“The study of truth requires a considerable effort - which is why few are willing to undertake it out of love of knowledge - despite the fact that God has implanted a natural appetite for such knowledge in the minds of men.”

—  Thomas Aquinas

Source: Summa Contra Gentiles

Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "The study of truth requires a considerable effort - which is why few are willing to undertake it out of love of knowled…" by Thomas Aquinas?
Thomas Aquinas photo
Thomas Aquinas104
Italian Dominican scholastic philosopher of the Roman Catho… 1225–1274

Related quotes

Erich Fromm photo

“Is love an art? Then it requires knowledge and effort.”

Erich Fromm (1900–1980) German social psychologist and psychoanalyst

Samuel Johnson photo

“A desire for knowledge is the natural feeling of mankind; and every human being, whose mind is not debauched, will be willing to give all he has to get knowledge.”

Samuel Johnson London

Dr. Johnson’s Table Talk (London: 1807), p. 64

Albert Einstein photo

“Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods.”

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

Essay to Leo Baeck (1953), The New Quotable Einstein.
1950s, Essay to Leo Baeck (1953)

Edmund Burke photo

“Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods."

[Preface to(1794)]”

Edmund Burke (1729–1797) Anglo-Irish statesman

Source: On Empire, Liberty, and Reform: Speeches and Letters

Swami Vivekananda photo

“Understanding human nature is the highest knowledge, and only by knowing it can we know God. It is also a fact that the knowledge of God is the highest knowledge, and only by knowing God can we understand human nature.”

Swami Vivekananda (1863–1902) Indian Hindu monk and phylosopher

Pearls of Wisdom

David O. McKay photo

“An Unsatisfied Appetite for Knowledge Means Progress and Is the State of a Normal Mind”

David O. McKay (1873–1970) President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

Title of Valedictorian address (1897)

Hamis Kiggundu photo

“Knowledge is information whereas wisdom is practically applied information towards actual prosperity in life. That's why most professors and teachers are poor despite the fact that they are the most knowledgeable in our societies.”

Hamis Kiggundu (1984) Ugandan business magnate, Internet entrepreneur, philanthropist, and author

Quoted from his first book https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Success_and_Failure_Based_on_Reason_and_Reality, "Success and Failure Based on Reason and Reality" https://www.amazon.co.uk/SUCCESS-FAILURE-BASED-REASON-REALITY/dp/9970983903/ on Amazon, P.34 (July 2018)

Julien Offray de La Mettrie photo

“It is not enough for a wise man to study nature and truth; he should dare state truth for the benefit of the few who are willing and able to think.”

Julien Offray de La Mettrie book Man a Machine

Man a Machine (1747), p. 85

William Stanley Jevons photo

“In a certain sense all knowledge is inductive. We can only learn the laws and relations of things in nature by observing those things. But the knowledge gained from the senses is knowledge only of particular facts, and we require some process of reasoning by which we may collect out of the facts the laws obeyed by them. Experience gives us the materials of knowledge: induction digests those materials, and yields us general knowledge. When we possess such knowledge, in the form of general propositions and natural laws, we can usefully apply the reverse process of deduction to ascertain the exact information required at any moment. In its ultimate foundation, then, all knowledge is inductive—in the sense that it is derived by a certain inductive reasoning from the facts of experience.”

William Stanley Jevons (1835–1882) English economist and logician

Source: The Principles of Science: A Treatise on Logic and Scientific Method (1874) Vol. 1, p. 14

Nikola Tesla photo

“But instinct is something which transcends knowledge. We have, undoubtedly, certain finer fibers that enable us to perceive truths when logical deduction, or any other willful effort of the brain, is futile.”

Nikola Tesla (1856–1943) Serbian American inventor

Source: My Inventions (1919)
Context: He declared that it could not be done and did me the honor of delivering a lecture on the subject, at the conclusion he remarked, "Mr. Tesla may accomplish great things, but he certainly will never do this. It would be equivalent to converting a steadily pulling force, like that of gravity into a rotary effort. It is a perpetual motion scheme, an impossible idea." But instinct is something which transcends knowledge. We have, undoubtedly, certain finer fibers that enable us to perceive truths when logical deduction, or any other willful effort of the brain, is futile.

Related topics