Quotes on Knowledge

Proof is an idol before which the mathematician tortures himself.

It has become almost a cliché to remark that nobody boasts of ignorance of literature, but it is socially acceptable to boast ignorance of science and proudly claim incompetence in mathematics.

Mathematics consists in proving the most obvious thing in the least obvious way.

All of us perform better and more willingly when we know why we're doing what we have been told or asked to do.

Vanity of science. Knowledge of physical science will not console me for ignorance of morality in time of affliction, but knowledge of morality will always console me for ignorance of physical science.

If there is a problem you can't solve, then there is an easier problem you can't solve: find it.

Reason obeys itself; and ignorance submits to whatever is dictated to it.

What the soul sees and has experienced, that it knows; the rest is appearance, prejudice and opinion.

The most important single factor influencing learning is what the learner already knows. Ascertain this and teach him accordingly.

The utmost extent of man's knowledge, is to know that he knows nothing.

Truth is the recognition of reality; reason, man's only means of knowledge, is his only standard of truth.

True knowledge exists in knowing that you know nothing. And in knowing that you know nothing, that makes you the smartest of all.

The greatest piece of folly is that every man thinks himself compelled to hand down what people think they have known.

When intelligent and sensible people despise knowledge in their old age, it is only because they have asked too much of it and of themselves.

The history of knowledge is a great fugue in which the voices of the nations one after the other emerge.

If there is anything for which I would go back to childhood, and live this weary life over again, it is for the burning, exalting, transporting thrill and ecstasy with which the young faculties hold their earliest communion with knowledge.

We ought to be ten times as hungry for knowledge as for food for the body.

In the world we live in, what we know and what we don't know are like Siamese twins, inseparable, existing in a state of confusion.

Knowledge is a sacred cow, and my problem will be how we can milk her while keeping clear of her horns.

I think if you've suffered, if you've experienced loss, you're probably more open to understanding it and more comfortable talking about it and experiencing it.

Praised be the fathomless universe, for life and joy, and for objects and knowledge curious.