“True wisdom consists in two things: Knowledge of God and Knowledge of Self.”
Book 1 Chapter 1, p. 44
Institutes of the Christian Religion (1536; 1559)
Context: Without knowledge of self there is no knowledge of God.
Our wisdom, in so far as it ought to be deemed true and solid Wisdom, consists almost entirely of two parts: the knowledge of God and of ourselves. But as these are connected together by many ties, it is not easy to determine which of the two precedes and gives birth to the other.
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John Calvin 161
French Protestant reformer 1509–1564Related quotes
“Self-knowledge is the only basis of true knowledge.”
“He has been told that knowledge is power, and knowledge consists of a great many small things.”
Source: Ideas have Consequences (1948), p. 13.
Context: In the popular arena, one can tell … that the average man … imagines that an industrious acquisition of particulars will render him a man of knowledge. With what pathetic trust does he recite his facts! He has been told that knowledge is power, and knowledge consists of a great many small things.
Source: Guide for the Perplexed (c. 1190), Part III, Ch.23
Context: The words of God are justified, as I will show, by the fact that Job abandoned his first very erroneous opinion, and himself proved that it was an error. It is the opinion which suggests itself as plausible at first thought, especially in the minds of those who meet with mishap, well knowing that they have not merited them through sins. This is admitted by all, and therefore this opinion was assigned to Job. But he is represented to hold this view only so long as he was without wisdom, and knew God only by tradition, in the same manner as religious people generally know Him. As soon as he had acquired a true knowledge of God, he confessed that there is undoubtedly true felicity in the knowledge of God; it is attained by all who acquire that knowledge, and no earthly trouble can disturb it. So long as Job's knowledge of God was based on tradition and communication, and not on research, he believed that such imaginary good as is possessed in health, riches, and children, was the utmost that men can attain; this was the reason why he was in perplexity, and why he uttered the... opinions, and this is also the meaning of his words: "I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear; but now mine eye seeth thee. Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent because of dust and ashes" (xlii. 5, 6); that is to say, he abhorred all that he had desired before, and that he was sorry that he had been in dust and ashes; comp. "and he sat down among the ashes" (ii. 8) On account of this last utterance, which implies true perception, it is said afterwards in reference to him, "for you have not spoken of me the thing that is right, as my servant Job hath."
“Information is not knowledge and knowledge is not wisdom.”
"One God One Religion - Brother Hamza Andreas Tzortzis" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-q-vmmLFat8, Youtube (April 16, 2018)
Source: The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood
“By enlarging your knowledge of things, you will find your knowledge of self is enlarged.”
“The Pochade Box”, p. 318
The Ivory and the Horn (1996)
Thoughts and Aphorisms (1913), Jnana
“Wisdom we know is the knowledge of good and evil not the strength to choose between the two.”
The Late Forties and the Fifties, 1956 entry.
The Journals of John Cheever (1991)
