“A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. So is a lot.”

Misattributed

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Alexander Pope 158
eighteenth century English poet 1688–1744

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“A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. So is a lot.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

A variation on a quotation of Alexander Pope, attributed to Einstein in various recent sources, such as Marvin Minsky's The Emotion Machine (2006), p. 176 http://books.google.com/books?id=OqbMnWDKIJ4C&lpg=PP1&pg=PA176#v=onepage&q&f=false, and at the start of the 2006 pilot episode of the television series Eureka. The oldest published source located attributing this to Einstein is the 2004 book Strategic Investment: Real Options and Games by Han T. J. Smit and Lenos Trigeorgis, p. 429 http://books.google.com/books?id=pN41ZtNoqBEC&lpg=PP1&pg=PA429#v=onepage&q&f=false, and before that it was attributed to him on the internet, the earliest example found being this post from 19 May 1995 http://groups.google.com/group/bit.listserv.physhare/msg/ef186aec3bf66ba6. But long before that, the same quote appears in an advertisement for Encyclopaedia Britannica that ran in The Atlantic Monthly: Volume 216 from 1965, p. 139 http://books.google.com/books?id=TuMmAQAAIAAJ&q=%22so+is+a+lot%22#search_anchor. The ad mentioned Einstein but did not directly attribute the quote to him: "Encyclopaedia Britannica says: A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. So is a lot. The more you know, the more you need to know — as Albert Einstein, for one, might have told you. Great knowledge has a way of bringing with it great responsibility. The people who put the Encyclopaedia Britannica together feel the same way. After all, if most of the world had come to count on you as the best single source of complete, accurate, up-to-date information on everything, you'd want to be pretty sure you knew what you were talking about."
Misattributed

Terry Pratchett photo
Alfred Austin photo
Thomas Henry Huxley photo

“The saying that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing is, to my mind, a very dangerous adage.”

Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–1895) English biologist and comparative anatomist

"On Elementary Instruction in Physiology" (1877) http://aleph0.clarku.edu/huxley/CE3/ElPhys.html
1870s
Context: The saying that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing is, to my mind, a very dangerous adage. If knowledge is real and genuine, I do not believe that it is other than a very valuable possession, however infinitesimal its quantity may be. Indeed, if a little knowledge is dangerous, where is the man who has so much as to be out of danger?

Terry Pratchett photo
Darren Shan photo
Erik Naggum photo

“A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. I regret that this isn't fatal.”

Erik Naggum (1965–2009) Norwegian computer programmer

Re: unibyte http://groups.google.com/group/gnu.emacs.help/msg/d767a45084444a5a (Usenet article).
Usenet articles, Miscellaneous

Jack Vance photo
Spike Milligan photo

“A lot of learning can
be a little thing.”

Spike Milligan (1918–2002) British-Irish comedian, writer, musician, poet, playwright, soldier and actor

England Home and Beauty for Sale, Small Dreams of a Scorpion: Poems (1972)

Clifford D. Simak photo

“There was so much knowledge in the galaxy and he knew so little of it, understood so little of the little that he knew.”

Source: Way Station (1963), Ch. 11
Context: There was so much knowledge in the galaxy and he knew so little of it, understood so little of the little that he knew.
There were men on Earth who could make sense of it. Men who would give anything short of their very lives to know the little that he knew, and could put it all to use.
Out among the stars lay a massive body of knowledge, some of it an extension of what mankind knew, some of it concerning matters which Man had not yet suspected, and used in ways and for purposes that Man had not as yet imagined. And never might imagine, if left on his own.

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