Knowledge And Power quotes
44 quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
"'Truth' is to be understood as a system of ordered procedures for the production, regulation, distribution, circulation and operation of statements. 'Truth' is linked in a circular relation with systems of power which produce and sustain it, and to effects of power which it induces and which extend it. A 'regime' of truth."
"Life is not what one lived, but what One remembers and how One remembers it in order to recount it"
"There is no nonsense so errant that it cannot be made the creed of the vast majority by adequate governmental action."
"... we are obliged to produce the truth by the power that demands truth and needs it in order to function: we are constrained, we are condemned to admit the truth or to discover it. Power constantly asks questions and questions us; it constantly investigates and records; it institutionalizes the search for the truth, professionalizes it, and rewards it. ... In a different sense, we are also subject to the truth in the sense that truth lays down the law: it is the discourse of truth that decides, at least in part; it conveys and propels effects of power."
"The ultimate lesson of The Interpretation of Dreams: reality is for those who cannot sustain the dream."
Explore further
Browse quotes that often appear alongside knowledge and power — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
Quote collection
Follow a thought to its author, or read the full quote page.
"Power corrupts. Knowledge is power. Study hard. Be evil."
"I am convinced that knowledge is power - to overcome the past, to change our own situations, to fight new obstacles, to make better decisions."
"To use books rightly, is to go to them for help; to appeal to them when our own knowledge and power fail; to be led by them into wider sight and purer conception than our own, and to receive from them the united sentence of the judges and councils of all time, against our solitary and unstable opinions."
"Relations of power "are indissociable from a discourse of truth, and they can neither be established nor function unless a true discourse is produced, accumulated, put into circulation, and set to work. Power cannot be exercised unless a certain economy of discourses of truth functions in, on the basis of, and thanks to, that power.""
"Knowledge is happiness, because to have knowledge - broad, deep knowledge - is to know true ends from false, and lofty things from low."
"Knowledge is power. Most of us agree that something has to be done to strengthen Social Security, and I believe it's irresponsible to arbitrarily dismiss any idea, Republican nor Democrat, without giving it a hard look."
"Knowledge is power. Power to do evil...or power to do good. Power itself is not evil. So knowledge itself is not evil."
"The difference between God and the devil is in nothing except in unselfishness and selfishness. The devil knows as much as God, is as powerful as God; only he has no holiness that makes him a devil. Apply the same idea to the modern world: excess of knowledge and power, without holiness, makes human beings devils."
"It is impossible to meditate on time and the mystery of nature without an overwhelming emotion at the limitations of human intelligence."
"According to Jains the soul in pure form has infiniteness in terms of its knowledge and power. These faculties are obstructed for its exhibition due to Karmic bondage. As the soul progresses in its morality and spirituality it gets certain powers which may look miraculous."
"We should not be content to say that power has a need for such-and-such a discovery, such-and-such a form of knowledge, but we should add that the exercise of power itself creates and causes to emerge new objects of knowledge and accumulates new bodies of information. ... The exercise of power perpetually creates knowledge and, conversely, knowledge constantly induces effects of power. ... It is not possible for power to be exercised without knowledge, it is impossible for knowledge not to engender power."
