Quotes about knowledge (4544 quotes) | Quotes of famous people

“Without underestimating the virtues of technical, specialized and necessary education, we cannot accept an education that eliminates the other dimension of human knowledge, that which motivates us to be more cultured, more human, deeper, more emotional.”

José Baroja (1983) Chilean author and editor

Source: Perú Informa. Interview. https://www.peruinforma.com/entrevista-cultural-al-escritor-chileno-jose-baroja/

Motivation , Education

“If we focus only on making money, people's knowledge will be reduced until we become experts in our subject, but ignorant about human beings.”

José Baroja (1983) Chilean author and editor

Source: https://www.peruinforma.com/entrevista-cultural-al-escritor-chileno-jose-baroja/

Money , People

“Why walk with half measures, animals know much more than people, above all because they feel more freely than most of these and, therefore, as Kafka says, they are possessors of all the knowledge about this life. They are just too humble to show it off.”

José Baroja (1983) Chilean author and editor

Original: Para qué andar con medias tintas, los animales saben mucho más que las personas, ante todo porque sienten con más libertad que la mayoría de estas y, por ello, como dice Kafka, son poseedores de todo el conocimiento acerca de esta vida. Solo que son muy humildes para hacer gala de ello.
Source: Baroja, José. (2020). "Orfeo". En El lado oscuro de la sombra y otros ladridos. Lima: Ediquid, ISBN:978-980-7641-67-8; p. 40.

People , Animals , Life , Feeling

“To achieve this, we have to distinctively promote continuing and lifelong education, the form of education which is responsive to individual needs and preferences. With educational facilities and a variety of educational programs available, people can make use of the learning centre as a place to acquire technical skills or knowledge adaptive to their work and daily life activities.”

Sukavich Rangsitpol (1935) Thai politician

http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0012/001221/122102Eo.pdf Page53-56
Education for All People and Education for Life

Life , People , Education , Learning

“Education is simply the act of gaining knowledge. Nothing to do with school.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

School , Education

“I can fight only for something that I love. I can love only what I respect. And in order to respect a thing I must at least have some knowledge of it.”

Adolf Hitler book Mein Kampf

Variant: And I can fight only for something that I love, love only what I respect, and respect only what I at least know.
Source: Mein Kampf

Love , Fight

“Instead of buying your children all the things you never had, you should teach them all the things you were never taught. Material wears out but knowledge stays.”

Bruce Lee (1940–1973) Hong Kong-American actor, martial artist, philosopher and filmmaker

Children

“My brain is only a receiver. In the universe there is a core from which we obtain knowledge, strength, inspiration. I have not penetrated into the secrets of this core, but I know that it exists.”

Nikola Tesla (1856–1943) Serbian American inventor

Secret , Universe

“Both individuals and communities must be able to possess the skills and knowledge required to function productively in the changing world.”

Sukavich Rangsitpol (1935) Thai politician

Education helps reduce social problems and improves quality of life

World , Change , Communication

“The sin which is unpardonable is knowingly and wilfully to reject truth, to fear knowledge lest that knowledge pander not to thy prejudices.”

Aleister Crowley (1875–1947) poet, mountaineer, occultist

Source: Magick: Liber ABA: Book 4

Truth , Fear

“Knowledge is a desire that comes after acquiring power. The first type of desire is love, then wealth, health, power and knowledge.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Wealth , Health , Love

“Ere long intelligence—transmitted without wires—will throb through the earth like a pulse through a living organism. The wonder is that, with the present state of knowledge and the experiences gained, no attempt is being made to disturb the electrostatic or magnetic condition of the earth, and transmit, if nothing else, intelligence.”

Nikola Tesla (1856–1943) Serbian American inventor

Electrical Engineer, (24 Jun 1892), 11‎, 609.

Intelligence

“Now it is established in the sciences that no knowledge is acquired save through the study of its causes and beginnings, if it has had causes and beginnings; nor completed except by knowledge of its accidents and accompanying essentials.”

Avicenna (980–1037) medieval Persian polymath, physician, and philosopher

"On Medicine, (c. 1020) http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/1020Avicenna-Medicine.html
Context: The knowledge of anything, since all things have causes, is not acquired or complete unless it is known by its causes. Therefore in medicine we ought to know the causes of sickness and health. And because health and sickness and their causes are sometimes manifest, and sometimes hidden and not to be comprehended except by the study of symptoms, we must also study the symptoms of health and disease. Now it is established in the sciences that no knowledge is acquired save through the study of its causes and beginnings, if it has had causes and beginnings; nor completed except by knowledge of its accidents and accompanying essentials. Of these causes there are four kinds: material, efficient, formal, and final.

Study , Science

“To acquire knowledge, one must study; but to acquire wisdom, one must observe.”

Marilyn vos Savant (1946) US American magazine columnist, author and lecturer

As quoted in Courage: the heart and spirit of every woman : reclaiming the forgotten virtue (2001) by Sandra Ford Walston

Wisdom , Study

“Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?
Where is the knowledge we have lost in infomation?”

T.S. Eliot (1888–1965) 20th century English author

Choruses from The Rock (1934)
Variant: Where is the Life we have lost in living?
Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?
Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?
Context: O perpetual revolution of configured stars,
O perpetual recurrence of determined seasons,
O world of spring and autumn, birth and dying!
The endless cycle of idea and action,
Endless invention, endless experiment,
Brings knowledge of motion, but not of stillness;
Knowledge of speech, but not of silence;
Knowledge of words, and ignorance of The Word.
All our knowledge brings us nearer to our ignorance,
All our ignorance brings us nearer to death,
But nearness to death no nearer to God.
Where is the Life we have lost in living?
Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?
Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?
The cycles of Heaven in twenty centuries
Brings us farther from God and nearer to the Dust.

Wisdom

“The secret of sound education is to get each pupil to learn for himself, instead of instructing him by driving knowledge into him on a stereotyped system.”

Robert Baden-Powell (1857–1941) lieutenant-general in the British Army, writer, founder and Chief Scout of the Scout Movement

The Scouter http://www.thedump.scoutscan.com/outlook.html (January, 1912)

Secret , Education , Learning

“Information is not knowledge. Knowledge is not wisdom. Wisdom is not truth. Truth is not beauty. Beauty is not love. Love is not music. Music is the best…”

Frank Zappa (1940–1993) American musician, songwriter, composer, and record and film producer

"Packard Goose"
"Joe's Garage Acts II & III" (1979)
Variant: Information is not knowledge. Knowledge is not wisdom. Wisdom is not truth. Truth is not beauty. Beauty is not love. Love is not music. Music is the best.

Love , Wisdom , Truth , Beauty

“Mistakes are, after all, the foundations of truth, and if a man does not know what a thing is, it is at least an increase in knowledge if he knows what it is not.”

C.G. Jung (1875–1961) Swiss psychiatrist and psychotherapist who founded analytical psychology

Truth

“Never mistake knowledge for wisdom. One helps you make a living; the other helps you make a life.”

Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962) American politician, diplomat, and activist, and First Lady of the United States

Wise , Life , Wisdom , Help

“As there are misanthropists, or haters of men, there are also misologists or haters of ideas, and both spring from the same cause, which is ignorance of the world. Misanthropy arises from too great confidence of inexperience; you trust a man and think him altogether true and good and faithful, and then in a little while he turns out to be false and knavish; and then another and another, and when this has happened several times to a man, especially within the circle of his most trusted friends, as he deems them, and he has often quarreled with them, he at last hates all men, and believes that no one has any good in him at all. …The reason is that a man, having to deal with other men, has no knowledge of them; for if he had knowledge he would have known the true state of the case, that few are the good and few the evil, and that the great majority are in the interval between them.”

Socrates (-470–-399 BC) classical Greek Athenian philosopher

Plato, Phaedo

Men , Hate , World , Faith

“The farther men get from God, the farther they advance into the knowledge of religions.”

Emil M. Cioran book The Trouble With Being Born

The Trouble With Being Born (1973)

Men , God , Religion

“He is the master who, after reaching the furthest shores and plumbing the inmost depths of the sea of ultimate knowledge of mathematics, kinematics and spherics, handed over the three sciences to the learned world.”

Aryabhata (476–550) Indian mathematician-astronomer

Bhaskara I, quoted in: J J O'Connor and E F Robertson "Aryabhata the Elder".

Sea , Learning , Mathematics , World

“Wisdom is a perfection of knowledge acquired through experience.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Perfection , Wisdom

“So many people are most miserable these days.
The reason they find it so difficult to be happy is that they always view the past to be better than it was, the present dramatically worse than it is, and the future less resolute than it will be.
The idea of happiness is foreign to them.
Is this not something that is innate because babies are born with
"tabula rasa" which refers to the epistemological idea that individuals are born without built-in mental content and that therefore all knowledge comes from experience or perception. However I don't disagree with the doctrine of Innatism which holds that the mind is born already in possession of certain knowledge.
A smile, for instance is natural and innate!
So it is a combination of the two schools of thought.”

Stephie Pahlavi Zan

Baby , Idea , Nature , Happiness

“Not ignorance, but ignorance of ignorance is the death of knowledge.”

Alfred North Whitehead (1861–1947) English mathematician and philosopher

Death

“Music is the one incorporeal entrance into the higher world of knowledge which comprehends mankind but which mankind cannot comprehend.”

Ludwig Van Beethoven (1770–1827) German Romantic composer

As reported by Elizabeth Brentano (Bettina) in a letter to Goethe, 27 May 1810.
Quoted in Edwin Burgum The new criticism (1930), p. 179

World , Music

“We now live in a nation where doctors destroy health, lawyers destroy justice, universities destroy knowledge, governments destroy freedom, the press destroys information, religion destroys morals, and our banks destroy the economy.”

Chris Hedges (1956) American journalist

Health , Religion , Justice , Freedom

“If the government is covering up knowledge of aliens, they are doing a better job of it than they do at anything else.”

Stephen Hawking (1942–2018) British theoretical physicist, cosmologist, and author

“The eye with which I see God is the same with which God sees me. My eye and God's eye is one eye, and one sight, and one knowledge, and one love.”

Meister Eckhart (1260–1328) German theologian

Sermon IV : True Hearing
Meister Eckhart’s Sermons (1909)
Context: The man who abides in the will of God wills nothing else than what God is, and what He wills. If he were ill he would not wish to be well. If he really abides in God's will, all pain is to him a joy, all complication, simple: yea, even the pains of hell would be a joy to him. He is free and gone out from himself, and from all that he receives, he must be free. If my eye is to discern colour, it must itself be free from all colour. The eye with which I see God is the same with which God sees me. My eye and God's eye is one eye, and one sight, and one knowledge, and one love.

Love , God

“Dr. Watson's summary list of Sherlock Holmes's strengths and weaknesses:

"1. Knowledge of Literature: Nil.
2. Knowledge of Philosophy: Nil.
3. Knowledge of Astronomy: Nil.
4. Knowledge of Politics: Feeble.
5. Knowledge of Botany: Variable. Well up in belladonna, opium, and poisons generally. Knows nothing of practical gardening.
6. Knowledge of Geology: Practical but limited. Tells at a glance different soils from each other. After walks has shown me splashes upon his trousers, and told me by their colour and consistence in what part of London he had received them.
7. Knowledge of Chemistry: Profound.
8. Knowledge of Anatomy: Accurate but unsystematic.
9. Knowledge of Sensational Literature: Immense. He appears to know every detail of every horror perpetrated in the century.
10. Plays the violin well.
11. Is an expert singlestick player, boxer, and swordsman.
12. Has a good practical knowledge of British law.”

Arthur Conan Doyle book A Study in Scarlet

Source: A Study in Scarlet

Law , Literature , Appearance , Parting

“HUMAN BEINGS MAKE LIFE SO INTERESTING. DO YOU KNOW, THAT IN A UNIVERSE SO FULL OF WONDERS, THEY HAVE MANAGED TO INVENT BOREDOM. (Death)”

Terry Pratchett book Hogfather

Source: Hogfather

Life , Death , Universe

“Nothing is better than reading and gaining more and more knowledge.”

Stephen Hawking (1942–2018) British theoretical physicist, cosmologist, and author

Reading

“One who does not use his intelligence will not succeed and one who does not use his knowledge will have no intellect. One who understands will attain nobility and excellence, and one who is tolerant will triumph. Knowledge is a shield (against evil), truth begets honour and ignorance disgrace, understanding is distinction, generosity is salvation and good manners command love and respect.”

Ja'far al-Sadiq (702–765) Muslim religious person

Muhammad Kulayni, Usūl al-Kāfī - The Book of Intellect and Ignorance.
Regarding Knowledge & Wisdom, General

Love , Truth , Intelligence , Understanding

“Sriman Narayana is the Lord of the universe, and the creation, destruction, sustainanance, control, etc., are according to his wish. He is the one called Brahma in the vedas and HE is full of knowledge, bliss, and power”

Madhvacharya (1199–1278) Hindu philosopher who founded Dvaita Vedanta school

strength
Ya, Hindu Online

Universe

“The aim of a student’s life should be to overcome any illusions or prejudices he may have and to give up mean habits. He should, and it is his duty to, propagate education among his illiterate brothers and to consider the propagation of education as part of his own education. He ought to acquire knowledge for the sake of knowledge and he should not be unaware of the needs of life.”

Zakir Hussain (politician) (1897–1969) 3rd President of India

In his first school essay, while in Class VIII, expressing his ideas and ideals, in: p. 28.
Quest for Truth (1999)

Life , Education , Parting

“Before God and as an honest man I tell you that your son is the greatest composer known to me either in person or by name: He has taste, and, furthermore, the most profound knowledge of composition.”

Joseph Haydn (1732–1809) Austrian composer

Ich sage ihnen vor Gott, als ein ehrlicher Mann, ihr Sohn ist der größte Componist, den ich von Person und den Nahmen nach kenne: er hat geschmack, und über das die größte Compositionswissenschaft.
Quoted in a letter from Leopold Mozart to Maria Anna Mozart (1785-02-16)

God , Personality

“Mighty is he who has knowledge”

Ferdowsi (940–1020) Persian poet

Variant translation: One who has wisdom is powerful

“You, Socrates, began by saying that virtue can't be taught, and now you are insisting on the opposite, trying to show that all things are knowledge, justice, soundness of mind, even courage, from which it would follow that virtue most certainly can be taught.”

Protagoras (-486–-411 BC) pre-Socratic Greek philosopher

As quoted in Protagoras by Plato

Justice , Courage

“Mathematics is the gate and key of the sciences. … Neglect of mathematics works injury to all knowledge, since he who is ignorant of it cannot know the other sciences or the things of this world. And what is worse, men who are thus Ignorant are unable to perceive their own ignorance and so do not seek a remedy.”

Roger Bacon book Opus Majus

cited in: Morris Kline (1969) Mathematics and the physical world. p. 1
Opus Majus, c. 1267

Men , World , Mathematics , Science

“The knowledge of anything, since all things have causes, is not acquired or complete unless it is known by its causes.”

Avicenna (980–1037) medieval Persian polymath, physician, and philosopher

"On Medicine, (c. 1020) http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/1020Avicenna-Medicine.html
Context: The knowledge of anything, since all things have causes, is not acquired or complete unless it is known by its causes. Therefore in medicine we ought to know the causes of sickness and health. And because health and sickness and their causes are sometimes manifest, and sometimes hidden and not to be comprehended except by the study of symptoms, we must also study the symptoms of health and disease. Now it is established in the sciences that no knowledge is acquired save through the study of its causes and beginnings, if it has had causes and beginnings; nor completed except by knowledge of its accidents and accompanying essentials. Of these causes there are four kinds: material, efficient, formal, and final.

“Gaining the sense of immortality or eternal life will make you appear like a god, prophet or saint before those who lack self-knowledge.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

God , Appearance , Sense , Life

“We must consider that wisdom is embedded in knowledge. Here is the list of the desires in order: Love, wealth, health, power and knowledge.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Wealth , Health , Love , Wisdom

“… Granny Weatherwax, who had walked nightly without fear in the bandit-haunted forests of the mountains all her life in the certain knowledge that the darkness held nothing more terrible than she was…”

Terry Pratchett (1948–2015) English author

Life , Fear , Mountain

“Reading furnishes the mind only with materials of knowledge; it is thinking that makes what we read ours.”

John Locke (1632–1704) English philosopher and physician

As quoted in "Hand Book : Caution and Counsels" in The Common School Journal Vol. 5, No. 24 (15 December 1843) by Horace Mann, p. 371
Context: This is that which I think great readers are apt to be mistaken in; those who have read of everything, are thought to understand everything too; but it is not always so. Reading furnishes the mind only with materials of knowledge; it is thinking that makes what we read ours. We are of the ruminating kind, and it is not enough to cram ourselves with a great load of collections; unless we chew them over again, they will not give us strength and nourishment.

Deep , Thinking , Reading

“A Race without the knowledge of its history is like a tree without roots.”

Marcus Garvey (1887–1940) Jamaica-born British political activist, Pan-Africanist, orator, and entrepreneur

Though often attributed to Garvey, this statement first appears in Charles Siefert's 1938 pamphlet, The Negro's or Ethiopian's Contribution to Art.
Misattributed

History , Tree

“Human knowledge is not (or does not follow) a straight line, but a curve, which endlessly approximates a series of circles, a spiral. Any fragment, segment, section of this curve can be transformed (transformed one-sidedly) into an independent, complete, straight line, which then (if one does not see the wood for the trees) leads into the quagmire, into clerical obscurantism (where it is anchored by the class interests of the ruling classes).”

Vladimir Lenin (1870–1924) Russian politician, led the October Revolution

Tree

“What is the most precious thing in the world? I see now that it is the knowledge that you have no part in injustice. Injustice is stronger than you, it always was and always will be, but let it not be done through you.”

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn book The First Circle

Source: The First Circle

World , Parting

“A man of knowledge lives by acting, not by thinking about acting… Thus a man of knowledge sweats and puffs and if one looks at him he is just like an ordinary man, except that the folly of his life is under his control.”

Carlos Castaneda (1925–1998) Peruvian-American author

Source: Carlos Castaneda (1971) Separate Reality: Conversations With Don Juan. p. 85; As cited in: Eugene Dupuis (2001) Time Shift: Managing Time to Create a Life You Love. Ch. 5: Self Management

Life , Thinking

“Of all the knowledge that we can ever obtain, the knowledge of God, and the knowledge of ourselves, are the most important.”

Jonathan Edwards (1703–1758) Christian preacher, philosopher, and theologian

Source: A careful & strict inquiry into the modern prevailing notions of that freedom of the will, which is supposed to be essential to moral agency, virtue & vice, reward & punishment, praise & blame...

God

“A manager is responsible for the application and performance of knowledge.”

Peter F. Drucker (1909–2005) American business consultant

“My wealth is in my knowledge of self, love, and spirituality.”

Muhammad Ali book The Soul of a Butterfly

Source: The Soul of a Butterfly: Reflections on Life's Journey

Love , Wealth

“I like spring, but it is too young. I like summer, but it is too proud. So I like best of all autumn, because its leaves are a little yellow, its tone mellower, its colours richer, and it is tinged a little with sorrow and a premonition of death. Its golden richness speaks not of the innocence of spring, nor of the power of summer, but of the mellowness and kindly wisdom of approaching age. It knows the limitations of life and is content. From a knowledge of those limitations and its richness of experience emerges a symphony of colours, richer than all, its green speaking of life and strength, its orange speaking of golden content and its purple of resignation and death.”

Lin Yutang (1895–1976) Chinese writer

Epilogue, p. 328
My Country and My People (1935)

Life , Death , Wisdom , Age

“If knowledge can create problems, it is not through ignorance that we can solve them.”

Isaac Asimov (1920–1992) American writer and professor of biochemistry at Boston University, known for his works of science fiction …

Problem

“Love follows knowledge.”

Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) Italian Dominican scholastic philosopher of the Roman Catholic Church

Love

“I have seen the dark universe yawning
Where the black planets roll without aim,
Where they roll in their horror unheeded,
Without knowledge, or lustre, or name.”

H.P. Lovecraft (1890–1937) American author

Source: Nemesis

Universe

“Means of knowledge are sensory perception, inference and holy scriptures.”

Madhvacharya (1199–1278) Hindu philosopher who founded Dvaita Vedanta school

Beginner’s Guide to Sri MadhvAchArya’s Life and Philosophy

“If melodiously piping flutes sprang from the olive, would you doubt that a knowledge of flute-playing resided in the olive? And what if plane trees bore harps which gave forth rhythmical sounds? Clearly you would think in the same way that the art of music was possessed by plane trees. Why, then, seeing that the universe gives birth to beings that are animate and wise, should it not be considered animate and wise itself?”

Zeno of Citium (-334–-263 BC) ancient Greek philosopher

As quoted in De Natura Deorum by Cicero, ii. 8.

Art , Music , Way , Birth

“There are all kinds of sources of our knowledge; but none has authority … The fundamental mistake made by the philosophical theory of the ultimate sources of our knowledge is that it does not distinguish clearly enough between questions of origin and questions of validity.”

Karl Popper (1902–1994) Austrian-British philosopher of science

Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge (1963)

Question

“You are now about to witness the strength of street knowledge.”

Dr. Dre (1965) American rapper, entrepreneur, actor, and record producer

– Dr. Dre, introducing N.W.A's 1988 album Straight Outta Compton.

“The. manager must never be lacking in knowledge of the special profession which is characteristic of the undertaking: the technical profession in industry, commercial in commerce, political in the State, military in the Army, religious in the Church, medical in the hospital, teaching in the school, etc. The technical function has long been given the degree of importance which is its due, and of which we must not deprive it, but the technical function by itself cannot endure the successful running of a business; it needs the help of the other essential functions and particularly of that of administration. This fact is so important from the point of view of the organization and management of a business that I do not mind how often I repeat it in order that it may be fully realized.”

Henri Fayol (1841–1925) Developer of Fayolism

Source: Industrial and General Administration, 1916, p. 68 ; as cited in: Albert Lepawsky (1949), Administration, p. 6-7

School , Business , Success , Help

“Welcome to the citadel of eternal wisdom. Behold, this crystal contains the sum of all human knowledge -- Except Rap And Country”

Dril Twitter user

[ Link to tweet https://twitter.com/dril/status/26334898832]
Tweets by year, 2010

Wisdom , Country

“If education is always to be conceived along the same antiquated lines of a mere transmission of knowledge, there is little to be hoped from it in the bettering of man's future.”

Maria Montessori (1870–1952) Italian pedagogue, philosopher and physician

Part I : The Child's Part in World Reconstruction, p. 4
The Absorbent Mind (1949)

Education , Hope , Future

“Endurance is composed of four attributes: eagerness, fear, piety and anticipation (of death). so whoever is eager for Paradise will ignore temptations; whoever fears the fire of Hell will abstain from sins; whoever practices piety will easily bear the difficulties of life and whoever anticipates death will hasten towards good deeds.
Conviction has also four aspects to guard oneself against infatuations of sin; to search for explanation of truth through knowledge; to gain lessons from instructive things and to follow the precedent of the past people, because whoever wants to guard himself against vices and sins will have to search for the true causes of infatuation and the true ways of combating them out and to find those true ways one has to search them with the help of knowledge, whoever gets fully acquainted with various branches of knowledge will take lessons from life and whoever tries to take lessons from life is actually engaged in the study of the causes of rise and fall of previous civilizations.
Justice also has four aspects depth of understanding, profoundness of knowledge, fairness of judgment and dearness of mind; because whoever tries his best to understand a problem will have to study it, whoever has the practice of studying the subject he is to deal with, will develop a clear mind and will always come to correct decisions, whoever tries to achieve all this will have to develop ample patience and forbearance and whoever does this has done justice to the cause of religion and has led a life of good repute and fame.
Jihad is divided into four branches: to persuade people to be obedient to Allah; to prohibit them from sin and vice; to struggle (in the cause of Allah) sincerely and firmly on all occasions and to detest the vicious. Whoever persuades people to obey the orders of Allah provides strength to the believers; whoever dissuades them from vices and sins humiliates the unbelievers; whoever struggles on all occasions discharges all his obligations and whoever detests the vicious only for the sake of Allah, then Allah will take revenge on his enemies and will be pleased with Him on the Day of Judgment.”

Ali book Nahj al-Balagha

Nahj al-Balagha

Life , Death , People , Truth

“There is only one good, knowledge, and one evil, ignorance.”

Socrates (-470–-399 BC) classical Greek Athenian philosopher

Socrates II: xxxi http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=D.+L.+2.5.31&fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0257#note-link14. Original Greek: ἓν μόνον ἀγαθὸν εἶναι, τὴν ἐπιστήμην, καὶ ἓν μόνον κακόν, τὴν ἀμαθίαν
Diogenes Laertius
Variant: The only good is knowledge and the only evil is ignorance.

Evil

“One who takes account of his shortcomings will always gain by it; one who is unmindful of them will always suffer. One who is afraid of the Day of Judgment, is safe from the Wrath of Allah. One who takes lessons from the events of life, gets vision, one who acquires vision becomes wise and one who attains wisdom achieves knowledge.”

Ali book Nahj al-Balagha

Nahj al-Balagha

Life , Wisdom , Suffering

“Administration, which calls for the application of wide knowledge and many personal qualities, is above all the art of handling men, and in this art, as in many others, it is practice that makes perfect. This is one of the reasons why we should release our future engineers for practical work as early as possible; there are many drawbacks to staying too long at school.”

Henri Fayol (1841–1925) Developer of Fayolism

Source: Henri Fayol addressed his colleagues in the mineral industry, 1900, p. 909

Men , School , Art , Future

“I can better understand the inert blindness & defiant ignorance of the reactionaries from having been one of them. I know how smugly ignorant I was—wrapped up in the arts, the natural (not social) sciences, the externals of history & antiquarianism, the abstract academic phases of philosophy, & so on—all the one-sided standard lore to which, according to the traditions of the dying order, a liberal education was limited. God! the things that were left out—the inside facts of history, the rational interpretation of periodic social crises, the foundations of economics & sociology, the actual state of the world today … & above all, the habit of applying disinterested reason to problems hitherto approached only with traditional genuflections, flag-waving, & callous shoulder-shrugs! All this comes up with humiliating force through an incident of a few days ago—when young Conover, having established contact with Henneberger, the ex-owner of WT, obtained from the latter a long epistle which I wrote Edwin Baird on Feby. 3, 1924, in response to a request for biographical & personal data. Little Willis asked permission to publish the text in his combined SFC-Fantasy, & I began looking the thing over to see what it was like—for I had not the least recollection of ever having penned it. Well …. I managed to get through, after about 10 closely typed pages of egotistical reminiscences & showing-off & expressions of opinion about mankind & the universe. I did not faint—but I looked around for a 1924 photograph of myself to burn, spit on, or stick pins in! Holy Hades—was I that much of a dub at 33 … only 13 years ago? There was no getting out of it—I really had thrown all that haughty, complacent, snobbish, self-centred, intolerant bull, & at a mature age when anybody but a perfect damned fool would have known better! That earlier illness had kept me in seclusion, limited my knowledge of the world, & given me something of the fatuous effusiveness of a belated adolescent when I finally was able to get around more in 1920, is hardly much of an excuse. Well—there was nothing to be done … except to rush a note back to Conover & tell him I'd dismember him & run the fragments through a sausage-grinder if he ever thought of printing such a thing! The only consolation lay in the reflection that I had matured a bit since '24. It's hard to have done all one's growing up since 33—but that's a damn sight better than not growing up at all.”

H.P. Lovecraft (1890–1937) American author

Letter to Catherine L. Moore (7 February 1937), in Selected Letters V, 1934-1937 edited by August Derleth and Donald Wandrei, pp. 407-408
Non-Fiction, Letters

God , Age , World , Education

“Belief and work, knowledge and action are one and the same thing.”

Paracelsus (1493–1541) Swiss physician and alchemist

Paracelsus - Doctor of our Time (1992)

“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.

World

“When Adam and Eve realize they're naked is that same moment they realize the difference between good and evil. What's the relationship between consciousness, knowledge of nakedness, and knowledge of good and evil? When you know that you're vulnerable, and they also developed a knowledge of death so there's deep knowledge of vulnerability, and they get embarrassed about that and they cover themselves up. So that's culture. So it's a very profound shock when they come to recognize that they're naked. It even causes Adam to run and hide from God. Then they develop the knowledge of good and evil. This is about how human beings have this peculiar capacity that no other creatures have. I know how I can be hurt, because I am aware of my own limitations – painfully aware. And now, because I know how I can be hurt, I know how you can be hurt. And I can take advantage of that. And that's how evil enters the world. It gives people another attribute of divinity, knowing the difference between good and evil. The cosmos switches when that self-consciousness manifests itself, and that's when the possibility of evil enters the world.”

Jordan Peterson (1962) Canadian clinical psychologist, cultural critic, and professor of psychology

Other

Death , God , People , World

“Of all the frictional resistances, the one that most retards human movement is ignorance, what Buddha called 'the greatest evil in the world.' The friction which results from ignorance… can be reduced only by the spread of knowledge and the unification of the heterogeneous elements of humanity. No effort could be better spent.”

Nikola Tesla (1856–1943) Serbian American inventor

"The Problem of Increasing Human Energy", The Century (Jun 1900), 211. Collected in The Century (1900), Vol. 60, 211

World , Effort , Evil

“Knowledge is proud that he has learned so much;
Wisdom is humble that he knows no more.”

William Cowper The Task

Source: The Task (1785), Book VI, Winter Walk at Noon, Line 92.
Context: Knowledge, a rude unprofitable mass,
The mere materials with which wisdom builds,
Till smoothed and squared and fitted to its place,
Does but encumber whom it seems to enrich.
Knowledge is proud that he has learned so much;
Wisdom is humble that he knows no more.
Books are not seldom talismans and spells.

Wisdom , Learning

“Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high
Where knowledge is free”

Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941) Bengali polymath

Gitanjali http://www.spiritualbee.com/gitanjali-poems-of-tagore/ (1912)
Context: Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high
Where knowledge is free
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments
By narrow domestic walls
Where words come out from the depth of truth
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way
Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit
Where the mind is led forward by thee
Into ever-widening thought and action
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.

Fear

“For the things of this world cannot be made known without a knowledge of mathematics.”

Roger Bacon book Opus Majus

Cited in: Opus majus: A translation by Robert Belle Burke. Vol 1 (1962). p. 128
Opus Majus, c. 1267
Context: For the things of this world cannot be made known without a knowledge of mathematics. For this is an assured fact in regard to celestial things, since two important sciences of mathematics treat of them, namely theoretical astrology and practical astrology. The first … gives us definite information as to the number of the heavens and of the stars, whose size can be comprehended by means of instruments, and the shapes of all and their magnitudes and distances from the earth, and the thicknesses and number, and greatness and smallness, … It likewise treats of the size and shape of the habitable earth … All this information is secured by means of instruments suitable for these purposes, and by tables and by canons.. For everything works through innate forces shown by lines, angles and figures.

World , Mathematics

“The only good is knowledge, and the only evil is ignorance.”

Herodotus (-484–-425 BC) ancient Greek historian, often considered as the first historian

The words of Socrates, as quoted by Diogenes Laertius.
Misattributed

Evil

“Even the wisest among us do not possess complete knowledge of every subject; however, they acquire a deep understanding regarding the limits of their knowledge. Acknowledge, the extent of your knowledge.

RJ Intindola – (Gandolfo) – 1994”

Gandolfo – (RJ Intindola)

Understanding

“When you first loved and the feeling was returned, you thought it would last forever; but it ended and you acquired knowledge of one of life’s significant lessons; the next time you loved, you did so with caution.”

Gandolfo – (RJ Intindola)

2001

Time , Love , Life , Making love

“Life is a struggle, a competition. Who will be strong in this fight? The one who is smart, educated, works hard. Today, young people should feel the attention of our state, read a lot, increase their knowledge and continue to develop.”

Shavkat Mirziyoyev (1957) President of Uzbekistan (2016-present)

"Shavkat Mirziyoyev: Every young man is as dear to me as to his parents" in UZ Daily https://www.uzdaily.uz/en/post/63421 (4 February 2021)

Strong , People , Education , Reading

“I raised the mystics up to the ladder of knowledge, in order to illustrate that one cannot be a narcissist when you are being praised by others.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

“The most troubling feeling in the world is to be aware of how much you know. Yet, you don't know how to apply that knowledge into action.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

World , Feeling

“When knowledge is put into practice that’s when wisdom is born within a person.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Personality , Wisdom

“Human evolution has two steps -
from being somebody to being nobody;
and from being nobody to being everybody.
This knowledge can bring
sharing and caring throughout the world.”

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar (1956) spiritual leader

World

“All knowledge that the world has ever received comes from the mind; the infinite library of the universe is in our own mind.”

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

Pearls of Wisdom

World , Universe

“Man wants three things; life, knowledge, and love.”

Fulton J. Sheen (1895–1979) Catholic bishop and television presenter

Source: Life Is Worth Living

Love , Life

“There is no power relation without the correlative constitution of a field of knowledge, nor any knowledge that does not presuppose and constitute at the same time power relations”

Michel Foucault book Discipline and Punish

Discipline and Punish (1977)
Source: Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison

Time

“The use of method as the criterion of science abolishes theoretical relevance. As a consequence, all propositions concerning facts will be promoted to the dignity of science, regardless of their relevance, as long as they result from a correct use of method. Since the ocean of facts is infinite, a prodigious expansion of science in the sociological sense becomes possible, giving employment to scientistic technicians and leading to the fantastic accumulation of irrelevant knowledge through huge “research projects” whose most interesting features is the quantifiable expense that has gone into their production.”

Eric Voegelin (1901–1985) American philosopher

Source: The New Science of Politics: An Introduction

Sense , Science

“I am convinced that knowledge is power - to overcome the past, to change our own situations, to fight new obstacles, to make better decisions.”

Ben Carson (1951) 17th and current United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development; American neurosurgeon

Source: Think Big: Unleashing Your Potential for Excellence

Decision , Change , Past , Fight

“When I examine myself and my methods of thought I come to the conclusion that the gift of fantasy has meant more to me than my talent for absorbing positive knowledge.”

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

A comment recalled by János Plesch in János, the Story of a Doctor (1947), p. 207. Also quoted in Einstein: the Life and Times by Ronald W. Clark (1971), p. 118 http://books.google.com/books?id=6IKVA0lY6MAC&lpg=PP1&pg=PA118#v=onepage&q&f=false.
1940s
Variant: "When I examine myself and my methods of thought, I come close to the conclusion that the gift of imagination has meant more to me than my talent for absorbing absolute knowledge." From The Ultimate Quotable Einstein by Alice Calaprice (2010), p. 26 http://books.google.com/books?id=G_iziBAPXtEC&lpg=PP1&pg=PA26#v=onepage&q&f=false. This book attributes it to Einstein and the Humanities (1979) by Dennis Ryan, p. 125, but Calaprice seems to have copied it wrong, since searching "inside the book" on this book's amazon page http://www.amazon.com/Einstein-Humanities-Contributions-Dennis-Ryan/dp/0313253803 using the word "gift" shows that p. 125 actually gives the same quote as in János, the Story of a Doctor.

“Books are infinite in number and time is short. The secret of knowledge is to take what is essential. Take that and try to live up to it.”

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

Secret , Books , Time

“Beware of false knowledge; it is more dangerous than ignorance.”

George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish playwright

Falseness

“The more you know, the more you know you don't know.”

Aristotle (-384–-321 BC) Classical Greek philosopher, student of Plato and founder of Western philosophy

“Knowledge has to be improved, challenged, and increased constantly, or it vanishes.”

Peter F. Drucker (1909–2005) American business consultant

“Seek not to grow in knowledge chiefly for the sake of applause, and to enable you to dispute with others; but seek it for the benefit of your souls.”

Jonathan Edwards (1703–1758) Christian preacher, philosopher, and theologian

Soul

“To sustain the belief that there is no God, atheism has to demonstrate infinite knowledge, which is tantamount to saying, “I have infinite knowledge that there is no being in existence with infinite knowledge”

Ravi Zacharias (1946) Indian philosopher

God

“Some knowledge is too heavy… you cannot bear it… your Father will carry it until you are able.”

Corrie ten Boom book The Hiding Place

Source: The Hiding Place

“The knight of knowledge must be able not only to love his enemies, but also to hate his friends.”

Friedrich Nietzsche book Ecce homo

Der Mensch der Erkenntniss muss nicht nur seine Feinde lieben, er muss auch seine Freunde hassen können.
Foreword, in the Oscar Levy authorized translation.
Variant translations:
The man of knowledge must be able not only to love his enemies but also to hate his friends.
Ecce Homo (1888)

Love , Hate