Knowledge quotes
2.1K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
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Browse quotes that often appear alongside knowledge — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
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"Let us, then, take our compass; we are something, and we are not everything. The nature of our existence hides from us the knowledge of first beginnings which are born of the nothing; and the littleness of our being conceals from us the sight of the infinite. Our intellect holds the same position in the world of thought as our body occupies in the expanse of nature."
"Extremes are for us as though they were not, and we are not within their notice. They escape us, or we them. This is our true state; this is what makes us incapable of certain knowledge and of absolute ignorance... This is our natural condition, and yet most contrary to our inclination; we burn with desire to find solid ground and an ultimate sure foundation whereon to build a tower reaching to the Infinite. But our whole groundwork cracks, and the earth opens to abysses."
"The great mass of people judge well of things, for they are in natural ignorance, which is man's true state."
"Since [man] is infinitely removed from comprehending the extremes, the end of things and their beginning are hopelessly hidden from him in an impenetrable secret; he is equally incapable of seeing the nothing from which he was made, and the infinite in which he is swallowed up."
"What matters it that man should have a little more knowledge of the universe? If he has it, he gets little higher. Is he not always infinitely removed from the end, and is not the duration of our life equally removed from eternity, even if it lasts ten years longer?"
"While the collateral consequences of drugs such as cocaine are indisputably severe, they are not unlike those which flow from the misuse of other, legal, substances."
"Man has an intense desire for assured knowledge."
"[Misquotation; not by Einstein.] If only I had known, I should have become a watchmaker. [Apparently remorseful for his role in the development of the atom bomb.]"
"In a sense, knowledge shrinks as wisdom grows: for details are swallowed up in principles."
"You'll come back, because yours is an error of knowledge, not a moral failure, not an act of surrender to evil, but only the last act of being victim to your own virtue. We'll wait for you and when you come back, you will have discovered that there need never be any conflict among your desires, nor so tragic a clash of values as the one you've borne so well."
"Whether you know the shape of a pebble or the structure of a solar system, the anxioms remain the same: that it exists and that you know it."
"My pride and my power of vision were all that I owned when I started - and whatever I achieved, was achieved by means of them. Both are greater now. Now I have the knowledge of the superlative value I had missed: of my right to be proud of my vision. The rest is mine to reach."
"Even more exasperating than the guy who thinks he knows it all is the one who really does."
"There is no more merit in being able to attach a correct description to a picture than in being able to find out what is wrong with a stalled motorcar. In each case it is special knowledge."
"Praised be the fathomless universe, for life and joy, and for objects and knowledge curious."
"'Facts' are the bounds of human knowledge, set for it, not by it."
"Learning is but an adjunct to ourself, And where we are our learning likewise is."
"Too much to know is to know nought but fame; And every godfather can give a name."
"All difficulties are easy when they are known."
"Crowns have their compass-length of days their date- Triumphs their tomb-felicity, her fate- Of nought but earth can earth make us partaker, But knowledge makes a king most like his Maker."
