Quotes about knowledge
page 45

“The summit of evil, the crime most natural to the devil, pride, was born of knowledge. But if this is so, how can it be possible that all the passions result from ignorance? Does knowledge purify the psyche? Paul says: Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up”

Gregory Palamas (1296–1359) Monk and archbishop

1 Corinthians 8:1
Source: Holy Hesychia: The Stillness that Knows God, p. 33

Love, Making love, Nature, Passion

“Knowledge is not like sin. There is no mystical escape from it.”

Leigh Brackett book The Long Tomorrow

Source: The Long Tomorrow (1955), Chapter 30

“You can’t destroy knowledge. You can stamp it under and burn it up and forbid it to be, but somewhere it will survive.”

Leigh Brackett book The Long Tomorrow

Source: The Long Tomorrow (1955), Chapter 21

“Few men, whatever their creed, would now seek their geology in the books of their religion, or, on the other hand, would fancy that the laboratory or the microscope could help them to penetrate the mysteries which hang over the nature and the destiny of the soul of man. ... We live in a small, bright oasis of knowledge, surrounded on all sides by a vast, unexplored region of impenetrable mystery.”

Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (1830–1903) British politician

Speech to the British Association (6 August 1894), quoted in The Times (9 August 1894), p. 6
1890s

Men, Books, Religion, Soul

“I have only one goal and one desire, namely to give myself a practical instruction, to get to know the world and its inhabitants. There will come times when this knowledge will be of use to me.”

Leopold II of Belgium (1835–1909) King of the Belgians

https://klara.be/leopold-ii-aflevering-1-0 Prince Leopold II on his second wedding trip in a letter to his father Leopold I of Belgium in 1854.

World, Time

“I leave knowing that one of the things that makes us human is our curiosity, and one of the things that is the record of our curiosity is our knowledge.”

Katherine Maher (1983) chief executive officer and executive director of the Wikimedia Foundation

Wikimedia CEO on facts, hoaxes and the promise of Wikipedians by Luke Ottenhof, Canada's National Observer https://www.nationalobserver.com/2021/03/19/news/wikimedia-ceo-facts-wiki-hoaxes-and-promise-wikipedians, (19 March 2021) <br class="br">2021

Making love

“Even in physics, there is no infallible procedure for generating reliable knowledge. The calm order and perfection of well-established theories, accredited by innumerable items of evidence from a thousand different hands, eyes and brains, is not characteristic of the front-line of research, where controversy, conjecture, contradiction and confusion are rife. The physics of undergraduate text-books is 90% true; the contents of the primary research journals of physics is 90% false. The scientific system is as much involved in distilling the former out of the latter as it is in creating and transferring more and more bits of data and items of 'information'.”

John Ziman (1925–2005) New Zealand physicist

John Ziman in "Reliable Knowledge: an Exploration of the Grounds for Belief in Science" (1978)

Books, Perfection, Falseness

“Its always my conviction that young filmmakers do not actively need old filmmakers help, because the society in which they are living in, their surroundings and their knowledge is completely different. I mean there’s a whole set of different rules which they know better than we do, but if we use our experience to tell them what to do I think it hinders more than it helps. Not unless the old director who’s out to help is also a very good teacher that is saying to the student what he needs to know instead of just telling the student his experience. And being a teacher, I think I’ve been one myself and I know that I’m not good enough, because to be a great teacher is more difficult than to be a great filmmaker.”

Ann Hui (1947) Hong Kong film director

77. Mostra del Cinema - Ann Hui masterclass 28 Oct 2020, at 3 Min 12 Sec https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5NNfVayr694 <br class="br">Masterclass with Ann Hui at the 77th Venice International Film Festival

Thinking, Teachers, Help

“There was no knowledge on my part about his specific actions, but… There was just energy. And that type of sinister, shadow energy cannot be concealed
..
When your primary male figure couldn't care less to show up, that can become a theme in your life where you’re trying to fill this gap with these different men”

Lisa Bonet (1967) American actress

9 March 2018 https://www.net-a-porter.com/en-gb/porter/article-33a55e73f6c7ac7b/cover-stories/cover-stories/lisa-bonet?cm_mmc=Twitter-_-Magazine-_-20180309&utm_source=t.co&utm_medium=referral&siteID=TnL5HPStwNw-I7e_rfvO9ni1Csr6IiWfpw&Skimlinks.com=Skimlinks.com interview regarding Bill Cosby

Life, Men, Parting

“The chief blessings of human nature are the three following:—TRUTH—VIRTUE—and LIBERTY.—These are, therefore, the blessings in the possession of which the interest of our country lies, and to the attainment of which our love of it ought to direct our endeavours. By the diffusion of KNOWLEDGE it must be distinguished from a country of Barbarians: by the practice of religious VIRTUE, it must be distinguished from a country of gamblers, Atheists, and libertines: and by the possession of LIBERTY, it must be distinguished from a country of slaves.”

Richard Price (1721–1791) Welsh nonconformist preacher and radical

Source: A Discourse on the Love of Our Country (1789), p. 11

Love, Truth, Making love, Nature

“The support of the communities implies concrete assistance to young couples because it can offer them knowledge and an important wealth of experience, while encouraging them, above all, to open themselves to the presence of God in their lives, a presence that will help them to support their love in a long, faithful, and fruitful marriage. When the parish communities take this responsibility seriously the ministry of marriage preparation has the potential to be a life-giving joy for communities and families. Their love is contagious and does everyone good.”

Peter Doyle (bishop) (1944) Catholic bishop

Marriage Preparation in the light of “Amoris Laetitia”: The experience of the Office for Life, Family, and Marriage of the Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales http://www.laityfamilylife.va/content/laityfamilylife/en/news/2018/la-preparazione-al-matrimonio-alla-luce-di-amoris-laetitia--lesp.html (23 August 2018)

Love, Life, God, Marriage

“Knowledge breaks down the barriers of prejudice and opens doors for embrace.”

Valter Bitencourt Júnior (1994) Brazilian poet and writer

“Wisdom is a kind of knowledge. It is knowledge of the nature, career, and consequences of human values.”

Sidney Hook (1902–1989) American philosopher

Wisdom, Nature

“Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers. It may not be difficult to store up in the mind a vast quantity of facts within a comparatively short time, but the ability to form judgments requires the severe discipline of hard work and the tempering heat of experience and maturity.”

Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) American politician, 30th president of the United States (in office from 1923 to 1929)

Wisdom, Time

“Science investigates; religion interprets. Science gives man knowledge which is power; religion gives man wisdom which is control.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

Wisdom, Religion, Science

“If facts are the seeds that later produce knowledge and wisdom, then the emotions and the impressions of the senses are the fertile soil in which the seeds must grow.”

Rachel Carson (1907–1964) American marine biologist and conservationist

Wisdom, Sense

“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?”

George Eliot (1819–1880) English novelist, journalist and translator

Life, Wisdom

“Wisdom is the power to put our time and our knowledge to the proper use.”

Tom Watson (1874–1956) American businessman

Wisdom, Time, Wise

“Here is one quality that one must possess to win, and that is definiteness of purpose, the knowledge of what one wants, and a burning desire to possess it.”

Napoleon Hill (1883–1970) American author

“A little knowledge that acts is worth infinitely more than much knowledge that is idle.”

Khalil Gibran (1883–1931) Lebanese artist, poet, and writer

“Sorrow is knowledge, those that know the most must mourn the deepest, the tree of knowledge is not the tree of life.”

George Gordon Byron (1788–1824) English poet and a leading figure in the Romantic movement

Life, Tree, Hurtful

“Knowledge has three degrees: opinion, science, illumination. The means or instrument of the first is sense; of the second, dialectic; of the third, intuition.”

Plotinus (203–270) Neoplatonist philosopher

Sense, Science

“Pain and foolishness lead to great bliss and complete knowledge, for Eternal Wisdom created nothing under the sun in vain.”

Khalil Gibran (1883–1931) Lebanese artist, poet, and writer

Wisdom, Pain, Sun

“The doorstep to the temple of wisdom is a knowledge of our own ignorance.”

Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790) American author, printer, political theorist, politician, postmaster, scientist, inventor, civic activist, …

Wisdom

“In friendship as well as love, ignorance very often contributes more to our happiness than knowledge.”

François de La Rochefoucauld (1613–1680) French author of maxims and memoirs

Love, Friendship, Happiness

“Science gives us knowledge, but only philosophy can give us wisdom.”

Will Durant (1885–1981) American historian, philosopher and writer

Wisdom, Science

“Imagination is more important than knowledge. For while knowledge defines all we currently know and understand, imagination points to all we might yet discover and create.”

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

Imagination, Understanding

“I suggest that scientific knowledge, though logically more articulate and far more complex, is of this sort. The books and teachers from whom it is acquired present concrete examples together with a multitude of theoretical generalizations. Both are essential carriers of knowledge, and it is therefore Pickwickian to seek a methodological criterion that supposes the scientist can specify in advance whether each imaginable instance fits or would falsify his theory.”

Thomas Kuhn (1922–1996) American historian, physicist and philosopher

"Logic of Discovery or Psychology of Research?", Criticism and the growth of knowledge edited by Imre Lakatos and Alan Musgrave (1970)

Books, Imagination, Teachers

“Science is empirical: knowing the answer is nothing. Testing your knowledge means everything.”

Lawrence M. Krauss (1954) American physicist

"A Universe From Nothing" by Lawrence Krauss, AAI 2009 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ImvlS8PLIo#t=23m40s (23:40-23:48)

Science

“Religion translates metaphysical or universal truths into dogmatic language; now though dogma is not accessible to all men in its intrinsic truth, which can only be directly attained by the Intellect, it is nonetheless accessible through faith, which is, for the great majority, the only possible mode of participation in the Divine Truths. As for intellectual knowledge, which proceeds neither from belief nor from a process of reasoning, it goes beyond dogma in the sense that, without ever contradicting the latter, it penetrates its internal dimension, that is, the infinite Truth that dominates all forms.”

Frithjof Schuon book The Transcendent Unity of Religions

[1993, The Transcendent Unity of Religions, Quest Books, xxxi, 978-0-8356-0587-8]
Miscellaneous, Religion

Men, Truth, Faith, Religion

“Revelation is the fulgurant irruption of a knowledge that comes, not from an individual or collective subconscious, but on the contrary from a supra-consciousness, which though latent in all beings nonetheless immensely surpasses its individual and psychological crystallizations.”

Frithjof Schuon (1907–1998) Swiss philosopher

[2006, Light on the Ancient Worlds, World Wisdom, 117, 978-0-941532-72-3]
Miscellaneous, Revelation

“That servant who is claimant of Divine knowledge but seeks peace in other than God, is entrapped in severe affliction. But when comely he seeks forgiveness of the Almighty, his affliction is eliminated.”

Ibrahim Khawas Iranian scientist

Source: The Sayings and Teachings of the Great Mystics of Islam (2004), p. 59

God, Peace, Forgiveness, Affliction

“Faith is not knowledge of an object but communion with it.”

Nicolás Gómez Dávila (1913–1994) Colombian writer and philosopher

Escolios a un Texto Implicito (1977), Volume Two

Faith

“The most real and reliable quality of knowledge, is experience.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: (it) La più reale ed affidabile qualità di conoscenza, è l'esperienza.
Source: prevale.net

“One of the greatest errors in the reconstruction of another era lies in our tendency to think of them as being like ourselves in feeling and attitudes. Actually, without considerable study on the part of a present-day man — if he were confronted by a fifteenth-century man — there would be no possible communication. I think it is possible through knowledge and discipline for a modern man to understand, and, to a certain extent, live into a fifteenth-century mind, but the reverse would be completely impossible.”

John Steinbeck book The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights

Appendix, letter to Elizabeth Otis and Chase Horton (14 March 1958)
The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights (1976)

Error, Feeling, Communication, Understanding

“A knowledge of Bach is the beginning of musical wisdom.”

Walter Raymond Spalding (1865–1962) American music pedagogue and author

Page 47 https://books.google.com/books?id=pQARAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA47. <br class="br">Music: An Art and a Language (1920), Polyphonic Music; Sebastian Bach (Ch. III)

Wisdom, Music

“I have extensive management experience in crisis situations, accumulated experience, and knowledge in the security and defense system. I have experience in overcoming the economic crisis. The current dangers and the accumulated experience and knowledge practically coincide”

Robert Kocharyan (1954) second President of Armenia

Excerpts from 2021 keynote speech on formation of 'Armenia' alliance

“My English name is Bowinn Ma, but in Chinese, it’s Ma Bo Wen. Ma literally translates as “horse,” which is the family name, and Bo Wen literally translates to “plentiful script.” But what it means can be roughly translated as “ocean of knowledge” or “broad scholar.””

Bowinn Ma (1985) Canadian politician

It means someone who has a broad understanding of many things and someone who has the wisdom to use this knowledge in a good way. It represents what my parents and grandparents had hoped I would become as an adult. In English, my name is just a name, a series of sounds used to identify me. But in my traditional language, those two simple syllables are a culmination of all of the hopes and dreams that my family have had of me since my birth — aspirations that could never truly be translated properly across cultures in as succinct a way.
British Columbia Legislative Hansard, March 12, 2018: INDIGENOUS LANGUAGES
Meaning of Name

Family, Horse

“It is only by poets that the life of any epoch can be synthesized. Encyclopaedias and guides to knowledge cannot do it, for the good reason that they affect only the intellectual surface of a man’s life. The lower layers, the core of his being, they leave untouched.”

Aldous Huxley (1894–1963) English writer

Source: Texts and Pretexts (1932), p. 4

Life

“Over the ages, if we had had a more open attitude to knowledge, to change of consciousness, to change of perception of the possibilities of life and the nature of the reality in which we live, people like Galileo or Copernicus would have had altogether easier lives.”

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

The Great Approach (2001)

Life, People, Age, Nature

“Education opens the way to a new life and a new world. Be brave and confident. Open all doors through knowledge, open with your willpower and the impulse of your hearts, diligence, helping each other, trusting each other, learning from each other.”

Armen Sarkissian (1953) 4th President of Armenia, Member of the Global Leadership Foundation, one of the directors of Eurasia House, phy…

"Congratulations on the Knowledge and Schooling Day" https://www.president.am/en/statements-and-messages/item/2021/09/01/President-Armen-Sarkissians-congratulatory-message-on-the-occasion-of-Knowledge-and-Schooling-Day-/ (1 September 2021)

Life, World, Education, Way

“God had given men reason, by which they could find out things for themselves, but He had given animals knowledge which did not depend on reason, and which was much more prompt and perfect in its way, and by which they had often saved the lives of men.”

Anna Sewell book Black Beauty

Source: Black Beauty (1877), Ch. XII, p. 61

Men, God, Way, Animals

“All the knowledge seekers must pray like this: 'Oh The Creator! Open our eyes to see the truth. Our ears to hear Your Commands and obey with a steadfast heart. Amen!”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Truth, Heart

“Here too, we can see that not being open to learning something new does not automatically make someone a narcissist. In fact, a narcissist is required to be more knowledgeable in many fields; mostly in psychology.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Learning

“Knowledge is similar to a mirror. It will show you where the dirt is located, but it will never remove it for you.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

“Love is not seen as something of great status. Power is left untouched by the hunger for power and knowledge is neglected.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Love, Hunger

“Most of our decisions are based on experience. More experience on something equals quick decisions. Less knowledge means fearful judgements.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Fear, Decision

“Most of the narcissists are geniuses and masters of Psychology. But they are using their knowledge to eradicate, rather than to help humanity.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Help

“Self-realisation is the highest knowledge you can ever seek into your life—The rest are simply facts.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Life

“Without doubt, the mystics have accessed the cosmic consciousness and they are capable to use their intuitive abilities, unlike the majority of the people. This is the highest knowledge one can ever seek to possess in our age.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

People, Age

“All knowledge is only accumulations of previous generations. I don't think an individual deserves all the praise for knowing something beautiful.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Beauty, Thinking

“The more knowledge you have, the more imagination. The more you can imagine, the more you will be capable to explore the universe.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Imagination, Universe

“The mystery of knowledge is that once you know, you won't have anything more to ask. Thus, closing the door to ask more exciting questions.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Question

“It is appropriate to distinguish between a knowledge that is active and mental, namely doctrinal discernment, by which we become conscious of the Truth, and a knowledge that is passive, receptive and cardiac, namely invocatory contemplation, by which we assimilate what we have become aware of.”

Frithjof Schuon (1907–1998) Swiss philosopher

[2012, Echoes of Perennial Wisdom, World Wisdom, 50, 978-1-93659700-0]
Spiritual path, Knowledge

Truth

“Will for the Good and love of the Beautiful are the necessary concomitants of knowledge of the True, and their repercussions are incalculable.”

Frithjof Schuon book The Transcendent Unity of Religions

[1993, The Transcendent Unity of Religions, Quest Books, 152, 978-0-8356-0587-8]
Spiritual path, Knowledge

Love, Beauty

“Without fear of God as a basis, nothing is possible spiritually, for the absence of fear is a lack of self-knowledge.”

Frithjof Schuon (1907–1998) Swiss philosopher

[2012, Echoes of Perennial Wisdom, World Wisdom, 30, 978-1-93659700-0]
God, Reverential fear and love

God, Fear

“We have been forced to put a major emphasis on the acquisition of technical knowledge.”

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

1930s- 1950s, An Economist Looks At the Peace (1945)

“The benefit of knowledge is that it makes the world more predictable, but the cost is that a predictable world sometimes seems less delicious, less exciting, less poignant.”

Daniel T. Gilbert (1957) American psychologist

Daniel Gilbert, Timothy Wilson, David Centerbar, & Deborah Kermer, The Pleasures of Uncertainty: Prolonging Positive Moods in Ways People Do Not Anticipate, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 88(1): 5 (2005).

World

“The fuel on which science runs is ignorance. Science is like a hungry furnace that must be fed logs from the forests of ignorance that surround us. In the process, the clearing we call knowledge expands, but the more it expands, the longer its perimeter and the more ignorance comes into view.”

Matt Ridley book Genome

Source: Genome (1999), Chapter 20 “Politics” (p. 271)

Science

“I think knowledge is a blessing, not a curse. This is especially true in the case of genetic knowledge.”

Matt Ridley book Genome

Foreward (p. 3)
Genome (1999)

Thinking

“Knowledge accumulates over time; it’s not just one person or one set of time but over many hundreds of years. That gives me hope.”

Sheyene Gerardi Venezuelan actor and model

Hope, Time, Personality

“The person with a "closed" mind on any subject seldom gets ahead. Intolerance means that one has stopped acquiring knowledge. The most damaging forms of intolerance are those connected with religious, racial, and political differences of opinion.”

Napoleon Hill book Think and Grow Rich

Think and Grow Rich (1938) p.88

Personality

“Temporary defeat should mean only one thing, the certain knowledge that there is something wrong with your plan. Millions of men go through life in misery and poverty, because they lack a sound plan through which to accumulate a fortune.”

Napoleon Hill book Think and Grow Rich

Think and Grow Rich (1938) p. 73

Life, Men

“Silent knowledge is nothing but direct contact with intent.”

Carlos Castaneda book The Wheel of Time

Source: The Wheel of Time: Shamans of Ancient Mexico, Their Thoughts About Life, Death and the Universe], (1998), Quotations from "The Power of Silence" (Chapter 18)

“Knowledge comes to a warrior, floating, like specks of gold dust, the same dust that covers the wings of moths. So for a warrior, knowledge is like taking a shower, or being rained on by specks of dark gold dust.”

Carlos Castaneda book The Wheel of Time

Source: The Wheel of Time: Shamans of Ancient Mexico, Their Thoughts About Life, Death and the Universe], (1998), Quotations from "Tales of Power" (Chapter 10)

“Knowledge is a most peculiar affair, especially for a warrior. Knowledge for a warrior is something that comes at once, engulfs him, and passes on.”

Carlos Castaneda book The Wheel of Time

Source: The Wheel of Time: Shamans of Ancient Mexico, Their Thoughts About Life, Death and the Universe], (1998), Quotations from "Tales of Power" (Chapter 10)

“Power rests on the kind of knowledge that one holds. What is the sense of knowing things that are useless? They will not prepare us for our unavoidable encounter with the unknown.”

Carlos Castaneda book The Wheel of Time

Source: The Wheel of Time: Shamans of Ancient Mexico, Their Thoughts About Life, Death and the Universe], (1998), Quotations from The Teachings of Don Juan (Chapter 4)

Sense

“Knowledge, understanding and cooperation will lead the country to happiness, security and progress.”

Vajiralongkorn (1952) King of Thailand

Source: "His Majesty presents televised end of year message" in Thaiger https://thethaiger.com/news/national/his-majesty-presents-televised-end-of-year-message (1 January 2021)

Happiness, Understanding, Country

“With the vast amount of knowledge you will discover about God, may you come to know that you really do not know. And may that bring you to the ground on both knees in sheer humility. For humility is the beginning of wisdom.”

Honesto Ongtioco (1948) Filipino bishop

Source: Homily of Most. Rev. Honesto Ongtioco, DD at the Mass of the Holy Spirit https://lst.edu/articles/homily-of-most-rev-honesto-ongtioco-dd-at-the-mass-of-the-holy-spirit-held-on-august-26-2015/ (August 26, 2015)

Wisdom, God

“The "Master Mind" may be defined as: "Coordination of knowledge and effort, in a spirit of harmony, between two or more people, for the attainment of a definite purpose."”

Napoleon Hill (1883–1970) American author

Power of the Master Mind
Source: Think & Grow Rich, January 1963, p. 148.

People, Effort

“Thanksgiving for the benefits received from God is made acceptable by humility and not looking down on those who lack them. It is rendered unacceptable, however, by being conceited, as if those benefits resulted from our own efforts and knowledge, and by condemning those who have not received them.”

Gregory Palamas (1296–1359) Monk and archbishop

Source: The Parables of Jesus: Sermons by Saint Gregory Palamas

God, Effort

“Man reaches the highest point of his knowledge about God when he knows that he knows him not, inasmuch as he knows that that which is God transcends whatsoever he conceives of him.”

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

Source: De potentia (c. 1265–1266) q. 7, art. 5, ad 14

God

“We are living in a time of transition, when everything is going to be so different that the experts are possibly more handicapped by their traditional time-worn knowledge than are we, untrained and with minds empty of red tape and orthodoxy.”

Vera Stanley Alder (1898–1984) British artist

Source: Humanity Comes of Age, A study of Individual and World Fulfillment (1950), Chapter II Planning a Model World

Time

“Brains are in; heavy lifting is out. That's the essential nature of the new knowledge-based economy. Therefore, the development of knowledge is close to job No. 1 for corporations.”

Tom Peters (1942) American writer on business management practices

Source: Tom Peters Daily, Weekly Quote
08 November 2021

Nature

“Education is infinite. You must constantly seek additional knowledge to keep it up-to-date.”

Ananda Mahidol (1925–1946) eighth monarch of Siam from the Chakri dynasty as Rama VIII

Source: "Speech while conferring degree certificates to the graduating students of Chulalongkorn University" http://www.memohall.chula.ac.th/article/%E0%B8%81/ (13 April 1946)

Education

“Self-knowledge starts with understanding that you’ve got the single most important thing absolutely right – you are alive.”

Prem Rawat (1957) controversial spiritual leader

Source: Prem Rawat's book, Hear Yourself: How to Find Peace in the Noisy World, published in 2021

Understanding

“Knowledge is not the most important thing. The most important is your political quality and moral quality.”

Zhang Zhaozhong (1952) Chinese admiral

"Tangled in the Party Line" in China File https://www.chinafile.com/tangled-party-line (6 September 2012)

“If the knowledge of foreign languages is particularly useful in our time, that of national languages is a necessity. It is necessary to have them taught to the youth simultaneously, and it is to be desired that their use should become more and more common to all Belgians.”

Leopold II of Belgium (1835–1909) King of the Belgians

Source: J. Steur, Netherlands. Volume 63 Article from 1959. Quoted from J. Vuylsteke, "Flemish Belgium since 1830: Studies and sketches collected by the general board of the Willemsfonds on the occasion of the Jubilee Year 1905", Willemsfonds, 1905, p. 222. https://www.dbnl.org/tekst/_nee003195901_01/_nee003195901_01_0114.php King Leopold II and the Queen are invited by the mayor of Brussels, Karel Buls, to attend the first performance in the renovated Flemish theatre, where he gives a speech in Flemish. This was followed by thunderous applause such as 'Long live our Flemish King!'

Youth, Time

“Who would dare invite such a smoke? To some it might be healing, but to others, bane. Breathed in at the nostrils, it seemed to fill the eyes and ears and brain. To a man who knew many things, it would reveal many more, to a man who knew little it would reveal too much. Its name was self-knowledge.”

Tanith Lee Tales from the Flat Earth

Tales from the Flat Earth, Night's Master (1978)
Source: Book 3 “The World’s Lure”, Chapter 4 “The Anger of the Magicians” (p. 163)

“If we disown history we are at its mercy. To have a reasonable knowledge of the past is to possess an anchor which is likely to prevent us from being swept towards false ideas about the present and future.”

Geoffrey Blainey (1930) Australian historian

Source: The Great Seesaw: A New View of the Western World, 1750-2000 (1988)

History, Idea, Past, Future

“Our investment in prevention and research is an investment in our nations … it all depends on healthy people, the result of our knowledge must be prevention. If we trust treatment without an investment in prevention, then we have failed.”

Kirk R. Smith (1947–2020) American climatologist

Source: https://clusterbcs.com/en/in-memoriam-kirk-r-smith-1947-2020-2/

People, Dependency

“Philosophy can never reconcile itself with science. Science aims at self-evident truths and finds in them that "natural necessity" which, after having proclaimed itself for ever eternal, claims to serve as the foundation of all knowledge and strives to rule over all wanton "suddenly."”

Lev Shestov (1866–1938) Russian theologian

But philosophy has always been, and will always be, a fight with and a conquest of self-evident truths; philosophy is not looking for any "natural necessity", it sees in naturalness and in necessity alike an evil magic, which, if one cannot quite shake it off (for in this no mortal has ever yet succeeded), yet one must at least call by its right name; and even this is an important step! p. 342
Source: In Job's Balances: on the sources of the eternal truths, Words That Are Swallowed Up - Plotinus's Ecstasies

Truth, Nature, Science

“What can be more terrible than not to know whether one is alive or dead? “Justice” should insist that this knowledge or this ignorance should be the prerogative of every human being.”

Lev Shestov (1866–1938) Russian theologian

Source: In Job's Balances: on the sources of the eternal truths, The Conquest of the Self-Evident; Dostoievsky’s Philosophy p. 3

Justice, Dead

“There is also a therapeutic component in the Organic Creative Process: with the exploration of the various characters, the actor develops the knowledge of himself, even through suffering.”

Giovanni Morassutti (1980) Italian actor, theatre director and cultural entrepreneur.

From the essay Strasberg Legacy

Suffering

“Gnosis truly, is a light which God casts into the heart. True knowledge of God is gained when the lover comes in contact with the Beloved through secret communion with Him.”

Abu Talib al-Makki Scholar, mystic

Source: The Sayings and Teachings of the Great Mystics of Islam (2004), p. 86

God, Secret, Lovers, Light

“Love leads to knowledge of the Divine mysteries and those who love abide in God and look to Him only, and He is nearer to them than all else and to them in given a vision of Him unveiled and they see Him with the eye of certainty.”

Abu Talib al-Makki Scholar, mystic

Source: The Sayings and Teachings of the Great Mystics of Islam (2004), p. 86

Love, God

“When we jump to a conclusion before doing research, we tend to look for evidence that supports our beliefs and ignore facts that contradict them. This deprives us of the opportunity to grow our knowledge.”

Guy P. Harrison (1963) American skeptic author

Support

“Was it better to die in the illusion of sunshine and warmth or face death in a cold darkness of reality? Was it better to die in happy ignorance or terrified knowledge? The answer, if you’re a Londoner, is that it’s better not to die at all.”

Ben Aaronovitch book Whispers Under Ground

Source: Whispers Under Ground (2012), Chapter 21, “Oxford Circus” (p. 224)

Death, Happiness, Reality

“Slickness of presentation didn’t imply comprehensiveness of knowledge.”

Arthur C. Clarke A Time Odyssey

Source: 2000s and posthumous publications, A Time Odyssey, Firstborn (2007), Chapter 13, “Fortress Sol” (p. 77)

“The knowledge of the Church doesn't come from knowing, it comes from living with Jesus. The Gospel is alive.”

Josu Iriondo (1938) Catholic bishop

Source: For Retiring Bishop Iriondo, ‘Gospel Is Alive’ And To Be Shared https://www.cny.org/stories/for-retiring-bishop-iriondo-gospel-is-alive-and-to-be-shared,10602 (6 February 2014)

“Xenophanes might be saying that we have only superficial understanding, and we never get to knowledge of the clear truth.”

Catherine Rowett (1956) Professor of Philosophy at the University of East Anglia (born 1956)

Source: Presocratic Philosophy: A Very Short Introduction (2004), Ch. 4 : Reality and appearance: more adventures in metaphysics

Truth, Understanding

“The literature of India makes us acquainted with a great nation of past ages, which grasped every branch of knowledge, and which will always occupy a distinguished place in the history of the civilization of mankind.”

Magnus Björnstjerna (1779–1847) Swedish count and general (1779-1847)

Source: Count Magnus Fredrik Ferdinand Bjornstjerna in: The Theogony of the Hindoos with Their System of Philosophy and Cosmogony by Count M. Björnstjerna https://books.google.co.in/books?id=mHNK92IkdUkC&pg=PA85, Murray, 1844 , p. 85.

Age, History, Literature, Past

“We find among the Indians the vestiges of the most remote antiquity .... We know that all peoples came there to draw the elements of their knowledge ... India, in her splendor, gave religions and laws to all the other peoples; Egypt and Greece owed to her both their fables and their wisdom.”

Pierre Sonnerat (1748–1814) French botanist (1748-1814)

Pierre Sonnerat: Voyage aux Indes orientales et a la Chine, Paris, 1782. Quoted in A Look at India From the Views of Other Scholars, by Stephen Knapp https://www.stephen-knapp.com/a_look_at_india_from_the_views_of_other_scholars.htm <br class="br">Source: quoted in Londhe, S. (2008). A tribute to Hinduism: Thoughts and wisdom spanning continents and time about India and her culture https://books.google.com/books/about/A_Tribute_to_Hinduism.html?id=G3AMAQAAMAAJ

Wisdom, People, Religion, Law

“Now, as to the persistence of superstition, only an impoverished mind considers itself the repository of absolute knowledge.”

Jack Vance (1916–2013) American mystery and speculative fiction writer

Source: Short fiction, Future Tense (1964), Sail 25 (p. 84)

“Instead of determining the action of life, ends, norms and values are determined by it. This determination consists in the fact that one experiences oneself constantly and knows oneself at every moment. Life also knows at each instant what must be done and what is suited to it. This knowledge is no different from action. It does not precede it or "determine" it, properly speaking. It is identical to it, as the original know-how of life, as praxis and a living body. Action, as we have seen, is only the actualization of the primitive power of this phenomenological body.”

Michel Henry (1922–2002) French writer

Michel Henry, Barbarism, Continuum, 2012, p. 96-97
Books on Culture and Barbarism, Barbarism (1987)

Life

“For once his years of teaching experience stood him in good stead; he was an old hand at sounding knowledgeable while dodging surprise questions from smart-breeched scholars.”

Margaret Ball (1515–1584) Lady Mayoress of Dublic and Catholic martyr

Source: Lost in Translation (1995), Chapter 8 (p. 150)

Question

“The knower and the known are one. Simple people imagine that they should see God as if he stood there and they here. This is not so. God and I, we are one in knowledge.”

Meister Eckhart (1260–1328) German theologian

Circulated on the Internet, this is an amended version of a quote from Eckhart's sermon iusti vivent in aeternum: There are simple people who imagine they are going to see God as if He were standing here and they there. This is not true. God and I are one.
Middle High German: “Sumlîche einveltige liute wænent, sie süln got sehen, als er dâ stande und sie hie. Des enist niht. Got und ich wir sîn ein.”
Disputed

God, People, Imagination