“There is no desire more natural than the desire of knowledge.”
Michel De Montaigne (1533–1592) (1533-1592) French-Occitan author, humanistic philosopher, statesman
“My desire for knowledge is intermittent; but my desire to bathe my head in atmospheres unknown to my feet is perennial and constant. The highest that we can attain to is not Knowledge, but Sympathy with Intelligence. I do not know that this higher knowledge amounts to anything more definite than a novel and grand surprise on a sudden revelation of the insufficiency of all that we called Knowledge before — a discovery that there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in our philosophy.”
Walking (June 1862)
Source: Civil Disobedience and Other Essays
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Henry David Thoreau385
1817-1862 American poet, essayist, naturalist, and abolitio… 1817–1862Related quotes
Cyrano de Bergerac (1619–1655) French novelist, dramatist, scientist and duelist
Elijah to Cyrano
The Other World (1657)
Context: The angel had told me in my dream that if I wanted to acquire the perfect knowledge I desired, I would have to go to the Moon. There I would find Adam's paradise and the Tree of Knowledge. As soon as I had tasted its fruit, my mind would be enlightened with all the truths a person could know. That is the voyage for which I built my chariot.
Finally, I climbed aboard and, when I was securely settled on the seat, I tossed the magnetic ball high into the air. The chariot I had built was more massive in the middle than at the ends; it was perfectly balanced because the middle rose faster than the extremities. When I had risen to the point that the magnet was drawing me to, I seized the magnetic ball and tossed it into the air again.
Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity
1920s, Viereck interview (1929)
Hermann Hesse (1877–1962) German writer
Source: Siddhartha (1922), p. 29
Variant translation: I am beginning to believe that this knowledge has no worse enemy than the desire to know learning.
"Your Outboard Brain Knows All", Wired, 25 September 2007
“I had given up some youth for knowledge, but my gain was more valuable than the loss”
Maya Angelou book I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
Source: I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
Karl Popper (1902–1994) Austrian-British philosopher of science
Variant translation: The more we learn about the world, and the deeper our learning, the more conscious, clear, and well-defined will be our knowledge of what we do not know, our knowledge of our ignorance. The main source of our ignorance lies in the fact that our knowledge can only be finite, while our ignorance must necessarily be infinite.
Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge (1963)
Context: The more we learn about the world, and the deeper our learning, the more conscious, specific, and articulate will be our knowledge of what we do not know, our knowledge of our ignorance. For this, indeed, is the main source of our ignorance — the fact that our knowledge can be only finite, while our ignorance must necessarily be infinite.