“I defy you all
To know twice as much as nothing at all
It's still nothing at all.”

—  Pete Doherty

"A'Rebours"
Lyrics and poetry

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

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Do you have more details about the quote "I defy you all To know twice as much as nothing at all It's still nothing at all." by Pete Doherty?
Pete Doherty photo
Pete Doherty 86
English musician, writer, actor, poet and artist 1979

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“A person who knows all that is good and all that is true — as much as can be known — but does not resist evils, knows nothing.”
Homo qui scit omnia bona et omnia vera, quotcunque sciri possunt, et non fugit mala, nihil scit

Emanuel Swedenborg (1688–1772) Swedish 18th century scientist and theologian

Apocalypse Explained #1180

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“As for me, all I know is that I know nothing.”

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

See All I know is that I know nothing on Wikipedia for a detailed account of the origins of this attribution.

μοι νυνὶ γέγονεν ἐκ τοῦ διαλόγου μηδὲν εἰδέναι· ὁπότε γὰρ τὸ δίκαιον μὴ οἶδα ὅ ἐστιν, σχολῇ εἴσομαι εἴτε ἀρετή τις οὖσα τυγχάνει εἴτε καὶ οὔ, καὶ πότερον ὁ ἔχων αὐτὸ οὐκ εὐδαίμων ἐστὶν ἢ εὐδαίμων.

Hence the result of the discussion, as far as I'm concerned, is that I know nothing, for when I don't know what justice is, I'll hardly know whether it is a kind of virtue or not, or whether a person who has it is happy or unhappy.

Republic, 354b-c (conclusion of book I), as translated by M.A. Grube in Republic (Grube Edition) (1992) revised by C.D.C. Reeve, p. 31

Confer Apology 21d (see above), Theaetetus 161b (see above) and Meno 80d1-3: "So now I do not know what virtue is; perhaps you knew before you contacted me, but now you are certainly like one who does not know."

Confer Cicero, Academica, Book I, section 1 http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A2007.01.0032%3Abook%3D1: "ipse se nihil scire id unum sciat ("He himself thinks he knows one thing, that he knows nothing"). Often quoted as "scio me nihil scire" or "scio me nescire." A variant is found in von Kues, De visione Dei, XIII, 146 (Werke, Walter de Gruyter, 1967, p. 312): "...et hoc scio solum, quia scio me nescire... [I know alone, that (or because) I know, that I do not know]." In the modern era, the Latin quote was back-translated to Greek as "ἓν οἶδα ὅτι οὐδὲν οἶδα", hèn oîda hóti oudèn oîda).

Confer Diogenes Laertius, II.32 (see above)
Misattributed

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“All is flux; nothing stays still.”

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“All entities move and nothing remains still.”

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“The world is nothing, the man is all; in yourself is the law of all nature, and you know not yet how a globule of sap ascends; in yourself slumbers the whole of Reason; it is for you to know all, it is for you to dare all.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

1830s, The American Scholar http://www.emersoncentral.com/amscholar.htm (1837)

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“To know is nothing at all; to imagine is everything.”

Savoir n'est rien, imaginer est tout.
Pt. II, ch. 2
The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard (1881)

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