These words, sometimes attributed to Addison, are not found in his works, but in The Spectator, no. 54, he translates the following words of Socrates, as quoted in Plato's Apology: "When I left him, I reasoned thus with myself: I am wiser than this man, for neither of us appears to know anything great and good; but he fancies he knows something, although he knows nothing; whereas I, as I do not know anything, so I do not fancy I do. In this trifling particular, then, I appear to be wiser than he, because I do not fancy I know what I do not know."
Misattributed
“Real knowledge is to know the extent of one's ignorance.”
All the King's Men (1946)
Source: De potentia (c. 1265–1266) q. 7, art. 5, ad 14
Source: Biology of Cognition (1970), p. 5 Introduction.
The Analects, The Doctrine of the Mean
Context: The way which the superior man pursues, reaches wide and far, and yet is secret. Common men and women, however ignorant, may intermeddle with the knowledge of it; yet in its utmost reaches, there is that which even the sage does not know. Common men and women, however much below the ordinary standard of character, can carry it into practice; yet in its utmost reaches, there is that which even the sage is not able to carry into practice. Great as heaven and earth are, men still find some things in them with which to be dissatisfied. Thus it is that, were the superior man to speak of his way in all its greatness, nothing in the world would be found able to embrace it, and were he to speak of it in its minuteness, nothing in the world would be found able to split it.
On Contradiction (1937)
Original: (zh-CN) 就人类认识运动的秩序说来，总是由认识个别的和特殊的事物，逐步地扩大到认识一般的事物。人们总是首先认识了许多不同事物的特殊的本质，然后才有可能更进一步地进行概括工作，认识诸种事物的共同的本质。
“If they know nothing of victory, they are at least spared the knowledge of defeat.”
Source: The Picture of Dorian Gray
Es giebt keine Selbstkenntniss als die historische. Niemand weiss was er ist, wer nicht weiss was seine Genossen sind.
“Ideas,” Lucinde and the Fragments, P. Firchow, trans. (1991), § 139
Comment to his staff officers, on the crucial distinction between intensive battle training and actual battle (19 May 1943), quoted in History of COSSAC (May 1944) http://www.history.army.mil/documents/cossac/Cossac.htm by Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force
