Knowledge Quotes

“All knowledge that is about human society, and not about the natural world, is historical knowledge, and therefore rests upon judgment and interpretation. This is not to say that facts or data are nonexistent, but that facts get their importance from what is made of them in interpretation… for interpretations depend very much on who the interpreter is, who he or she is addressing, what his or her purpose is, at what historical moment the interpretation takes place.”
― Edward Said

“Quiet people always know more than they seem. Although very normal, their inner world is by default fronted mysterious and therefore assumed weird. Never underestimate the social awareness and sense of reality in a quiet person; they are some of the most observant, absorbent persons of all.”
― Criss Jami, Healology

“I think a lot of psychopaths are just geniuses who drove so fast that they lost control.”
― Criss Jami, Killosophy

“Acquiring wisdom is great but it is not the goal, applying it is.”
― idowu koyenikan, Wealth for All: Living a Life of Success at the Edge of Your Ability

“Knowledge is a weapon. I intend to be formidably armed.”
― Terry Goodkind

“Those who wish to seek out the cause of miracles and to understand the things of nature as philosophers, and not to stare at them in astonishment like fools, are soon considered heretical and impious, and proclaimed as such by those whom the mob adores as the interpreters of nature and the gods. For these men know that, once ignorance is put aside, that wonderment would be taken away, which is the only means by which their authority is preserved.”
― Baruch De Spinoza, Ethics

“Ipsa scientia potestas est.

Knowledge itself is power.”
― Francis Bacon, Meditations Sacrae and Human Philosophy

“The true birthplace is that wherein for the first time one looks intelligently upon oneself; my first homelands have been books, and to a lesser degree schools.”
― Marguerite Yourcenar, Memoirs of Hadrian

“A baby has brains, but it doesn't know much. Experience is the only thing that brings knowledge, and the longer you are on earth the more experience you are sure to get.”
― L. Frank Baum, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

“When learning is purposeful, creativity blossoms. When creativity blossoms, thinking emanates. When thinking emanates, knowledge is fully lit. When knowledge is lit, economy flourishes.”
― A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, Indomitable Spirit

“Knowledge kills action; action requires the veils of illusion.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy

“What do you know?”
“Almost everything. That almost part can be a real kick in the teeth sometimes.”
“What do you want, then?”
“What I can’t have.” Wit turned to him, eyes solemn. “Same as everyone else, Kaladin Stormblessed.”
― Brandon Sanderson, Words of Radiance

“They trespassed upon my thoughts. They were intruders whose knowledge of life was to me an irritating pretense, because I felt so sure they could not possibly know the things I knew. Their bearing, which was simply the bearing of commonplace individuals going about their business in the assurance of perfect safety, was offensive to me like the outrageous flauntings of folly in the face of a danger it is unable to comprehend. I had no particular desire to enlighten them, but I had some difficulty in restraining myself from laughing in their faces, so full of stupid importance.”
― Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness

“Science, my boy, is made up of mistakes, but they are mistakes which it is useful to make, because they lead little by little to the truth.”
― Jules Verne, Journey to the Center of the Earth

“As our circle of knowledge expands, so does the circumference of darkness surrounding it.”
― Albert Einstein

“A problem well put is half solved.”
― John Dewey

“I don't fancy colors of the face, I'm always attracted to colors of the brain.”
― Michael Bassey Johnson

“I only know that I know nothing”
― Socrates

“These people have learned not from books, but in the fields, in the wood, on the river bank. Their teachers have been the birds themselves, when they sang to them, the sun when it left a glow of crimson behind it at setting, the very trees, and wild herbs.”
― Anton Chekhov

“Emotion, which is suffering, ceases to be suffering as soon as we form a clear and precise picture of it.”
― Baruch Spinoza, Ethics

“....a good book can teach you about the world and about yourself. You learn more than how to read better; you also learn more about life. You become wiser. Not just more knowledgeable - books that provide nothing but information can produce that result. But wiser, in the sense that you are more deeply aware of the great and enduring truths of human life.”
― Mortimer J. Adler, How to Read a Book: The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading

“I don't understand a thing about this world: about people, and why they do the things they do. The more I find out, the more I uncover, the more I know, the less I understand.”
― Craig Silvey, Jasper Jones

“There is but one coward on earth, and that is the coward that dare not know.”
― W.E.B. DuBois, Dusk of Dawn: An Essay Toward an Autobiography of a Race Concept

“So runs my dream, but what am I?
An infant crying in the night
An infant crying for the light
And with no language but a cry.”
― Lord Alfred Tennyson, In Memoriam

“Knowledge is a tool, and like all tools, its impact is in the hands of the user.”
― Dan Brown, The Lost Symbol

“Never judge someone's character based on the words of another. Instead, study the motives behind the words of the person casting the bad judgment. An honest woman can sell tangerines all day and remain a good person until she dies, but there will always be naysayers who will try to convince you otherwise. Perhaps this woman did not give them something for free, or at a discount. Perhaps too, that she refused to stand with them when they were wrong — or just stood up for something she felt was right. And also, it could be that some bitter women are envious of her, or that she rejected the advances of some very proud men. Always trust your heart. If the Creator stood before a million men with the light of a million lamps, only a few would truly see him because truth is already alive in their hearts. Truth can only be seen by those with truth in them. He who does not have Truth in his heart, will always be blind to her.”
― Suzy Kassem, Rise Up and Salute the Sun: The Writings of Suzy Kassem

“Either we shall find what it is we are seeking or at least we shall free ourselves from the persuasion that we know what we do not know.”
― Plato, The Republic

“You know, it's pretty easy reading this book to see why I was angry and confused for all those years. I lived my life being told different stories: some true, some lies and I still don't know which is which. Children are born innocent. At birth we are very much like a new hard drive - no viruses, no bad information, no crap that's been downloaded into it yet. It's what we feed into that hard drive, or in my case "head drive" that starts the corruption of the files.”
― Nikki Sixx, The Heroin Diaries: A Year in the Life of a Shattered Rock Star

“Valuing knowledge above all else results in a lust for power, and that leads men into dark and empty places.”
― Veronica Roth, Divergent

“What is wanted is not the will to believe, but the will to find out, which is the exact opposite.”
― Bertrand Russell, The Will to Doubt