Quotes about knowledge

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

— Lyndon B. Johnson

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

— Samuel Johnson

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.

— Samuel Johnson

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

— Samuel Johnson

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

— Samuel Johnson

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

— Samuel Johnson

Knowledge is more than equivalent to force.

— Samuel Johnson

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

— Carl Jung

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

— (Decimus Junius Juvenalis) Juvenal

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.

— Helen Keller

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

— John F. Kennedy

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

— Jack Kuehler

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.

— Christopher Lasch

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.

— John Locke

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.

— Konrad Lorenz

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

— James Russell Lowell

He mastered whatever was not worth the knowing.

— James Russell Lowell

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.

— Jean Francois Lyotard

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.

— Thomas B. Macaulay

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.

— Frederic William Maitland

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.

— James A. Michener

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

— John Stuart Mill

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

— Henry Miller

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

— Keith Miller

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

— Darius Ogden Mills

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

— John Milton

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.

— Lady Mary Wortley Montagu

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

— Michel Eyquem De Montaigne

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.

— Hannah More

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.

— John Morely

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

— Jim Morrison

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.

— Clark Moustakas

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

— Robert K. Mueller

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

— Ethel Watts Mumford

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

— Hector Hugh Munro

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.

— Gerard De Nerval

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.

— Friedrich Nietzsche

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.

— Friedrich Nietzsche

And all your future lies beneath your hat.

— John Oldham

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

— Leroy ''Satchel'' Paige

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

— William Penn

Knowledge is ancient error reflecting on its youth.

— Francis Picabia

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.

— Chinese Proverb

He who knows little quickly tells it.

— Italian Proverb

He who does not know one thing knows another

— Kenyan Proverb

Every animal knows more than you do.

— Native American Proverb

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

— Persian Proverb

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

— Spanish Proverb

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.

— Arthur Rimbaud

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

— Anthony Robbins

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

— Cavett Robert

We are drowning in information and starving for knowledge.

— Rutherford D. Roger

Once thoroughly our own knowledge ceases to give us pleasure.

— John Ruskin

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

— Bertrand Russell

There is much pleasure to be gained from useless knowledge.

— Bertrand Russell

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.

— Jan Van Ruysbroeck

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

— George Santayana

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.

— Arthur Schopenhauer

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

— William Shakespeare

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.

— Jake Simmons

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

— Samuel Smiles

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.

— Lonny Starr

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

— Laurence Sterne

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

— Ray Stevens

I wish I knew what I know now before.

— Rod Stewart

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

— Tom Stoppard

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.

— Thomas Szasz

Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers.

— Lord Alfred Tennyson

They are so knowing, that they know nothing.

— Terence

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

— Henry David Thoreau

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.

— Henry David Thoreau

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

— Henry David Thoreau

Knowledge is the most democratic source of power.

— Alvin Toffler

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.

— Mark Twain

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

— Mark Twain

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

— Mark Twain

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

— Mark Twain

Without wisdom, knowledge is either useless or destructive.

— Source Unknown

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

— Source Unknown

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

— Source Unknown

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

— Source Unknown

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

— Source Unknown

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

— Source Unknown

Know-how will surpass guess-how.

— Source Unknown

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.

— Source Unknown

No man knows less than the man who knows it all

— Source Unknown

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

— William Van Horne