211 quotes about Knowledge

How do you know so much about everything? was asked of a very wise and intelligent man; and the answer was By never being afraid or ashamed to ask questions as to anything of which I was ignorant.

Abbott, John

I find that a great part of the information I have, was acquired by looking up something and finding something else on the way.

Adams, Franklin P.

Knowledge is that which, next to virtue, truly raises one person above another.

Addison, Joseph

Man knows more than he understands.

Adler, Alfred

Real knowledge, like everything else of value, is not to be obtained easily. It must be worked for, studied for, thought for, and, more that all, must be prayed for.

Arnold, Thomas

Be curious always! For knowledge will not acquire you: you must acquire it.

Back, Sudie

Knowledge is power.

Bacon, Francis

Knowledge and human power are synonymous.

Bacon, Francis

Knowledge is power, but enthusiasm pulls the switch.

Ball, Ivern

I think knowing what you cannot do is more important than knowing what you can.

Ball, Lucille

Knowledge is the best eraser in the world for disharmony, distrust, despair, and the endless physical deficiencies of man.

Battista, Orlando A.

I have tried to know absolutely nothing about a great many things, and I have succeeded fairly well.

Benchley, Robert

It is not good to know more unless we do more with what we already know.

Bergethon, R. K.

It is what we think we know already that often prevents us from learning.

Bernard, Claude

Better indeed is knowledge than mechanical practice. Better than knowledge is meditation. But better still is surrender of attachment to results, because there follows immediate peace.

Bhagavad Gita

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and instruction. [King Solomon]

Bible

And you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free. [John 8:32]

Bible

Knowledge is the small part of ignorance that we arrange and classify.

Bierce, Ambrose

I honestly believe it is better to know nothing than to know what ain't so.

Billings, Josh

Knowledge is like money: the more he gets, the more he craves.

Billings, Josh

The trouble with most folks ain't so much their ignorance as knowing so many things that ain't so.

Billings, Josh

The shortest and surest way of arriving at real knowledge is to unlearn the lessons we have been taught, to mount the first principles, and take nobody's word about them.

Bolingbroke, Henry

Some people drink deeply from the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.

Bright, Grant M.

To me the charm of an encyclopedia is that it knows and I needn't.

Brown, Francis Yeats

To know the right means of getting something done is virtually to have done it.

Caine, Mark

Never mistake knowledge for wisdom. One helps you make a living; the other helps you make a life.

Carey, Sandara

I think I could, if I only knew how to begin. For, you see, so many out-of-the-way things had happened lately that Alice had begun to think that very few things indeed were really impossible.

Carroll, Lewis

There's a theory, one I find persuasive, that the quest for knowledge is, at bottom, the search for the answer to the question: Where was I before I was born. In the beginning was what? Perhaps, in the beginning, there was a curious room, a room like this one, crammed with wonders; and now the room and all it contains are forbidden you, although it was made just for you, had been prepared for you since time began, and you will spend all your life trying to remember it.

Carter, Angela

A man of knowledge lives by acting, not by thinking about acting.

Castaneda, Carlos

It is not the quantity but the quality of knowledge which determines the mind's dignity.

Channing, William Ellery

Knowledge may give weight, but accomplishments give luster, and many more people see than weigh.

Chesterfield, Lord

Knowledge of the world in only to be acquired in the world, and not in a closet.

Chesterfield, Lord

Learning is acquired by reading books, but the much more necessary learning, the knowledge of the world, is only to be acquired by reading men, and studying all the various facets of them.

Chesterfield, Lord

One may understand the Cosmos, but never the ego; the self is more distant than any star.

Chesterton, Gilbert K.

If you have knowledge, let others light their candles with it.

Churchill, Winston

Knowledge which is divorced from justice, may be called cunning rather than wisdom.

Cicero, Marcus T.

To despise our own species is the price we must often pay for knowledge of it.

Colton, Charles Caleb

We own almost all our knowledge not to those who have agreed but to those who have differed.

Colton, Charles Caleb

Each department of knowledge passes through three stages. The theoretic stage; the theological stage and the metaphysical or abstract stage.

Comte, Auguste

Acquire new knowledge whilst thinking over the old, and you may become a teacher of others.

Confucius

To know is to know that you know nothing. That is the meaning of true knowledge.

Confucius

The essence of knowledge is, having it, to apply it; not having it, to confess your ignorance.

Confucius

When you know a thing, to hold that you know it; and when you do not know a thing, to allow that you do not know it--this is knowledge.

Confucius

You can't know too much, but you can say too much.

Coolidge, Calvin

Knowledge, a rude unprofitable mass, the mere materials with which wisdom builds, till smoothed and squared and fitted to its place, does but encumber whom it seems to enrich. Knowledge is proud that he has learned so much; wisdom is humble that he knows no more.

Cowper, William

Knowledge is proud that it knows so much; Wisdom is humble that it knows no more.

Cowper, William

To know all is not to forgive all. It is to despise everybody.

Crisp, Quentin

You have to believe in God before you can say there are things that man was not meant to know. I don't think there's anything man wasn't meant to know. There are just some stupid things that people shouldn't do.

Cronenberg, David

Knowledge is not a passion from without the mind, but an active exertion of the inward strength, vigor and power of the mind, displaying itself from within.

Cudworth, Ralph J.

Knowledge is a polite word for dead but not buried imagination.

Cummings, E.E. (Edward. E.)

Only when he no longer knows what he is doing does the painter do good things.

Degas, Edgar

Search not to find things too deeply hid; Nor try to know things whose knowledge is forbid.

Denham, Sir John

There are three principal means of acquiring knowledge available to us: observation of nature, reflection, and experimentation. Observation collects facts; reflection combines them; experimentation verifies the result of that combination. Our observation of nature must be diligent, our reflection profound, and our experiments exact. We rarely see these three means combined; and for this reason, creative geniuses are not common.

Diderot, Denis

Depend upon it there comes a time when for every addition of knowledge you forget something that you knew before. It is of the highest importance, therefore, not to have useless facts elbowing out the useful ones.

Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan

Today knowledge has power. It controls access to opportunity and advancement.

Drucker, Peter F.

Knowledge has to be improved, challenged, and increased constantly, or it vanishes.

Drucker, Peter F.

Knowledge is the eye of desire and can become the pilot of the soul.

Durant, William J.

The knower and the known are one. Simple people imagine that they should see God as if he stood there and they here. This is not so. God and I, we are one in knowledge.

Eckhart, Meister

We don't know one-millionth of one percent about anything.

Edison, Thomas A.

During the last century, and part of the one before, it was widely held that there was an unreconcilable conflict between knowledge and belief.

Einstein, Albert

Knowledge of what is does not open the door directly to what should be.

Einstein, Albert

Of a truth, Knowledge is power, but it is a power reined by scruple, having a conscience of what must be and what may be; whereas Ignorance is a blind giant who, let him but wax unbound, would make it a sport to seize the pillars that hold up the long-wrought fabric of human good, and turn all the places of joy as dark as a buried Babylon.

Eliot, George

I would have the studies elective. Scholarship is to be created not by compulsion, but by awakening a pure interest in knowledge. The wise instructor accomplishes this by opening to his pupils precisely the attractions the study has for himself. The marking is a system for schools, not for the college; for boys, not for men; and it is an ungracious work to put on a professor.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

Knowledge is knowing that we cannot know.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

Knowledge is the only elegance.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

Knowledge comes by eyes always open and working hands; and there is no knowledge that is not power.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

Know, first, who you are, and then adorn yourself accordingly.

Epictetus

It is impossible to begin to learn that which one thinks one already knows.

Epictetus

The mark of a well educated person is not necessarily in knowing all the answers, but in knowing where to find them.

Everett, Douglas

Knowledge, without common sense, says Lee, is folly; without method, it is waste; without kindness, it is fanaticism; without religion, it is death. But with common sense, it is wisdom with method, it is power; with clarity, it is beneficence; with religion, it is virtue, and life, and peace.

Farrar, Austin

Knowledge is a process of piling up facts; wisdom lies in their simplification.

Fischer, Martin H.

For lust of knowing what should not be known, we take the Golden Road to Samarkand.

Flecker, James Elroy

God grant that not only the love of liberty but a thorough knowledge of the rights of man may pervade all the nations of the earth, so that a philosopher may set his foot anywhere on its surface and say: This is my country!

Franklin, Benjamin

Proclaim not all thou knowest, all thou knowest, all thou hast, nor all thou cans't.

Franklin, Benjamin

It seems to me that man is made to act rather than to know: the principles of things escape our most persevering researches.

Frederick The Great, (Frederick II)

Knowledge is a treasure, but practice is the key to it.

Fuller, Thomas

To succeed in business, to reach the top, an individual must know all it is possible to know about that business.

Getty, J. Paul

Perplexity is the beginning of knowledge.

Gibran, Kahlil

No man can reveal to you nothing but that which already lies half-asleep in the dawning of your knowledge.

Gibran, Kahlil

A little knowledge that acts is worth infinitely more than much knowledge that is idle.

Gibran, Kahlil

Know thyself. A maxim as pernicious as it is ugly. Whoever studies himself arrest his own development. A caterpillar who seeks to know himself would never become a butterfly.

Gide, Andre

He knows so little and knows it so fluently.

Glasgow, Ellen

The greater the knowledge, the greater the doubt.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

What is not fully understood is not possessed.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

Never by reflection, but only by doing is self-knowledge possible to one.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

True knowledge lies in knowing how to live.

Gracian, Baltasar

A man can only attain knowledge with the help of those who possess it. This must be understood from the very beginning. One must learn from him who knows.

Gurdjieff, George

All knowledge is ambiguous.

Habgood, J. S.

Seldom if ever was knowledge given to keep, but always to impart. The grace of this rich jewel is lost in concealment.

Hall, Bishop

The man who is too old to learn was probably always too old to learn.

Haskins, Caryl

Say oh wise man how you have come to such knowledge? Because I was never ashamed to confess my ignorance and ask others.

Herder, Johann Gottfried Von

There is, so I believe, in the essence of everything, something that we cannot call learning. There is, my friend, only a knowledge -- that is everywhere.

Hesse, Hermann

Knowledge is only potential power.

Hill, Napoleon

Man is distinguished, not only by his reason; but also by this singular passion from other animals... which is a lust of the mind, that by a perseverance of delight in the continual and indefatigable generation of knowledge, exceeds the short vehemence of any carnal pleasure.

Hobbes, Thomas

Knowledge like timber shouldn't be mush use till they are seasoned.

Holmes, Oliver Wendell

Since we can't know what knowledge will be most needed in the future, it is senseless to try to teach it in advance. Instead, we should try to turn out people who love learning so much and learn so well that they will be able to learn whatever needs to be learned.

Holt, John

Knowledge without education is but armed injustice.

Horace

You can always draw as well as you know how to. I flatter myself that I feel more than I express on canvas; but I know that is not so.

Hunt, William Morris

Every great advance in natural knowledge has involved the absolute rejection of authority.

Huxley, Thomas H.

Knowledge about life is one thing; effective occupation of a place in life, with its dynamic currents passing through your being, is another.

James, William

Boys, I may not know much, but I know chicken shit from chicken salad.

Johnson, Lyndon B.

The next best thing to knowing something is knowing where to find it.

Johnson, Samuel

More knowledge may be gained of a man's real character by a short conversation with one of his servants than from a formal and studied narrative, begun with his pedigree and ended with his funeral.

Johnson, Samuel

Man is not weak; knowledge is more than equivalent to force.

Johnson, Samuel

Knowledge is of two kinds: We know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information about it.

Johnson, Samuel

Knowledge always demands increase; it is like fire, which must first be kindled by some external agent, but will afterwards always propagate itself.

Johnson, Samuel

Knowledge is more than equivalent to force.

Johnson, Samuel

Knowledge rests not upon truth alone, but upon error also.

Jung, Carl

All wish to possess knowledge, but few, comparatively speaking, are willing to pay the price.

Juvenal, (Decimus Junius Juvenalis)

Knowledge is power. Rather, knowledge is happiness, because to have knowledge -- broad, deep knowledge -- is to know true ends from false, and lofty things from low. To know the thoughts and deeds that have marked man's progress is to feel the great heartthrobs of humanity through the centuries; and if one does not feel in these pulsations a heavenward striving, one must indeed be deaf to the harmonies of life.

Keller, Helen

The greater our knowledge increases, the greater our ignorance unfolds.

Kennedy, John F.

It's a dangerous thing to think we know everything.

Kuehler, Jack

To know yet to think that one does not know is best; Not to know yet to think that one knows will lead to difficulty.

Lao-Tzu

Knowledge is what we get when an observer, preferably a scientifically trained observer, provides us with a copy of reality that we can all recognize.

Lasch, Christopher

Vague and mysterious forms of speech, and abuse of language, have so long passed for mysteries of science; and hard or misapplied words with little or no meaning have, by prescription, such a right to be mistaken for deep learning and height of speculation, that it will not be easy to persuade either those who speak or those who hear them, that they are but the covers of ignorance and hindrance of true knowledge.

Locke, John

Every man gets a narrower and narrower field of knowledge in which he must be an expert in order to compete with other people. The specialist knows more and more about less and less and finally knows everything about nothing.

Lorenz, Konrad

True scholarship consists in knowing not what things exist, but what they mean; it is not memory but judgment.

Lowell, James Russell

He mastered whatever was not worth the knowing.

Lowell, James Russell

Knowledge is and will be produced in order to be sold, it is and will be consumed in order to be valorized in a new production: in both cases, the goal is exchange. Knowledge ceases to be an end in itself, it loses its use-value.

Lyotard, Jean Francois

Charles V. said that a man who knew four languages was worth four men; and Alexander the Great so valued learning, that he used to say he was more indebted to Aristotle for giving him knowledge that, than his father Philip for giving him life.

Macaulay, Thomas B.

The hunger and thirst for knowledge, the keen delight in the chase, the good humored willingness to admit that the scent was false, the eager desire to get on with the work, the cheerful resolution to go back and begin again, the broad good sense, the unaffected modesty, the imperturbable temper, the gratitude for any little help that was given -- all these will remain in my memory though I cannot paint them for others.

Maitland, Frederic William

It is disgraceful to live as a stranger in one's country, and be an alien in any matter that affects our welfare.

Manutius

An age is called Dark not because the light fails to shine, but because people refuse to see it.

Michener, James A.

He who knows only his own side of the case, knows little of that.

Mill, John Stuart

Sin, guilt, neurosis --they are one and the same, the fruit of the tree of knowledge.

Miller, Henry

The knowledge of God is far from the love of Him.

Miller, Keith

A knowledge of men is the prime secret of business success.

Mills, Darius Ogden

The end of learning is to know God, and out of that knowledge to love Him and imitate Him.

Milton, John

Without knowledge, life is not more than the shadow of death.

Moliere

Oh how fine it is to know a thing or two!

Moliere

The use of knowledge in our sex (beside the amusement of solitude) is to moderate the passions and learn to be contented with a small expense, which are the certain effects of a studious life and, it may be, preferable even to that fame which men have engrossed to themselves and will not suffer us to share.

Montagu, Lady Mary Wortley

I see men ordinarily more eager to discover a reason for things than to find out whether the things are so.

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

It is not so important to know everything as to know the exact value of everything, to appreciate what we learn, and to arrange what we know.

More, Hannah

Many people think of knowledge as money, They would like knowledge, but do not want to face the perseverance and self-denial that goes into the acquisition of it.

Morely, John

There are things known, and there are things unknown. And in between are the doors.

Morrison, Jim

When a person acts without knowledge of what he thinks, feels, needs or wants, he does not yet have the option of choosing to act differently.

Moustakas, Clark

Those who think they know it all are very annoying to those of us who do.

Mueller, Robert K.

Knowledge is power, if you know it about the right person

Mumford, Ethel Watts

Children with Hyacinth's temperament don't know better as they grow older; they merely know more.

Munro, Hector Hugh

The tree of knowledge is not the tree of life! And yet can we cast out of our spirits all the good or evil poured into them by so many learned generations? Ignorance cannot be learned.

Nerval, Gerard De

We have no organ at all for knowledge, for truth: we know (or believe or imagine) precisely as much as may be useful in the interest of the human herd, the species: and even what is here called usefulness is in the end only a belief, something imagined and perhaps precisely that most fatal piece of stupidity by which we shall one day perish.

Nietzsche, Friedrich

Our treasure lies in the beehive of our knowledge. We are perpetually on the way thither, being by nature winged insects and honey gatherers of the mind.

Nietzsche, Friedrich

And all your future lies beneath your hat.

Oldham, John

What's scary in life is not what people know (or don't know), but what they know that ain't so.

Paige, Leroy ''Satchel''

Knowledge is the treasure, but judgment is the treasurer of the one who is wise.

Penn, William

Knowledge is ancient error reflecting on its youth.

Picabia, Francis

Far better is it to know everything of a little than a little of everything.

Pickering

Knowledge becomes evil if the aim be not virtuous.

Plato

Who knows most believes least.

Proverb

When you cease to strive to understand, then you will know without understanding.

Proverb, Chinese

He who knows little quickly tells it.

Proverb, Italian

He who does not know one thing knows another

Proverb, Kenyan

Every animal knows more than you do.

Proverb, Native American

It is nothing for one to know something unless another knows you know it.

Proverb, Persian

Men can acquire knowledge, but not wisdom. Some of the greatest fools ever known were learned men.

Proverb, Spanish

Try to put well in practice what you already know. In so doing, you will, in good time, discover the hidden things you now inquire about.

Rembrandt (Harmenszoon van Rijn)

Only divine love bestows the keys of knowledge.

Rimbaud, Arthur

It not knowing what to do, it's doing what you know.

Robbins, Anthony

A superficial knowledge is not enough. It must be a knowledge capable of analyzing a situation quickly and making an immediate decision.

Robert, Cavett

We are drowning in information and starving for knowledge.

Roger, Rutherford D.

Once thoroughly our own knowledge ceases to give us pleasure.

Ruskin, John

The degree of one's emotions varies inversely with one's knowledge of the facts- the less you know the hotter you get.

Russell, Bertrand

There is much pleasure to be gained from useless knowledge.

Russell, Bertrand

Knowledge of ourselves teaches us whence we come, where we are and whither we are going. We come from God and we are in exile; and it is because our potency of affection lends towards God that we are aware of this state of exile.

Ruysbroeck, Jan Van

Knowledge is recognition of something absent; it is a salutation, not an embrace.

Santayana, George

Knowledge, humbles a great person, astonishes the common, and puffs up the small.

Saying

As the biggest library if it is in disorder is not as useful as a small but well-arranged one, so you may accumulate a vast amount of knowledge but it will be of far less value to you than a much smaller amount if you have not thought it over for yourself.

Schopenhauer, Arthur

Own more than thou showest, speak less than thou knowest.

Shakespeare, William

One-tenth of the folks run the world. One-tenth watch them run it, and the other eighty percent don't know what the hell's going on.

Simmons, Jake

Knowledge conquered by labor becomes a possession -- a property entirely our own.

Smiles, Samuel

We are in fact convinced that if we are ever to have pure knowledge of anything, we must get rid of the body and contemplate things by themselves with the soul by itself. It seems, to judge from the argument, that the wisdom which we desire and upon which we profess to have set our hearts will be attainable only when we are dead and not in our lifetime.

Socrates

One thing only I know, and that is that I know nothing.

Socrates

The long unmeasured pulse of time moves everything. There is nothing hidden that it cannot bring to light, nothing once known that may not become unknown.

Sophocles

No matter what happens, there's always somebody who knew it would.

Starr, Lonny

The desire of knowledge, like the thirst for riches, increases ever with the acquisition of it.

Sterne, Laurence

The less you know, the more you think you know, because you don't know you don't know.

Stevens, Ray

I wish I knew what I know now before.

Stewart, Rod

It is better of course to know useless things than to know nothing.

Stoppard, Tom

Knowledge without practice is like a glass eye, all for show, and nothing for use.

Swinnock

Knowledge is gained by learning; trust by doubt; skill by practice; love by love.

Szasz, Thomas

Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers.

Tennyson, Lord Alfred

They are so knowing, that they know nothing.

Terence

Knowledge does not come to us in details, but in flashes of light from heaven.

Thoreau, Henry David

The knowledge of an unlearned man is living and luxuriant like a forest, but covered with mosses and lichens and for the most part inaccessible and going to waste; the knowledge of the man of science is like timber collected in yards for public works, which still supports a green sprout here and there, but even this is liable to dry rot.

Thoreau, Henry David

To know that we know what we know, and that we do not know what we do not know, that is true knowledge.

Thoreau, Henry David

Knowledge is the most democratic source of power.

Toffler, Alvin

We have not the reverent feeling for the rainbow that a savage has, because we know how it is made. We have lost as much as we gained by prying into that matter.

Twain, Mark

The trouble with the world is not that people know too little, but that they know so many things that ain't so.

Twain, Mark

Between us, we cover all knowledge; he knows all that can be known and I know the rest.

Twain, Mark

A man who carries a cat by the tail learns something he can learn in no other way.

Twain, Mark

Without wisdom, knowledge is either useless or destructive.

Unknown, Source

Only a fool knows everything. A wise man knows how little he knows.

Unknown, Source

Knowledge fills a large brain; it merely inflates a small one.

Unknown, Source

Some students drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.

Unknown, Source

Many of us don't have to turn out the lights to be in the dark.

Unknown, Source

Knowledge becomes wisdom only after it has been put to practical use.

Unknown, Source

Know-how will surpass guess-how.

Unknown, Source

A wise man, when asked how he had learned so much about everything, replied: By never being ashamed or afraid to ask questions about anything of which I was ignorant.

Unknown, Source

No man knows less than the man who knows it all

Unknown, Source

Nothing is too small to know, and nothing too big to attempt.

Van Horne, William

Everything has been said yet few have taken advantage of it. Since all our knowledge is essentially banal, it can only be of value to minds that are not.

Vaneigem, Raoul

The things we know best are the things we haven't been taught.

Vauvenargues, Marquis De

We live on an island surrounded by a sea of ignorance. As our island of knowledge grows, so does the shore of our ignorance.

Wheeler, John Archibald

Knowledge, like religion, must be experienced in order to be known.

Whipple, Edwin P.

In the advance of civilization, it is new knowledge which paves the way, and the pavement is eternal.

Whitney, W. R.

When you see the abyss, and we have looked into it, then what? There isn't much room at the edge -- one person, another, not many. If you are there, others cannot be there. If you are there, you become a protective wall. What happens? You become part of t

Wiesel, Elie

I am not young enough to know everything.

Wilde, Oscar

There are only two kinds of people who are really fascinating --people who know absolutely everything, and people who know absolutely nothing.

Wilde, Oscar

Knowledge is in the end based on acknowledgement.

Wittgenstein, Ludwig

There is no knowledge, no light, no wisdom that you are in possession of, but what you have received it from some source.

Young, Brigham

If you want to know the taste of a pear, you must change the pear by eating it yourself. If you want to know the theory and methods of revolution, you must take part in revolution. All genuine knowledge originates in direct experience.

Zedong, Mao