“How dangerous is the acquirement of knowledge and how much happier that man is who believes his native town to be the world, than he who aspires to be greater than his nature will allow.”

—  Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus

Source: Frankenstein

Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "How dangerous is the acquirement of knowledge and how much happier that man is who believes his native town to be the w…" by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley?
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley photo
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley94
English novelist, short story writer, dramatist, essayist, … 1797–1851

Related quotes

Bob Marley photo

“The greatness of a man is not in how much wealth he acquires, but in his integrity and his ability to affect those around him positively”

Bob Marley (1945–1981) Jamaican singer, songwriter, musician

“Only one who has learned much can fully appreciate his ignorance.
He knows well the limits of his knowledge and how much is waiting to be learned.”

Louis L'Amour (1908–1988) Novelist, short story writer

Source: Education of a Wandering Man (1989), Ch. 11

Arthur Schopenhauer photo

“What a man is contributes much more to his happiness than what he has or how he is regarded by others.”

Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860) German philosopher

Hasan al-Basri photo

“When a man sought knowledge, it would not be long before it could be seen in his humbleness, his sight, upon his tongue and his hands, in his prayer, in his speech and in his disinterest (zuhd) in worldly allurements. And a man would acquire a portion of knowledge and put it into practice, and it would be better for him than the world and all it contains – if he owned it he would give it in exchange for the hereafter.”

Hasan al-Basri (642–728) Iranian Sufi Saint

Quoted in Ibn Al-Mubârak, Al-Zuhd wa Al-Raqâ`iq Vol.1 p. 156.

“Yet the majestic philosophy-science-religion of the ages teaches us that there are beings so much greater and higher than man is, and beings so much smaller and less than he, that in reality he himself in turn stands in his world and cosmos as the one or the other of these extremes to such greater or smaller entities.”

Gottfried de Purucker (1874–1942) Author, Theosophist

Ch 2
Man in Evolution (1941)

Witter Bynner photo

“A man who knows how little he knows is well, a man who knows how much he knows is sick.”

Witter Bynner (1881–1968) American author

The Way of Life, According to Laotzu, 1944.

Murray Leinster photo

“Desolate and dreary as the little town was in the world of today, it was infinitely more liveable than the same town of nearly two centuries before. There had been much progress in how to do things. It was regrettable that there was less progress in knowledge of things worth doing.”

Murray Leinster (1896–1975) Novelist, short story writer

Source: Time Tunnel (1964), Chapter 5 (p. 59).

George Bernard Shaw photo

“The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one.”

George Bernard Shaw Androcles and the Lion

Preface, The importance of hell in the salvation scheme
Source: 1910s, Androcles and the Lion (1913)
Context: The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one. The happiness of credulity is a cheap and dangerous quality of happiness, and by no means a necessity of life.

Michel De Montaigne photo

“There is no knowledge so hard to acquire as the knowledge of how to live this life well and naturally.”

Michel De Montaigne (1533–1592) (1533-1592) French-Occitan author, humanistic philosopher, statesman

Andrew Jackson photo

“The brave man inattentive to his duty, is worth little more to his country, than the coward who deserts her in the hour of danger.”

Andrew Jackson (1767–1845) American general and politician, 7th president of the United States

To troops who had abandoned their lines during the Battle of New Orleans (8 January 1815).
1810s

Related topics