“Motto of the Institute: A little knowledge is a dangerous thing; a great deal of knowledge is disaster, which detractors of the Institute scornfully paraphrase to: Somebody else’s ignorance is bliss.”

Source: Demon Princes (1964-1981), The Star King (1964), Chapter 8 (p. 83)

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

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Motto of the Institute: A little knowledge is a dangerous thing; a great deal of knowledge is disaster, which detractor…" by Jack Vance?
Jack Vance photo
Jack Vance 213
American mystery and speculative fiction writer 1916–2013

Related quotes

Alfred Austin photo
Terry Pratchett photo

“If knowledge is power, ignorance cannot be bliss.”

As quoted in Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong https://books.google.com/books?id=5m2_xeJ4VdwC&dq=%22although+he+may+be+poor+not+a+man%22&source=gbs_navlinks_s (2007), New York: New Press, p. 342
2000s, 2007, Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong (2007)

Karl Pearson photo
Alexander Pope photo

“A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. So is a lot.”

Alexander Pope (1688–1744) eighteenth century English poet

Misattributed

Albert Einstein photo

“A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. So is a lot.”

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

A variation on a quotation of Alexander Pope, attributed to Einstein in various recent sources, such as Marvin Minsky's The Emotion Machine (2006), p. 176 http://books.google.com/books?id=OqbMnWDKIJ4C&lpg=PP1&pg=PA176#v=onepage&q&f=false, and at the start of the 2006 pilot episode of the television series Eureka. The oldest published source located attributing this to Einstein is the 2004 book Strategic Investment: Real Options and Games by Han T. J. Smit and Lenos Trigeorgis, p. 429 http://books.google.com/books?id=pN41ZtNoqBEC&lpg=PP1&pg=PA429#v=onepage&q&f=false, and before that it was attributed to him on the internet, the earliest example found being this post from 19 May 1995 http://groups.google.com/group/bit.listserv.physhare/msg/ef186aec3bf66ba6. But long before that, the same quote appears in an advertisement for Encyclopaedia Britannica that ran in The Atlantic Monthly: Volume 216 from 1965, p. 139 http://books.google.com/books?id=TuMmAQAAIAAJ&q=%22so+is+a+lot%22#search_anchor. The ad mentioned Einstein but did not directly attribute the quote to him: "Encyclopaedia Britannica says: A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. So is a lot. The more you know, the more you need to know — as Albert Einstein, for one, might have told you. Great knowledge has a way of bringing with it great responsibility. The people who put the Encyclopaedia Britannica together feel the same way. After all, if most of the world had come to count on you as the best single source of complete, accurate, up-to-date information on everything, you'd want to be pretty sure you knew what you were talking about."
Misattributed

Thomas Henry Huxley photo

“The saying that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing is, to my mind, a very dangerous adage.”

Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–1895) English biologist and comparative anatomist

"On Elementary Instruction in Physiology" (1877) http://aleph0.clarku.edu/huxley/CE3/ElPhys.html
1870s
Context: The saying that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing is, to my mind, a very dangerous adage. If knowledge is real and genuine, I do not believe that it is other than a very valuable possession, however infinitesimal its quantity may be. Indeed, if a little knowledge is dangerous, where is the man who has so much as to be out of danger?

Darren Shan photo
Erik Naggum photo

“A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. I regret that this isn't fatal.”

Erik Naggum (1965–2009) Norwegian computer programmer

Re: unibyte http://groups.google.com/group/gnu.emacs.help/msg/d767a45084444a5a (Usenet article).
Usenet articles, Miscellaneous

Related topics