscious, specific, and articulate will be our knowledge of what we do not know, our knowledge of our ignorance. For this, indeed, is the main source of our ignorance — the fact that our knowledge can be only finite, while our ignorance must necessarily be infinite.
“The conquest of learning is achieved through the knowledge of languages.”
Source: The Opus Majus of Roger Bacon - Volume 1
Source: Siddhartha (1922), p. 29
Variant translation: I am beginning to believe that this knowledge has no worse enemy than the desire to know learning.
“Live and act within the limit of your knowledge and keep expanding it to the limit of your life.”
Source: Atlas Shrugged
