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Most of the book deals with things we already know yet never learn.
Huston Smith
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Interpretation

What this quote means

Knowledge is abundant, but true understanding often eludes us.

Huston Smith suggests that while we may have access to a vast amount of information and knowledge, the real challenge lies in internalizing and fully comprehending that information. It highlights the difference between superficial awareness and deeper learning, emphasizing the importance of truly engaging with what we learn rather than simply recognizing it.

Themes

KnowledgeLearningUnderstandingEducationWisdom

In practice

Example use cases

In a lecture about educational strategies, this quote can highlight the need for deeper engagement with material.

More from Huston Smith

A nation can assume that the addition of the words "under God" to its pledge of allegiance gives evidence that its citizens actually believe in God whereas all it really proves is that they believe in "believing" in God
Huston SmithRead
One reason education undoes belief is its teaching of evolution; Darwin's own drift from orthodoxy to agnosticism was symptomatic. Martin Lings is probably right in saying that more cases of loss of religious faith are to be traced to the theory of evolution ... than to anything else.
Huston SmithRead
So always, if we look back, concern for face-to-face morality, and its modern emphasis on justice as well, have historically evolved as religious issues.
Huston SmithRead
The crisis that the world finds itself in as it swings on the hinge of a new millennium is located in something deeper than particular ways of organizing political systems and economies.
Huston SmithRead
...conversation can be as mutually incomprehensible as foreign languages. We need the different and complementary perspectives of the various yogas - and ideally of all religions - not only to reach God but to reach each other.
Huston SmithRead
In the post-individualistic era, science and spirituality will become allies, and human beings will realize a vast potentiality now only dimly felt.
Huston SmithRead

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