Nobel Prize autobiography (1998)
Context: Real understanding of a thing comes from taking it apart oneself, not reading about it in a book or hearing about it in a classroom. To this day I always insist on working out a problem from the beginning without reading up on it first, a habit that sometimes gets me into trouble but just as often helps me see things my predecessors have missed.
“Many people think they cannot have knowledge or understanding of God without reading books. But hearing is better than reading, and seeing is better than hearing. Hearing about Benares is different from reading about it; but seeing Benares is different from either hearing or reading.”
Source: The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna (1942), p. 863
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Ramakrishna 142
Indian mystic and religious preacher 1836–1886Related quotes
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