Quotes about knowledge
page 43

“Let us tenderly and kindly cherish, therefore, the means of knowledge. Let us dare to read, think, speak, and write. Let every order and degree among the people rouse their attention and animate their resolution. Let them all become attentive to the grounds and principles of government, ecclesiastical and civil. Let us study the law of nature; search into the spirit of the British constitution; read the histories of ancient ages; contemplate the great examples of Greece and Rome; set before us the conduct of our own British ancestors, who have defended for us the inherent rights of mankind against foreign and domestic tyrants and usurpers, against arbitrary kings and cruel priests, in short, against the gates of earth and hell.”

John Adams (1735–1826) 2nd President of the United States

1760s, A Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law (1765)

People, Age, Law, History

“Tis impossible to judge with much Precision of the true Motives and Qualities of human Actions, or of the Propriety of Rules contrived to govern them, without considering with like Attention, all the Passions, Appetites, Affections in Nature from which they flow. An intimate Knowledge therefore of the intellectual and moral World is the sole foundation on which a stable structure of Knowledge can be erected.”

John Adams (1735–1826) 2nd President of the United States

Letter to Jonathan Sewall (October 1759)
1750s

World, Motivation, Nature, Passion

“The trend of employment is towards a high level, and a recurrence of chronic mass unemployment is most unlikely. The Keynesian techniques are now well understood, and there is no reason to fear a repetition of the New Deal experience of a government with the will to spend its way out of a recession, but frustrated in doing so by faulty knowledge. The political pressure for full employment is stronger than ever before; the experience of the inter-war years bit so deeply into the political psychology of the nation that full employment, if threatened, would always constitute the dominant issue at any election, and no right-wing party could now survive a year in office if it permitted the figures of unemployment which were previously quite normal.”

Anthony Crosland (1918–1977) British politician

'The Transition from Capitalism' in Richard Crossman (ed.), New Fabian Essays (Turnstile Press, 1952), pp. 39–40

War, Fear, Way

“If all human production (aesthetic or otherwise) has its documentary aspect (i. e., it can be associated, by a knowledgeable reader, with a time and place), does this endanger its aesthetic aspects per se? It is the richness of the pattern that is aesthetically at stake. How many art histories does it take to make us understand that reference (a use context) and historicity are not the same?”

Samuel R. Delany book Flight from Nevèrÿon

Section 8.55 (p. 241)
Flight from Nevèrÿon (1985)

Making love, Art, History, Understanding

“Burkard Schliessmann is a fiercely intellectual pianist. He’s intellectual in two senses. First, he approaches this music with a tremendous store of background knowledge - knowledge about the composers and their works, about their early receptions, about their critical writings, about their literary inspirations, and about the cultural milieu in which they found themselves. Second, he performs the music with a rigorous sense of the ways its details contribute to its form, both in terms of its overall architecture and in terms of its vertical structure.”

Burkard Schliessmann classical pianist

Peter J. Rabinowitz in Fanfare - The Magazin for Serious Record Collectors, USA, January/February 2011, Chopin-Schumann Anniversary Edition 2010 in the interpretation of Burkard Schliessmann, Volume 34, Number 3, p. 255

Music, Way, Sense

“Sometimes, in our littleness, we boast of the progress we have made, and of the knowledge, culture, and art which we as a race to-day display. But, O, it is the vanity of Adolescence. What will the knowledge, culture, and art of to-day amount to fifty or a hundred thousand years from now?—or a million years from now?”

J. Howard Moore (1862–1916)

Nothing! This sphere, with its clinging tenantry, will still be here then and will still be making its annual journeys round the sun, as now. But, O, what mighty and ineffable changes! The things of to-day will be so rude and childish and so far away that they will not even be considered.
Source: Ethics and Education (1912), The World to Be, p. 149

Art

“There is a kinship of all beings, for the life process has sprung from one source and evolved according to one fundamental principle. Consciousness of kind, therefore, the ability to participate in the psychic states of others, is cultivated by a knowledge of the nature and content of those around us, and anything which tends to increase or complete our knowledge of others, as identity of language, association, or ambition, tends to intensify consciousness of kind, and whatever limits or prevents knowledge of others tends to cause us to consider them of a different order or kind from ourselves.”

J. Howard Moore (1862–1916)

Source: Better-World Philosophy: A Sociological Synthesis (1899), Egoism and Altruism, pp. 117–118

Life, Nature

“Man, in satisfying his desires, in avoiding misery and achieving happiness, strives to do two things with the inanimate universe: to manage it and to foreknow it. The inanimate is not devoted to us. We are not birdlings cuddled in an order of things where we need simply to yawn and be filled. We must bestir ourselves, or be in a position to compel others to bestir themselves for us, or perish. We are waifs, brought into existence by a universe whose solicitude for us ended with the travail that brought us forth. The inanimate universe is our mother, but without the blessed mother-love. The first thing we are conscious of, and about the only thing we ever absolutely know, is that we are whirling around in a very helpless manner on a whirligig of a ball, out of whose substance by the sweat of our brows we must quarry our existence. The universe is practically independent of us. But we, alas, are not independent of it. The food we eat, our raiment, our habitations, our treasures, our implements of knowledge, and our means of amusement are all portions of the inanimate, which we living beings must somehow subtract from the rest. In order to obtain these indispensable portions of the universe about us, we must halter it and control it and compel it to produce to the tune of our desires.”

J. Howard Moore (1862–1916)

Source: Better-World Philosophy: A Sociological Synthesis (1899), The Problem of Industry, pp. 19–20

Love, Happiness, Making love, Food

“Scientific research is based on the assumption that all events, including the actions of mankind, are determined by the laws of nature. Therefore, a research scientist will hardly be inclined to believe that events could be influenced by a prayer, that is, by a wish addressed to a supernatural Being. However, we have to admit that our actual knowledge of these laws is only an incomplete piece of work (unvollkommenes Stückwerk), so that ultimately the belief in the existence of fundamental all-embracing laws also rests on a sort of faith. All the same, this faith has been largely justified by the success of science. On the other hand, however, every one who is seriously engaged in the pursuit of science becomes convinced that the laws of nature manifest the existence of a spirit vastly superior to that of men, and one in the face of which we with our modest powers must feel humble. The pursuit of science leads therefore to a religious feeling of a special kind, which differs essentially from the religiosity of more naive people.”

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

Letter in response to sixth-grader Phyllis Wright, asking whether scientists pray, and if so, what they pray for (24 January 1936) p. 92-93
Attributed in posthumous publications, Einstein and Religion (1999)

Men, People, Faith, Law

“There is too much knowledge already in the world; we use facts as crutches, to the impoverishment of our senses. Facts are falsehoods; logic is deceit. I know a single system of communication: the declaiming of poetry.”

Jack Vance Demon Princes

Source: Demon Princes (1964-1981), The Palace of Love (1967), Chapter 5 (p. 343)

World, Communication, Sense

“Motto of the Institute: A little knowledge is a dangerous thing; a great deal of knowledge is disaster, which detractors of the Institute scornfully paraphrase to: Somebody else’s ignorance is bliss.”

Jack Vance Demon Princes

Source: Demon Princes (1964-1981), The Star King (1964), Chapter 8 (p. 83)

“Proponents of doctrinal religions—ones in which a particular body of belief is prized and infidels scorned—will be threatened by the courageous pursuit of knowledge. We hear from such people that it may be dangerous to probe too deeply. Many people have inherited their religion like their eye color: they consider it not a thing to think very deeply about, and in any case beyond our control. But those with a set of beliefs they profess to feel deeply about, which they have selected without an unbiased sifting through the facts and the alternatives, will feel uncomfortably challenged by searching questions. Anger at queries about our beliefs is the body’s warning signal: here lies unexamined and probably dangerous doctrinal baggage.”

Carl Sagan book Broca's Brain

Source: Broca's Brain (1979), Chapter 23, “A Sunday Sermon” (pp. 339-340)

People, Religion, Color, Feeling

“But our openness to the dazzling possibilities presented by modern science must be tempered by some hard-nosed skepticism. Many interesting possibilities simply turn out to be wrong. An openness to new possibilities and a willingness to ask hard questions are both required to advance our knowledge. And the asking of tough questions has an ancillary benefit: political and religious life in America, especially in the last decade and a half, has been marked by an excessive public credulity, an unwillingness to ask difficult questions, which has produced a demonstrable impairment in our national health. Consumer skepticism makes quality products. This may be why governments and churches and school systems do not exhibit unseemly zeal in encouraging critical thought. They know they themselves are vulnerable.”

Carl Sagan book Broca's Brain

Source: Broca's Brain (1979), Chapter 5, “Night Walkers and Mystery Mongers: Sense and Nonsense at the End of Science” (pp. 68-69)

Life, Health, Making love, School

“The search for patterns without critical analysis, and rigid skepticism without a search for patterns, are the antipodes of incomplete science. The effective pursuit of knowledge requires both functions.”

Carl Sagan (1934–1996) American astrophysicist, cosmologist, author and science educator

Source: The Dragons of Eden (1977), Chapter 7, “Lovers and Madmen” (p. 192)

Search, Science

James Madison (1751–1836) 4th president of the United States (1809 to 1817)

Letter to W.T. Barry http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/v1ch18s35.html (4 August 1822), in The Writings of James Madison (1910) edited by Gaillard Hunt, Vol. 9, p. 103; these words, using the older spelling "Governours", are inscribed to the left of the main entrance, Library of Congress James Madison Memorial Building. 1820s

People

“Thousands of writers, of poets, of scholars, have laboured to increase knowledge, to dissipate error, and to create that atmosphere of scientific thought, without which the marvels of our century could never appeared. And these thousands of philosophers, of poets, of scholars, of inventors, have themselves been supported by the labour of past centuries. They have been upheld and nourished through life, both physically and mentally, by legions of workers and craftsmen of all sorts. They have drawn their motive force from the environment.”

Peter Kropotkin book The Conquest of Bread

Source: The Conquest of Bread (1892), Ch. 1 : Our Riches, p. 57

Life, Error, Motivation, Support

“If Parliament, public and press have now braced themselves to accept the plain and obvious truth that Cabinet discussions are interesting, vigorous and sometimes revolve around alternative policies, why should even the disclosure of an outline of the points at issue—while these discussions are in progress—be guarded against so relentlessly and so ineffectively from any risk of publicity? … Secrecy in decision-making does not occur by accident or default. It is because knowledge is power, and no government willingly gives up power to the Commons, the public, or anyone else. Open government would disclose more about the processes of decision-making, including the workings of the Cabinet committee system, reveal the roles of officials and advisers, and involve both admitting and encouraging pressure upon ministers. … If parliamentary democracy is, as I believe, a unique system of government, partly because it allows us to learn from our own mistakes in time to correct them, the raw material of that experience must be made available in time to use it for that purpose.”

Tony Benn (1925–2014) British Labour Party politician

Speech to a Press Gallery luncheon (14 February 1977), quoted in The Times (15 February 1977), p. 4
1970s

Truth, Making love, Democracy, Decision

“Each of us is descended from poetry ancestors. It’s the same for any art, any occupation. There is a lineage of style, knowledge and culture passed from generation to generation, one artist to another. Ultimately all poetry is related in the family tree of poetry…”

Joy Harjo (1951) American writer

On her poetic lineage in “An Interview with Joy Harjo, U.S. Poet Laureate” https://poets.org/text/interview-joy-harjo-us-poet-laureate?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIiJP5naHW5QIV0Rx9Ch0tGgkkEAAYASAAEgIJD_D_BwE in Poets.org (2019 Mar 31)

Family, Art, Tree, Relation ships

“In one point I fully agree with the gentlemen to whose general views I am opposed. I feel with them, that it is impossible for us, with our limited means, to attempt to educate the body of the people. We must at present do our best to form a class who may be interpreters between us and the millions whom we govern; a class of persons, Indian in blood and colour, but English in taste, in opinions, in morals, and in intellect. To that class we may leave it to refine the vernacular dialects of the country, to enrich those dialects with terms of science borrowed from the Western nomenclature, and to render them by degrees fit vehicles for conveying knowledge to the great mass of the population.”

Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay (1800–1859) British historian and Whig politician

Minute on Education http://www.columbia.edu/itc/mealac/pritchett/00generallinks/macaulay/txt_minute_education_1835.html (1835) Minute on Indian Education (1835)

People, Education, Feeling, Science

“No Hindoo, who has received an English education, ever remains sincerely attached to his religion. Some continue to profess it as matter of policy; but many profess themselves pure Deists, and some embrace Christianity. It is my firm belief that, if our plans of education are followed up, there will not be a single idolator among the respectable classes in Bengal thirty years hence. And this will be effected without any efforts to proselytise; without the smallest interference with religious liberty; merely by the natural operation of knowledge and reflection. I heartily rejoice in the prospect.”

Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay (1800–1859) British historian and Whig politician

Letter written to his father in 1836. Quoted in Indian Church History Review, December 1973, p. 187. Partially quoted in Goel, S. R. (2016). History of Hindu-Christian encounters, AD 304 to 1996. Chapter 13. ISBN 9788185990354 . Quoted from Koenraad Elst, The Argumentative Hindu (2012) Chapter 3

Education, Religion, Nature, Effort

“Nixon: Within groups, there are geniuses. There are geniuses within black groups. There are more within Asian groups … This is knowledge that is better not to know.”

Richard Nixon (1913–1994) 37th President of the United States of America

Fall of 1971, conversation with Harvard professor Daniel Patrick Moynihan http://nixontapeaudio.org/chron2/rmn_e010b.mp3; as qtd. in Tim Naftali, “Ronald Reagan’s Long-Hidden Racist Conversation With Richard Nixon” https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/07/ronald-reagans-racist-conversation-richard-nixon/595102/, The Atlantic, (Jul 30, 2019) 1970s, Tape transcripts (1971)

“The prejudices of the second species, since they impose upon the intellect by the sensual conditions restricting the mind if it wishes in certain cases to attain to what is intellectual, lurk more deeply. One of them is that which affects knowledge of quantity, the other that affecting knowledge of qualities generally. The former is: every actual multiplicity can be given numerically, and hence, every infinite quantity; the latter, whatever is impossible contradicts itself. In either of them the concept of time, it is true, does not enter into the very notion of the predicate, nor is it attributed as a qualification to the subject. But yet it serves as a means for forming an idea of the predicate, and thus, being a condition, affects the intellectual concept of the subject to the extent that the latter is only attained by its aid.”

Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) German philosopher

Kant's Inaugural Dissertation (1770), Section V On The Method Respecting The Sensuous And The Intellectual In Metaphysics

Idea, Time

“The sensuous may be exceedingly distinct, while intellectual concepts are extremely confused. The former we observe in the prototype of sensuous knowledge geometry; the latter, in the organon of all intellectual concepts, metaphysics. It is evident how much toil the latter is expending to dispel the fogs of confusion darkening the common intellect, though not always with the happy success of the former science.”

Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) German philosopher

Kant's Inaugural Dissertation (1770), Section II On The Distinction Between The Sensible And The Intelligible Generally

Happiness, Science, Success

“Percepts and phenomena which precedes the logical use of the intellect is called appearance, while the reflex knowledge originating from several appearances compared by the intellect is called experience.”

Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) German philosopher

Kant's Inaugural Dissertation (1770), Section II On The Distinction Between The Sensible And The Intelligible Generally

Appearance

“The older I grow the more I distrust the familiar doctrine that age brings wisdom.... Certainly it would be difficult to imagine any committee of relatively young men, of thirty or thirty-five, showing the unbroken childishness, ignorance and lack of humor of the Supreme Court of the United States. The average age of the learned justices must be well beyond sixty, and all of them are supposed to be of finished and mellowed sagacity. Yet their knowledge of the most ordinary principles of justice often turns out to be extremely meager, and when they spread themselves grandly upon a great case their reasoning powers are usually found to be precisely equal to those of a respectable Pullman conductor.”

H.L. Mencken (1880–1956) American journalist and writer

"Advice to Young Men" in Prejudices: Third Series (1922).
1920s, Prejudices, Third Series (1922)

Wisdom, Men, Age, Justice

“For a hundred and fifty years or so democracy, or something like it, could flourish safely. The issues were such as to be settled without disaster by votes of common men, befogged and ignorant as they were. But now, if the race is simply to stay alive, political decisions depend on real knowledge of such things as nuclear physics, planetary ecology, genetic theory, even system mechanics. They aren’t up to it, Joe. With goodness and more will than they possess less than one in a thousand could stay awake over one page of nuclear physics; they can’t learn what they must know.”

Robert A. Heinlein book Gulf

Gulf (p. 544)
Short fiction, Off the Main Sequence (2005)

Men, Democracy, Decision, Learning

“And all over the country the antagonists of human liberty, of human dignity—the racketeers, the crooked political figures, the shysters, the dealers in phony religions, the sweat-shoppers, the petty authoritarians, all of the key figures among the traffickers in human misery and human oppression, themselves somewhat adept in the arts of the mind and acutely aware of the danger of free knowledge—all of this unholy breed stirred uneasily and wondered what was taking place.”

Robert A. Heinlein book Lost Legacy

Lost Legacy (p. 339)
Short fiction, Off the Main Sequence (2005)

Religion, Art, Country

“During my travels, I find a general belief that to turn a Christian is to turn European; to become self-willed, and give up self-restraint, use only foreign cloth, dress oneself in European style and start taking meat and brandy. But I think the fact is, if a person discards his country, his customs and his old connections and manners when he changes his religion, he becomes all the more unfit to gain a knowledge of God. For, a change of religion means really a conversion of the heart. When there is a real conversion, a man’s heart grows. But in this country one finds that conversion brings about deep disdain for one’s old religion and its followers, i. e., one’s old friends and relatives. The next change that takes place is that of dress and manners and behaviour. All that does great harm to the country.”

Mahatma Gandhi (1869–1948) pre-eminent leader of Indian nationalism during British-ruled India

Mahatma Gandhi in Mahadev Desai, Day-to-Day with Gandhi,Volume 7, Varanasi, 1969, as quoted in Goel, S.R. History of Hindu-Christian Encounters (1996)
Posthumous publications (1950s and later)

God, Religion, Travel, Thinking

“I constantly sought knowledge and truth, and it became my belief that for gaining access to the effulgence and closeness to God, there is no better way than that of searching for truth and knowledge.”

Alhazen (965–1038) Arab physicist, mathematician and astronomer

Firas al-Khateeb, Lost Islamic History https://www.amazon.com/Lost-Islamic-History-Reclaiming-Civilisation/dp/1849043973

God, Truth, Way, Search

“What does opening your eyes and realizing your vulnerability have to do with the knowledge of good and evil?”

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

Here's the key: You know you're vulnerable. No other animal knows that. You know what hurts you, because you're vulnerable. And now that you know what hurts you, you can figure out what hurts someone else. And as soon as you know what can hurt someone as, and you can use that, then you have the knowledge of good and evil. Well it's a pretty good trick that the snake pulled because it doesn't seem like the thing that we would have exactly wanted if we knew what the consequence was going to be. As soon as a human being is self conscious and aware of his nakedness, then he has the capacity for evil. That's introduced into the world right at that point."
Concepts

Evil

“What’s intelligence for if not for seeking knowledge?”

Larry Niven book Destiny's Road

Source: Destiny's Road (1997), Chapter 30, “Hydraulic * Empire” (p. 299)

Intelligence

“What then is the universe for, and for what final purpose is man the immortal thinker here in evolution? It is all for the experience and emancipation of the soul, for the purpose of raising the entire mass of manifested matter up to the stature, nature, and dignity of conscious god-hood. The great aim is to reach self-consciousness; not through a race or a tribe or some favored nation, but by and through the perfecting, after transformation, of the whole mass of matter as well as what we now call soul. Nothing is or is to be left out. The aim for present man is his initiation into complete knowledge, and for the other kingdoms below him that they may be raised up gradually from stage to stage to be in time initiated also.”

William Quan Judge (1851–1896) American occult writer

The Ocean of Theosophy by William Q. Judge (1893), Chapter 8, Of Reincarnation

God, Soul, Nature, Universe

“It is not a belief or dogma formulated or invented by man, but is a knowledge of the laws which govern the evolution of the physical, astral, psychical, and intellectual constituents of nature and of man. The religion of the day is but a series of dogmas man-made and with no scientific foundation for promulgated ethics; while our science as yet ignores the unseen, and failing to admit the existence of a complete set of inner faculties of perception in man, it is cut off from the immense and real field of experience which lies within the visible and tangible worlds. But Theosophy knows that the whole is constituted of the visible and the invisible, and perceiving outer things and objects to be but transitory it grasps the facts of nature, both without and within. It is therefore complete in itself and sees no unsolvable mystery anywhere; it throws the word coincidence out of its vocabulary and hails the reign of law in everything and every circumstance.”

William Quan Judge (1851–1896) American occult writer

The Ocean of Theosophy by William Q. Judge (1893), Chapter 1, Theosophy and the Masters

World, Religion, Law, Nature

“Theosophy is that ocean of knowledge which spreads from shore to shore of the evolution of sentient beings; unfathomable in its deepest parts, it gives the greatest minds their fullest scope, yet, shallow enough at its shores, it will not overwhelm the understanding of a child.”

William Quan Judge (1851–1896) American occult writer

The Ocean of Theosophy by William Q. Judge (1893), Chapter 1, Theosophy and the Masters

Understanding, Parting

“Looking at these men, and realizing how high they stand among humanity, how far they have gone in human evolution, is it not logical to say that we cannot see the bounds of human attainment, and that there may well have been, and even now may be, men far further developed even than they, men great in spirituality as well as knowledge or artistic power, men complete as regards human perfections—men precisely such as the Adepts or Supermen whom some of us have had the inestimable privilege to encounter? This galaxy of human genius that enriches and beautifies the pages of history is at the same time the glory and the hope of all mankind, for we know that these Greater Ones are the forerunners of the rest, and that they flash out as beacons, as veritable light-bearers to show us the path which we must tread if we wish to reach the glory which shall presently be revealed.”

Charles Webster Leadbeater (1854–1934) English theosophist

Source: The Masters and the Path (1925), Ch. 1

Men, Hope, History, Light

“In hearing of these different possibilities, people sometimes exclaim rashly that there could of course be no thought in a Master’s mind of choosing any but that course which most helps humanity - a remark which greater knowledge would have prevented them from making. We should never forget that there are other evolutions in the solar system besides our own, and no doubt it is necessary for the carrying out of the vast plan of the Logos that there should be adepts working on all the seven lines to which we have referred. Surely the choice of the Master would be to go wherever his work was most needed - to place his services with absolute selflessness at the disposal of the Powers in charge of this part of the great scheme of evolution.”

Charles Webster Leadbeater (1854–1934) English theosophist

Source: Invisible Helpers (1915), Ch. 17

People, Making love, Help, Parting

“How, it may be asked, are we to make ourselves capable of sharing in this great work? Well, there is no mystery as to the qualifications which are needed by one who aspires to be a helper; the difficulty is not in learning what they are, but in developing them in oneself. To some extent they have been already incidentally described, but it is nevertheless as well that they should be set out fully and categorically. Single-mindedness… Perfect self-control… Calmness. This is another most important point - the absence of all worry and depression. Much of the work consists in soothing those who are disturbed, and cheering those who are in sorrow; and how can a helper do that work if his own aura is vibrating with constant fuss and worry, or grey with the deadly gloom that comes from perpetual depression? Nothing is more hopelessly fatal to occult progress or usefulness than our nineteenth century habit of ceaselessly worrying over trifles - of eternally making mountains out of molehills…. Knowledge…. while the slightest taint of selfishness remains in a man, he is not yet fit to be entrusted……..”

Charles Webster Leadbeater (1854–1934) English theosophist

Source: Invisible Helpers (1915), Ch. 14

Making love, Mountain, Learning, Perfection

“Perhaps the greatest of the many fundamental changes which are inevitable for the man who studies the facts of life is that which is produced in his attitude towards death. This matter has been fully treated elsewhere; here I need state only that the knowledge of the truth about death robs it of all its terror and much of its sorrow, and enables us to see it in its true proportion and to understand its place in the scheme of our evolution. It is perfectly possible to learn to know about all these things instead of accepting beliefs blindly at second-hand, as most people do; and knowledge means power, security and happiness.”

Charles Webster Leadbeater (1854–1934) English theosophist

Source: The Hidden Side of things (1913), Chapter II

Life, Death, Happiness, People

“Students, who should know better, perpetually speak as though the hidden side of things were intentionally concealed, as though knowledge with regard to it ought to be in the hands of all men, but was being deliberately withheld by the caprice or selfishness of a few; whereas the fact is that nothing is or can be hidden from us except by our own limitations, and that for every man as he evolves the world grows wider and wider, because he is able to see more and more of its grandeur and its loveliness.”

Charles Webster Leadbeater (1854–1934) English theosophist

Source: The Hidden Side of things (1913), Chapter I

Men, World, Selfishness

“The attainment of perfection is but postponed to a future birth. Every preliminary step in self-conquest and self-knowledge is so much experience and developed power, stored up psychic energy, for the use of the individuality in its next incarnation.”

Henry Steel Olcott (1832–1907) Union United States Army officer

The Source and Value of the "Mysteries" (1888)

Birth, Future, Perfection, Self-confidence

“The lampooners and denunciators of our time have as little succeeded in shaking the faith of believers in the reality and value of mystical initiation, as did their precursors in the olden times that of their believing contemporaries. It has been simply the array of conjecture against experience, of surmise against knowledge. The wise have had but a feeling of contemptuous pity for the army of critics whose conclusions have rested upon wholly mistaken premises, and whose verdict has been colored by exaggerated prejudice and foolish mistrust.”

Henry Steel Olcott (1832–1907) Union United States Army officer

The Source and Value of the "Mysteries" (1888)

Faith, Color, Feeling, Reality

“The handbills announce me as the President of the Theosophical Society, and you gathered here to learn what Theosophy is and what are its relations with Spiritualism. Let me say then, that in the sense given to it by those who first used it, the word means divine wisdom, or the knowledge of divine wisdom, or the knowledge of divine things… Essentially, a Theosophical Society is one which favours man’s original acquisition of knowledge about the hidden things of the universe by the education and perfecting of his own latent powers.”

Henry Steel Olcott (1832–1907) Union United States Army officer

Spiritualism and Theosophy (1880)

Wisdom, Education, Sense, Learning

“What is it then, which makes me say what in deepest seriousness and a full knowledge of its truth I have said? What is it that makes me not only content but proud to stand for the brief moment as the mouthpiece and figure-head of this movement, risking abuse, misrepresentation, and every vile assault? It is the fact that in my soul I feel that behind us, behind our little band, behind our feeble, newborn organization, there gathers a mighty power that nothing can withstand—the power of truth!”

Henry Steel Olcott (1832–1907) Union United States Army officer

As quoted Inaugural Address New York City https://www.theosophical.org/files/resources/articles/PowerofTruth.pdf (17 November 1875)

Truth, Making love, Feeling, Soul

“People in the present day will be slow to believe that any knowledge worth considering can be found outside the bright focus of Western culture. Modern science has accomplished grand results by the open method of investigation, and is very impatient of the theory that persons who ever attained to real knowledge, either in sciences or metaphysics, could have been content to hide their light under a bushel. So the tendency has been to conceive that occult philosophers of old- Egyptian priests, Chaldean Magi, Essenes, Gnostics, theurgic Neo-Platonists, and the rest-who kept their knowledge secret, must have adopted that policy to conceal the fact that they knew very little. Mystery can only have been loved by charlatans who wished to mystify. The conclusion is pardonable from the modern point of view, but it has given rise to an impression in the popular mind that the ancient mystics have actually been turned inside out, and found to know very little. This impression is absolutely erroneous.”

Alfred Percy Sinnett book The Occult World

Introduction
The Occult World

Love, People, Secret, Making love

“For, strange as the statement will appear at first sight, modern metaphysics, and to a large extent modern physical science, have been groping for centuries blindly after knowledge which occult philosophy has enjoyed in full measure all the while. Owing to a train of fortunate circumstances, I have come to know that this is the case; I have come into some contact with persons who are heirs of a greater knowledge concerning the mysteries of Nature and humanity than modern culture has yet evolved; and my present wish is to sketch the outlines of this knowledge, to record with exactitude the experimental proofs I have obtained that occult science invest its adepts with a control of natural forces superior to that enjoyed by physicists of the ordinary type, and the grounds there are for bestowing the most respectful consideration on the theories entertained by occult science concerning the constitution and destinies of the human soul.”

Alfred Percy Sinnett book The Occult World

Introduction
The Occult World

Soul, Nature, Appearance, Science

“There is a school of Philosophy still in existence of which modern culture has lost sight. Glimpses of it are discernible in the ancient philosophies with which all educated men are familiar, but these are hardly more intelligible than fragments of forgotten sculpture,-less so, for we comprehend the human form, and can give imaginary limbs to a torso; but we can give no imaginary meaning to the truth coming down to us from Plato or Pythagoras, pointing, for those who hold the clue to their significance, to the secret knowledge of the ancient world. Side lights, nevertheless, may enable us to decipher such language, and a very rich intellectual reward offers itself to persons who are willing to attempt the investigation.”

Alfred Percy Sinnett book The Occult World

Introduction
The Occult World

Men, Truth, Secret, World

“We do not have even fragments of the teachings of former World Teachers given prior to certain knowledge of Their existence. We do not have the teachings of a Christ, or a Buddha, or a Krishna, except seen through the eyes of later followers. For the first time we are given the flavor of the thoughts and insights of a Being of immeasurable stature to enable us to understand the path of evolution stretching ahead of us which He has come to outline for us. The impression left in the mind by the Teacher is that the breadth and depth of His knowledge and awareness have no limits; that He is tolerant and wise beyond conception, and of amazing humility.”

Benjamin Creme (1922–2016) artist, author, esotericist

Maitreya's Teachings - The Laws of Life (2005)

World, Understanding, Teachers, Time

“The goals of our education, from nursery school through to adult education, are clear enough. They are to equip children to the best of their ability for a lively, constructive, place in society, and also to fit them to do a job of work. Not one or the other but both. … There is no virtue in producing socially well-adjusted members of society who are unemployed because they do not have the skills. Nor at the other extreme must they be technically efficient robots. Both of the basic purposes of education require the same essential tools. These are basic literacy, basic numeracy, the understanding of how to live and work together, respect for others, respect for the individual. This means requiring certain basic knowledge, and skills and reasoning ability. It means developing lively inquiring minds and an appetite for further knowledge that will last a lifetime. It means mitigating as far as possible the disadvantages that may be suffered through poor home conditions or physical or mental handicap. Are we aiming in the right direction in these matters?”

James Callaghan (1912–2005) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom; 1976-1979

Speech https://www.theguardian.com/education/thegreatdebate/story/0,,574645,00.html to Ruskin College, Oxford University (18 October 1976) Prime Minister

Children, Education, School, Home

“This was Elric’s dream, more coherent now than it had ever been. This was his dream and it was why he traveled the world, why he refused the power which was his, why he risked his life, his mind, his love and everything else he valued, for he believed that there was no life worth living that was not risked in pursuit of knowledge and justice. And this was why his fellow countrymen feared him. Justice was not obtained, he believed, by administration but by experience. One must know what it was to suffer humiliation and powerlessness; at least to some degree, before one could entirely appreciate its effect. One must give up power if one was to achieve true justice. This was not the logic of Empire, but it was the logic of one who truly loved the world and desired to see an age dawn when all people would be free to pursue their ambitions in dignity and self-respect.”

Michael Moorcock (1939) English writer, editor, critic

Book 1, Chapter 3 “On the Red Road” (p. 160)
The Elric Cycle, The Fortress of the Pearl (1989)

Love, Life, People, Age

“Whatsoever therefore is consequent to a time of Warre, where every man is Enemy to every man; the same is consequent to the time, wherein men live without other security, than what their own strength, and their own invention shall furnish them withall. In such condition, there is no place for Industry; because the fruit thereof is uncertain: and consequently no Culture of the Earth; no Navigation, nor use of the commodities that may be imported by Sea; no commodious Building; no Instruments of moving, and removing things as require much force; no Knowledge of the face of the Earth; no account of Time; no Arts; no Letters; no Society; and which is worst of all, continuall feare, and danger of violent death; And the life of man solitary, poore, nasty, brutish, and short.”

Thomas Hobbes book Leviathan

The First Part, Chapter 13, p. 62
Leviathan (1651)

Life, Death, Men, Fear

“The science of sanitation, the use of water, and the growing knowledge of hydrotherapy…The science of prevention… certain modes of procedure… whereby forces are correctly used, and certain destructive agencies are controlled and prevented from going the destructive way.”

Alice A. Bailey (1880–1949) esoteric, theosophist, writer

A Treatise on the Seven Rays: Volume 4: Esoteric Healing (1953)

Way, Water, Science

“The knowledge that He is ready and anxious publicly to appear to His loved Humanity only adds to the sense of general frustration, and another very vital question arises: For what period of time must we endure, struggle and fight? The reply comes with clarity: He will come unfailingly when a measure of peace has been restored, when the principle of sharing is at least in process of controlling economic affairs, and when churches and political groups have begun to clean house. Then He can and will come; then the Kingdom of God will be publicly recognised and will no longer be a thing of dreams and of wishful thinking and orthodox hope.”

Alice A. Bailey (1880–1949) esoteric, theosophist, writer

Source: The Reappearance of the Christ (1948), Chapter VII

Love, God, Making love, Peace

“My work is to teach and spread the knowledge of the Ageless Wisdom wherever I can find a response, and I have been doing this for many years… In all the above, I have told you much; yet at the same time I have told you nothing which would lead you to offer me that blind obedience and the foolish devotion which the emotional aspirant offers to the Guru and Master Whom he is as yet unable to contact. Nor will he make that desired contact until he has transmuted emotional devotion into unselfish service to humanity--not to the Master.”

Alice A. Bailey (1880–1949) esoteric, theosophist, writer

Extract from a Statement by the Tibetan

Wisdom, Making love, Time

“The man of knowledge in our time is bowed down under a burden he never imagined he would ever have: the overproduction of truth that cannot be consumed.”

Ernest Becker book The Denial of Death

Preface, p. x
The Denial of Death (1973)

Truth, Imagination, Time

“That it was common to observe that this was an enlightened Age; but he had thought it for a long time past an ignorant Age. Would you, said he, call a Circulating Library a good Library, because it contains so many books? This Age is much advanced in many useless sciences, & much more respect is shewn to Talent than to wisdom; but I consider our fore-fathers as deeper Thinkers than ourselves, because they set an higher Value on good sense than Knowledge in various Sciences, & this good sense was derived very often from as much study & more knowledge, though of another sort.”

Edmund Burke (1729–1797) Anglo-Irish statesman

Present Age, p. 49
Table talk

Wisdom, Books, Age, Sense

“The Vedas see the ultimate Truth behind all ephemeral truths. The Creation leads us to the Creator, to the highest knowledge, which is integrated into one. The Vedas still represent eternal truth in the purest form ever written. And they are what drew me to India in the first place, what kept me there, and what draws me back still. India is the only country that feels like home to me, the only country whose airport tarmac I have ever kissed upon landing.”

Paul William Roberts (1950–2019) Canadian writer

Empire of the Soul: Some Journeys in India, Paul William Roberts. Quoted from Gewali, Salil (2013). Great Minds on India. New Delhi: Penguin Random House.

Truth, Feeling, Home, Kiss

“Indeed, the drunken man while in that condition does not know the definition of drunkenness nor the scientific account of it; he has not the very least scientific knowledge of it. The sober man, on the other hand, knows the definition of drunkenness and its basis, yet he is not drunk in the very least. Again the doctor, when he is himself ill, knows the definition and causes of health and the remedies which restore it, and yet is lacking in health. Similarly there is a difference between knowing the true nature and causes and conditions of the ascetic life and actually leading such a life and forsaking the world.”

Abu Hamid al-Ghazali (1058–1111) Persian Muslim theologian, jurist, philosopher, and mystic

The Deliverance from Error https://www.amazon.com/Al-Ghazalis-Path-Sufism-Deliverance-al-Munqidh/dp/1887752307

Life, Health, World, Nature

“We attest that He is the Willer of all things that are, the ruler of all originated phenomena; there does not come into the visible or invisible world anything meager or plenteous, small or great, good or evil, or any advantage or disadvantage, belief or unbelief, knowledge or ignorance, success or failure, increase or decrease, obedience or disobedience, except by His will. What He wills is, and what He does not, will not; there is not a glance of the eye, nor a stray thought of the heart that is not subject to His will. He is the Creator, the Restorer, the Doer of whatsoever He wills. There is none that rescinds His command, none that supplements His decrees, none that dissuades a servant from disobeying Him, except by His help and mercy, and none has power to obey Him except by His will.”

Abu Hamid al-Ghazali (1058–1111) Persian Muslim theologian, jurist, philosopher, and mystic

(2005) Ihyaa ‘Ulum al-Deen. Beirut: Dar Ibn Hazm, p. 107.

World, Failure, Evil, Success

“Let words proceed as they please, provided only your soul keeps its own sure order, provided your soul is great and holds unruffled to its ideals, pleased with itself on account of the very things which displease others, a soul that makes life the test of its progress, and believes that its knowledge is in exact proportion to its freedom from desire and its freedom from fear.”

Seneca the Younger book Epistulae morales ad Lucilium

Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium (Moral Letters to Lucilius), Letter CXV: On the Superficial Blessings

Life, Fear, Making love, Soul

“And here I hold that a liberal and brotherly welcome to all who are likely to come to the United States is the only wise policy which this nation can adopt. It has been thoughtfully observed that every nation, owing to its peculiar character and composition, has a definite mission in the world. What that mission is, and what policy is best adapted to assist in its fulfillment, is the business of its people and its statesmen to know, and knowing, to make a noble use of this knowledge. I need not stop here to name or describe the missions of other or more ancient nationalities. Our seems plain and unmistakable. Our geographical position, our relation to the outside world, our fundamental principles of government, world-embracing in their scope and character, our vast resources, requiring all manner of labor to develop them, and our already existing composite population, all conspire to one grand end, and that is, to make us the perfect national illustration of the unity and dignity of the human family that the world has ever seen. In whatever else other nations may have been great and grand, our greatness and grandeur will be found in the faithful application of the principle of perfect civil equality to the people of all races and of all creeds.”

Frederick Douglass (1818–1895) American social reformer, orator, writer and statesman

We are not only bound to this position by our organic structure and by our revolutionary antecedents, but by the genius of our people. Gathered here from all quarters of the globe, by a common aspiration for national liberty as against caste, divine right govern and privileged classes, it would be unwise to be found fighting against ourselves and among ourselves, it would be unadvised to attempt to set up any one race above another, or one religion above another, or prescribe any on account of race, color or creed.
1860s, Our Composite Nationality (1869)

People, World, Making love, Family

“The reader is struck by Witzel’s repeated disparaging remarks against the Puranas and their utility in the derivation of Indian history. Scholars who have read Witzel’s publications in detail inform me that there is nothing in them that betrays even a faint understanding and first-hand knowledge of this genre of literature on his part. Thus, Witzel’s repeated attempts to downgrade Puranas as a valid source of history (which, albeit should be used with caution) merely reflect his attempt to hide his own ignorance.”

Shrikant Talageri (1958) Indian author

Michael Witzel – An Examination of his Review of my Book (2001)

History, Literature, Understanding, Reading

“What the poet has in mind... is that poetic value is an intrinsic value. It is not the value of knowledge. It is not the value of faith. It is the value of imagination. The poet tries to exemplify it, in part as I have tried to exemplify it here, by identifying it with an imaginative activity that diffuses itself throughout our lives.”

Wallace Stevens (1879–1955) American poet

The Necessary Angel (1951), Imagination as Value

Faith, Imagination, Parting

“The press to-day is an army with carefully organized arms and branches, with journalists as officers, and readers as soldiers. But here, as in every army, the soldier obeys blindly, and war-aims and operation-plans change without his knowledge. The reader neither knows, nor is allowed to know, the purposes for which he is used, nor even the role that he is to play. A more appalling caricature of freedom of thought cannot be imagined. Formerly a man did not dare to think freely. Now he dares, but cannot; his will to think is only a willingness to think to order, and this is what he feels as his liberty.”

Oswald Spengler book The Decline of the West

Vol. II, Alfred A. Knopf, 1928, p. 462 https://archive.org/stream/Decline-Of-The-West-Oswald-Spengler/Decline_Of_The_West#page/n931/mode/2up The Decline of the West (1918, 1923)

War, Feeling, Imagination, Thinking

“If it is the drive of our time, after freedom of thought is won, to pursue it to that perfection through which it changes to freedom of the will in order to realize the latter as the principle of a new era, then the final goal of education can no longer be knowledge, but the will born out of knowledge, and the spoken expression of that for which it has to strive is: the personal or free man.”

Max Stirner book The False Principle of our Education

Truth consists in nothing other than man's revelation of himself, and thereto belongs the discovery of himself, the liberation from all that is alien, the uttermost abstraction or release from all authority, the re-won naturalness. Such thoroughly true men are not supplied by school; if they are there, they are there in spite of school.
Source: The False Principle of our Education (1842), p. 21

Education, Freedom, Change, Time

“Repression invades the academic enterprise itself, even prior to all restrictions on academic freedom. The pre-empting of the mind vitiates impartiality and objectivity: unless the student learns to think in the opposite direction, he will be inclined to place the facts into the predominant framework of values. Scholarship, i. e., the acquisition and communication of knowledge, prohibits the purification and isolation of facts from the context of the whole truth. An essential part of the latter is recognition of the frightening extent to which history is made and recorded by and for the victors, that is, the extent to which history was the development of oppression. And this oppression is in the facts themselves which it establishes; thus they themselves carry a negative value as part and aspect of their facticity. To treat the great crusades against humanity (like that against the Albigensians) with the same impartiality as the desperate struggles for humanity means neutralizing their opposite historical function, reconciling the executioners with their victims, distorting the record. Such spurious neutrality serves to reproduce acceptance of the dominion of the victors in the consciousness of man.”

Herbert Marcuse Repressive Tolerance

Repressive Tolerance (1965)

Truth, History, Communication, Thinking

“Yes, Professor, knowledge and understanding are quite different. Only understanding can lead to being, whereas knowledge is but a passing presence in it. New knowledge displaces the old and the result is, as it were, a pouring from the empty into the void.”

G. I. Gurdjieff (1866–1949) influential spiritual teacher, Armenian philosopher, composer and writer

All and Everything: Meetings with Remarkable Men (1963)

Understanding

“It seems to me that Spinoza shares the fate of good old Saturn in the fable. The new gods pulled down the sublime one from the lofty throne of knowledge. He faded back into the solemn obscurity of the imagination; there he lives and now dwells with the other Titans in dignified exile.”

Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677) Dutch philosopher

Original in German: Spinosa, scheint mirs, hat ein gleiches Schicksal, wie der gute alte Saturn der Fabel. Die neuen Götter haben den Herrlichen vom hohen Thron der Wissenschaft herabgestürzt. In das heilige Dunkel der Fantasie ist er zurückgewichen, da lebt und haust er nun mit den andern Titanen in ehrwürdiger Verbannung.
Friedrich Schlegel, Rede über die Mythologie, in Friedrich Schlegels Gespräch über die Poesie (1800)
S - Z

God, Fate, Imagination

“Neokantianism represents in the last analysis nothing but a certain academic line of thought, which has supplied us with a better knowledge of Kant and a useful literature of educated people. Agnosticism, on the other hand, on account of its diffusion among the people, is an actual symptom of the present condition of certain social classes. The socialists would have good grounds for believing that this symptom is one of the evidences of the decadence of the bourgeoisie. It certainly stands in marked contrast to the heroic devotion to truth shown by the thought of the precursors of modern history, such as Bruno and Spinoza, or to that conventional assertiveness, which was typical of the thinkers of the 18th century, until the classic German philosophy gradually came upon the scene.”

Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677) Dutch philosopher

Antonio Labriola, Socialism and Philosophy (1897) [original in Italian]
G - L

People, Truth, Education, History

“To sum it up in a word: Marx was close to Hegel in his insistence on rejecting every philosophy of the Origin and of the Subject, whether rationalist, empiricist or transcendental; in his critique of the cogito, of the sensualist-empiricist subject and of the transcendental subject, thus in his critique of the idea of a theory of knowledge. Marx was close to Hegel in his critique of the legal subject and of the social contract, in his critique of the moral subject, in short of every philosophical ideology of the Subject, which whatever the variation involved gave classical bourgeois philosophy the means of guaranteeing its ideas, practices and goals by not simply reproducing but philosophically elaborating the notions of the dominant legal ideology. And if you consider the grouping of these critical themes, you have to admit that Marx was close to Hegel just in respect to those features which Hegel had openly borrowed from Spinoza, because all this can be found in the Ethics and the Tractatus Theologico-Politicus.”

Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677) Dutch philosopher

These deep-rooted affinities are normally passed over in pious silence; they nevertheless constitute, from Epicurus to Spinoza and Hegel, the premises of Marx's materialism. They are hardly ever mentioned, for the simple reason that Marx himself did not mention them, and so the whole of the Marx-Hegel relationship is made to hang on the dialectic, because this Marx did talk about!

Louis Althusser, Essays in Self-Criticism (1976), "Is it Simple to be a Marxist in Philosophy?"
A - F, Louis Althusser

Idea

“I do not have the professional knowledge to write a scholarly article about Spinoza. But what I think about this man I can express in a few words. Spinoza was the first to apply with strict consistency the idea of an all-pervasive determinism to human thought, feeling, and action. In my opinion, his point of view has not gained general acceptance by all those striving for clarity and logical rigor only because it requires not only consistency of thought, but also unusual integrity, magnamity, and — modesty.”

Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677) Dutch philosopher

Albert Einstein (1932), in Max Jammer's Einstein and Religion: Physics and Theology (Princeton University Press)
A - F

Feeling, Idea, Thinking

“My views are near those of Spinoza: admiration for the beauty of and belief in the logical simplicity of the order which we can grasp humbly and only imperfectly. I believe that we have to content ourselves with our imperfect knowledge and understanding and treat values and moral obligations as a purely human problem—the most important of all human problems.”

Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677) Dutch philosopher

Albert Einstein, Princeton, 26 April 1947
A - F

Beauty, Understanding, Problem

“But was it not you who used to tell me that the more you knew, the better? That knowledge was the sharpest fang?”

Steve Perry (1947) American writer

Source: The Vastalimi Gambit (2013), Chapter 3

“What is the use of all knowledge, if one does not act in accordance with it? This remark implies that knowledge is regarded as a means to action, and the latter as the real end. One could put the question the other way round and ask: How can we possibly act well without knowing what the Good is? This way of expressing it would regard knowledge as conditioning action. But both expressions are one-sided, and the truth is that both, knowledge as well as action, are in the same way inseparable elements of rational life.”

Johann Gottlieb Fichte book Address to the German Nation

Consequences of the Difference p. 75
Addresses to the German Nation (Reden an die deutsche Nation) 1808, Fifth Address

Life, Truth, Way, Question

“This education, therefore, results at the very outset in knowledge which transcends all experience, which is abstract, absolute, and strictly universal, and which includes within itself beforehand all subsequently possible experience. On the other hand, the old education was concerned, as a rule, only with the actual qualities of things as they are and as they should be believed and rioted, without anyone being able to assign a reason for them. It aimed, therefore, at purely passive reception by means of the power of memory, which was completely at the service of things. It was, therefore, impossible to have any idea of the mind as an independent original principle of things themselves.”

Johann Gottlieb Fichte book Address to the German Nation

General Nature of New Eduction p. 28
Addresses to the German Nation (Reden an die deutsche Nation) 1808, Second Address

Education, Idea, Universe, Memory

“The purpose of the State is, as we have already shown in our last lecture, no other than that of the Human Race itself:-to order all its relations according to the Laws of Reason. It is only after the Age of Reason as Science shall have been traversed, and we shall have arrived at the Age of Reason as Art, that the State can reflect upon this purpose with clear consciousness. Till then it constantly promotes this purpose, but without its own knowledge, or free pre meditated design; prompted thereto by the natural law of the development of our Race, even while it has a totally different purpose in view;—with which purpose of its own, Nature has indissolubly bound up the purpose of the whole Race.”

Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762–1814) German philosopher

Source: The Characteristics of the Present Age (1806), p. 168

Age, Law, Art, Nature

“Blessed be the hour in which I was first led to inquire into my own spiritual nature and destination! All my doubts are removed; I know what I can know, and have no fears for what I cannot know. I am satisfied; perfect clearness and harmony reign in my soul, and a new and more glorious existence begins for me. My entire destiny I cannot comprehend; what I am to become, exceeds my present power of conception. A part, which is concealed from me, is visible to the father of spirits. I know only that it is secure, everlasting and glorious. That part of it which is confided to me I know, for it is the root of all my other knowledge.”

Johann Gottlieb Fichte book The Vocation of Man

Jane Sinnett, trans 1846 p.120
The Vocation of Man (1800), Faith

Fear, Soul, Confidence, Nature

“Of what I am, I know no more than that I am, but here no tie is necessary between subject and object. My own being is this tie, I am at once the subject knowing, and the object known of; and this reflection or return of the knowledge on itself is what I designate by the term I, if I have any determinate meaning.”

Johann Gottlieb Fichte book The Vocation of Man

Jane Sinnett, trans 1846 p. 50
The Vocation of Man (1800), Knowledge

“My immediate consciousness, my absolute perception, cannot go beyond myself, — I have immediate knowledge only of myself, whatever I know further I know only by reasoning, in the same manner in which I have come to those conclusions concerning the original powers of Nature, which certainly do not lie within the circle of my perceptions. I, however, — that which I call myself, — am not the man-forming power of Nature, but only one of its manifestations; and only of this manifestation am I conscious, not of that power, whose existence I have only discovered from the necessity of explaining my own.”

Johann Gottlieb Fichte book The Vocation of Man

Jane Sinnett, trans 1846 p. 13
The Vocation of Man (1800), Doubt

Lie, Nature

“Work democracy cannot be imposed on people as a political system. It depends on the consciousness on the part of the working people in all professions of their responsibility for the social process. This consciousness may be present or it may grow in an organic manner, like a tree or an animal organism. The growth of this consciousness of social responsibility is the most important prerequisite for the prevention of the cancer-like growth of political systems in the social organism. If they are allowed to grow, they will sooner or later bring about social chaos. Furthermore, such consciousness of responsibility alone will, in the course of time, bring the institutions of human society into harmony with the natural functions of work democracy. Political systems come and go without stopping or fundamentally changing the social process. But the pulse of human society would stop and not return should the natural life functions of love, work and knowledge cease for only one day.”

Wilhelm Reich book The Mass Psychology of Fascism

The Mass Psychology of Fascism (1933), Ch. 10 : Work Democracy

Love, Life, People, Making love

“Work democracy is the natural process of love, work and knowledge which has always governed economy and the social and cultural life of man and always will, as long as there is a human society. Work democracy is the sum total of all naturally developed and developing life functions which organically govern rational human relationships.”

Wilhelm Reich book The Mass Psychology of Fascism

The Mass Psychology of Fascism (1933), Ch. 10 : Work Democracy

Love, Life, Making love, Democracy

“It is the most obvious fact that Jerzy Vetulani is an extraordinary personality who masterfully combines deep knowledge with the art of rhetoric, form and beauty of expression. But I have trouble answering the question: Who is Professor Vetulani really? There is no doubt that he is an eminent scholar, a star of Polish science, but he is also an unconventional man – what shocked me two years ago when he marched in the first line of the Cannabis Legalization March.”

Jerzy Vetulani (1936–2017) Polish scientist

Jacek Purchla, art historian, director of the International Cultural Centre in Kraków and the President of the Polish National Commission for UNESCO. An introduction to Vetulani's lecture during the GAP Symposium in Szczyrk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RtGOlcQaIdM (in Polish), January 2016.

Beauty, Art, Star, Question

“He was an extraordinary man – a colorful bird against the background of academic gray. A scholar and erudite, he was witty, malicious, surprising, uncompromising and courageous. His knowledge and talent for lecturing made him a valued popularizer of neuroscience. He could simplify even very complex phenomena, showing their essence and meaning. Non-standard interpretations of the reality that he presented at the lectures were witty, but also deep and attracted fascinated youth. He loved Krakow – he knew everything about it and was a great guide. There is grief and anger in us that he was driven over at the pedestrian crossing by a delivery van.”

Jerzy Vetulani (1936–2017) Polish scientist

Małgorzata Kossut, neuroscientist, member of the Polish Academy of Sciences and friend of Vetulani. Debate on depression: in memoriam Professor Jerzy Vetulani at the XXIst Science Festival in Warsaw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AS-1L-NZYXQ (in Polish), 30th September 2017.

Love, Youth, Making love, Color

“Spelling is relevant knowledge.”

Smita Nair Jain (1969) Indian Author, screenwriter and playback singer

by Smita Nair Jain at The first Global Alumni Leadership Summit organized by the Indian Institute of Management - Bangalore Alumni Association 2015” Source: Quote by Smita Nair Jain, goodreads, 2018-09-01 https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/1918172.Smita_Nair_Jain,

“Her special knowledge of significant acts of prayer, ablution, and cleanliness performed by the Prophet Muhammad made her an especially valued source of ritually significant information for the Sunni Muslim community, who in all matters looked to the Prophet’s human example in the performance of their daily life.”

Aisha (605–678) Muhammad's wife

[Denise A. Spellberg, Politics, Gender, and the Islamic Past: The Legacy of 'A'isha Bint Abi Bakr, 1994, New York: Columbia University Press, 37]
About

Life, Communication

“Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru has compelled me to study, among other things, the implications of a Constituent Assembly. When he first introduced it in the Congress resolutions, I reconciled myself to it because of my belief in his superior knowledge of the technicalities of democracy. But I was not free from skepticism. Hard facts have, however, made me a convert and, for that reason perhaps, more enthusiastic than Jawaharlal himself.”

Shankar Dayal Sharma (1918–1999) Indian politician

Address By Dr. Shanker Dayal Sharma President Of India On The Occasion Of The 50th Anniversary Of The First Sitting Of The Constituent Assembly

Democracy, Study

“The Maharaja was not only a great scholar but also liked the company of scholars and to listen to their words of wisdom and knowledge. He used to arrange study circles regularly in a serene place in the City.”

Jayachamarajendra Wadiyar (1919–1974) Indian writer

A.V. Narasimha Murthy, in "When the Maharaja’s son failed an examination".

Wisdom, Study

“I have no knowledge with me to make you a better singer than you are.”

K. L. Saigal (1904–1947) Indian actor

By Fayyaz khan in [Ranganathan Magadi, The Literary Works of Ranganathan Magadi, http://books.google.com/books?id=zU-xAAAAQBAJ&pg=PA645, 1 February 2007, Ranganathan Magadi, 978-1-4116-7004-4, 645–]

Making love

“We didn’t know what kind of music we’d make, we didn’t know if it would be any good, but we hoped we’d have fun. He brings so much musical knowledge, amazing musicianship, melody and singing power from a different culture.”

A. R. Rahman (1966) Indian singer and composer

Mick Jagger’s views Superheavy, 16 December 2013, Official website of ARRahman http://www.arrahman.com/superheavy.aspx,

Making love, Hope, Music, Singing

“I was and still am her great admirer and fan. She signified to me the epitome of Indian grace and culture. She possessed in her the mischievous streak of that precocious village belle and the spirited movement of a Shiv Tandav. She looked vulnerable and lost, searching for protection in one moment, yet knowledged and mature in another. You felt like protecting and guarding her from all the evil of the world and to gently wipe away any frayed eyebrows that may have accumulated on her face. Her performances were pure and clean, without effort and deliberate design. They were just a part of her - simple and soft.”

Waheeda Rehman (1938) Indian actress

‘Devoted’ Amitabh fetched Waheeda’s chappals

World, Search, Effort, Evil

“Brijmohan Maharaj’s Kamdeva matched grace with grace. To the loving he added fear, and a secret knowledge of his fate. Together they devised a poignancy that was memorable and must surely be rare in dance.”

Birju Maharaj (1938) Indian dancer

His dance in the ballet choreography Rati Kamdeva performed along with co-artiste Kumudini Lakhi reviewed in the Statesman in "Movement in Stills: The Dance and Life of Kumudini Lakhia}, page=115.

Love, Fate, Secret, Fear

“Dr. C. V. Raman was the greatest scientist of modern India and one of the greatest intellects our country has produced in its long history. His mind was like the diamond, which he studied and explained. His life’s work consisted in throwing light upon the nature of lights, and the world honoured him in many ways for the new knowledge which he won for science.”

C. V. Raman (1888–1970) Indian physicist

Indira Gandhi, the former Prime Minister of India quoted in [Cahn, R.W., The Coming of Materials Science, http://books.google.com/books?id=CCmJMr_K5NIC&pg=PA234, 16 March 2001, Elsevier, 978-0-08-052942-4, 272]

Life, World, Way, History

“For the Chair of Physics created by Sir Palit, we have been fortunate enough to secure the services of Mr. Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman, who has greatly distinguished himself and acquired a European fame by his brilliant research in the domain of Physical Science, assiduously carried on under the most adverse circumstances amidst the distraction of pressing official duties. I rejoice to think that many of these valuable researches have been carried on in the laboratory of the Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science, founded by our late illustrious colleague, Dr. Mahandra Lal Sircar, who devoted a lifetime to the foundation of an institution for the cultivation and advancement of science in this country. I should fail in my duty if I were to restrain myself in my expression of genuine admiration I feel for the courage and spirit of self-sacrifice with which Mr. Raman had decided to exchange a lucrative official appointment with attractive prospects, for a University Professorship, which, I regret to say, does not carry even liberal emoluments. This one instance encourages me to entertain the hope that there will be no lack of seeker after truth in the Temple of Knowledge which it is our ambition to erect.”

C. V. Raman (1888–1970) Indian physicist

Quoted from Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman:A Legend of Modern Indian Science, 22 November 2013, Official Government of Indian website Vigyan Prasar http://www.vigyanprasar.gov.in/scientists/cvraman/raman1.htm,

Truth, Hope, Feeling, Courage

“Equality gives rise to challenging questions which are not altogether easy to answer… a = a and a = b are obviously statements of differing cognitive value; a = a holds a priori and, according to Kant, is to be labeled analytic, while statements of the form a = b often contain very valuable extensions of our knowledge and cannot always be established a priori.”

Gottlob Frege Sense and reference

The discovery that the rising sun is not new every morning, but always the same, was one of the most fertile astronomical discoveries. Even to-day the identification of a small planet or a comet is not always a matter of course. Now if we were to regard equality as a relation between that which the names 'a' and 'b' designate, it would seem that a = b could not differ from a = a (i.e. provided a = b is true). A relation would thereby be expressed of a thing to itself, and indeed one in which each thing stands to itself but to no other thing.
As cited in: M. Fitting, Richard L. Mendelsoh (1999), First-Order Modal Logic, p. 142. They called this Frege's Puzzle.
Über Sinn und Bedeutung, 1892

Question

“Analysis of a system reveals its structure and how it works. It provides the knowledge required to make it work efficiently and to repair it when it stops working. Its product is know-how, knowledge, not understanding. To enable a system to perform effectively we must understand it—we must be able to explain its behavior—and this requires being aware of its functions in the larger systems of which it is a part.”

Russell L. Ackoff (1919–2009) Scientist

Source: 1990s, Re-Creating the Corporation (1999), p. 12.

Making love, Behavior, Understanding, Parting

“Mechanical knowledge may… be distinguished into three kinds; purely scientific knowledge, purely practical knowledge, and that intermediate kind of knowledge which relates to the application of scientific principles to practical purposes, and which arises from understanding the harmony of theory and practice.”

William John Macquorn Rankine (1820–1872) civil engineer

"On the Harmony of Theory and Practice in Mechanics" (Jan. 3, 1856)

Understanding, Relation ships

“The best foreign account of India that this age produced was written by Abu Rlhan, better known as Alberuni, a contemporary of Sultan Mahmud of Ghazni. While the ruthless conqueror was harrying India by fire and sword, destroying and plundering its cities and temples, the great Arabic scholar engaged himself in studying the culture and civilization of the country. He learned Sanskrit and studied its different branches of literature. The bulky volume which he wrote is in many respects the most rational and comprehensive account of India ever written by a foreigner until modern times. He is singularly free from religious enthusiasm, bordering on fanaticism, and the racial superiority-complex which mark the Muslim writings of the age. He patiently laboured to acquire knowledge of Indian society and culture in a laudabile spirit of quest for truth, and brought to his task a liberal and rational mind enriched by profound knowledge, remarkable for his age.”

Al-Biruni (973–1048) Persian scholar and polymath

The History and Culture of the Indian People: The Vedic age, ed. R.C. Majumdar https://archive.org/stream/in.ernet.dli.2015.110240/2015.110240.The-Vedic-Age-Vol1_djvu.txt

Truth, Age, Literature, Study

“Yet we are obliged, to regard a man with so little about him that is ornamental or entertaining, or attractive, as a very considerable personage in the history of his country. Belonging to an age of gigantic intellect and gigantic attainments, he was admired by his contemporaries, and time has in no degree impaired his fame. He is most familiar to us as an author. Smart legal practitioners, who are only desirous of making money by their profession, neglect his works, and sneer at them as pedantic and antiquated; but they continue to be studied by all who wish to know the history and to acquire a scientific and liberal knowledge of our judicial and political institutions. His Opus Magnum is this Commentary upon Littleton, which in itself may be said to contain the whole common law of England as it then existed. Notwithstanding its want of method and its quaintness, the author writes from such a full mind, with such mastery over his subject, and with such unbroken spirit, that every law student who has made, or is ever likely to make, any proficiency, must peruse him with delight.”

Edward Coke (1552–1634) English lawyer and judge

Lord Campbell, Lives of the Chief Justices, Vol. 1, 338.
About, The Dictionary of Legal Quotations (1904)

Money, Age, Making love, Law

“From far beyond the horizons that bound this bleak plantation there had come to me through my living the knowledge that my father was a black peasant who had gone to the city seeking life, but who had failed in the city; a black peasant whose life had been hopelessly snarled in the city, and who had at last fled the city—that same city which had lifted me in its burning arms and borne me toward alien and undreamed of shores of knowing.”

Richard Wright book Black Boy

Black Boy (1945)

Life

“A woman well bred and well taught, furnished with the additional accomplishments of knowledge and behaviour, is a creature without comparison.”

Daniel Defoe (1660–1731) English trader, writer and journalist

Her society is the emblem of sublimer enjoyments, her person is angelic, and her conversation heavenly. She is all softness and sweetness, peace, love, wit, and delight. She is every way suitable to the sublimest wish, and the man that has such a one to his portion, has nothing to do but to rejoice in her, and be thankful.
The Education of Women (1719)

“You might be able to give everybody unhindered, untested access to knowledge. Because the computer would do the day-to-day work — for which we once qualified the select few — in an educational system originally designed for a world where only the few could be taught.”

James Burke (science historian) (1936) British broadcaster, science historian, author, and television producer

The Day the Universe Changed (1985), 10 - Worlds Without End

World, Education

Quotes about knowledge page 43

Quotes about knowledge
page 43