“[T]he devil has more knowledge than any of us, and yet is no better for it.”
J.C. Ryle (1816–1900) Anglican bishop
Vol. III, John XV: 22–27, p. 123
Expository Thoughts on the Gospels: St. John (1865–1873)
1920s, The Aims of Education (1929)
Context: For successful education there must always be a certain freshness in the knowledge dealt with. It must be either new in itself or invested with some novelty of application to the new world of new times. Knowledge does not keep any better than fish. You may be dealing with knowledge of the old species, with some old truth; but somehow it must come to the students, as it were, just drawn out of the sea and with the freshness of its immediate importance.
“[T]he devil has more knowledge than any of us, and yet is no better for it.”
J.C. Ryle (1816–1900) Anglican bishop
Vol. III, John XV: 22–27, p. 123
Expository Thoughts on the Gospels: St. John (1865–1873)
Josh Homme (1973) American musician
" Dazed & Confused Magazine | Josh Homme | Sept'10 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zf8MQqPIroc", Dazed & Confused Magazine (September 2010)
Toni Morrison (1931–2019) American writer
Nobel Prize Lecture (1993)
Context: Tongue-suicide is not only the choice of children. It is common among the infantile heads of state and power merchants whose evacuated language leaves them with no access to what is left of their human instincts for they speak only to those who obey, or in order to force obedience. The systematic looting of language can be recognized by the tendency of its users to forgo its nuanced, complex, mid-wifery properties for menace and subjugation. Oppressive language does more than represent violence; it is violence; does more than represent the limits of knowledge; it limits knowledge. Whether it is obscuring state language or the faux-language of mindless media; whether it is the proud but calcified language of the academy or the commodity driven language of science; whether it is the malign language of law-without-ethics, or language designed for the estrangement of minorities, hiding its racist plunder in its literary cheek — it must be rejected, altered and exposed. It is the language that drinks blood, laps vulnerabilities, tucks its fascist boots under crinolines of respectability and patriotism as it moves relentlessly toward the bottom line and the bottomed-out mind. Sexist language, racist language, theistic language — all are typical of the policing languages of mastery, and cannot, do not permit new knowledge or encourage the mutual exchange of ideas.
“Knowledge is a better weapon than a sword.”
Patricia Briggs (1965) American writer
Source: Raven's Shadow
Jacob Rees-Mogg (1969) British politician
In response to a question in the House of Commons about the fishing industry losing money due to Brexit red tape https://hansard.parliament.uk/Commons/2021-01-14/debates/329F59AC-D8A3-464D-AF4D-58C7EAA560C6/BusinessOfTheHouse#contribution-F5E677D7-58DE-4634-88A4-E97E2AA8F7E6 (14 January 2021) <br class="br">2021
“He who does not love his own language is worse than an animal and a smelly fish.”
José Rizal (1861–1896) Filipino writer, ophthalmologist, polyglot and nationalist
This has long been attributed to Rizal as part of a poem, titled Sa Aking Mga Kabata (To My Fellow Children), he wrote at the age of 8, as quoted in " Community Celebrates Rizal Day" in Asian Journal USA (31 December 2007) http://asianjournalusa.com/community-celebrates-rizal-day-p3868-95.htm, but this has become disputed as highly unlikely in "Did young Rizal really write poem for children?" by Ambeth R. Ocampo, in Philippine Daily Inquirer (22 August 22 2011) http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/45479/did-young-rizal-really-write-poem-for-children <br class="br">Disputed
“Keep your secrets
Keep your silence
It is a better gift than truth”
Anne Rice book The Queen of the Damned
Source: The Queen of the Damned
Carl Safina (1955) American biologist
[Scorched-Earth Fishing, Issues in Science and Technology, 14, 3, Spring 1998, 33–36, http://www.jstor.org/stable/43313863]
W. Douglas P. Hill (1884–1962) British Indologist
Source: The Bhagavadgītā (1973), p. 169–70. (12.)