Those who come last enter with advantage—They are born to the wealth of antiquity.—The materials for judging are prepared, and the foundations of knowledge are laid to their hands.—Besides, if the point was tried by antiquity, antiquity would lose it, for the present age is really the oldest, and has the largest experience to plead.
—Jeremy Collier (1650–1726) Anglican Church Historian, Clergyman
Reading maketh a full man; conference, a ready man: histories make men wise; poets, witty; the mathematics, subtle; natural philosophy, deep; moral philosophy, grave; logic and rhetoric, able to contend.
—Francis Bacon (1561–1626) English Philosopher
Knowledge is more than equivalent to force. The master of mechanics laughs at strength.
—Samuel Johnson (1709–84) British Essayist
If you think in terms of a year, plant a seed; if in terms of ten years, plant trees; if in terms of 100 years, teach the people.
—Confucius (551–479 BCE) Chinese Philosopher
This is an inquisitive age, and if we insist on piling up beyond a certain height knowledge which is in itself mere trash and lumber to a man whose life is to be one long fight with death and disease, there will be some sharp questions asked by and by, and our quick-witted people will perhaps find they can get along as well without the professor’s cap as without the bishop’s mitre and the monarch’s crown.
—Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809–94) American Physician, Essayist
A man who carries a cat by the tail learns something he can learn in no other way.
—Mark Twain (1835–1910) American Humorist
Play is the beginning of knowledge.
—George Amos Dorsey (1868–1931) American Ethnologist
Knowledge rests not upon truth alone, but upon error also.
—Carl Gustav Jung (1875–1961) Swiss Psychologist, Psychiatrist, Philosopher
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 (1632–1704) English Philosopher, Physician
Infinite toil would not enable you to sweep away a mist; but by ascending a little you may often look over it altogether. So it is with our moral improvement; we wrestle fiercely with a vicious habit, which would have no hold upon us if we ascended into a higher moral atmosphere.
—Arthur Helps (1813–75) British Essayist, Historian
I have learned throughout my life as a composer chiefly through my mistakes and pursuits of false assumptions, not by my exposure to founts of wisdom and knowledge.
—Igor Stravinsky (1882–1971) Russian-born American Composer, Musician
All wonder is the effect of novelty on ignorance.
—Samuel Johnson (1709–84) British Essayist
All our knowledge merely helps us to die a more painful death than animals that know nothing.
—Maurice Maeterlinck (1862–1949) Belgian Poet, Playwright, Essayist
Oh how fine it is to know a thing or two!
—Moliere (1622–73) French Playwright
The color of the object illuminated partakes of the color of that which illuminates it.
—Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Polymath, Painter, Sculptor, Architect
The shortest and the surest way of arriving at real knowledge the lessons we have been taught, to remount the first principles, and take nobody’s word about them.
—Henry St John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke (1678–1751) British Statesman, Philosopher
Whether you know the shape of a pebble or the structure of a solar system, the anxioms remain the same: that it exists and that you know it.
—Ayn Rand (1905–82) Russian-born American Novelist, Philosopher
The only source of knowledge is experience.
—Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born Physicist
I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination. Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited, whereas imagination embraces the entire world, stimulating progress, giving birth to evolution.
—Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born Physicist
Knowledge without education is but armed injustice.
—Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus) (65–8 BCE) Roman Poet
If a little knowledge is dangerous, where is the man who has so much as to be out of danger?
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95) English Biologist
Yea, if thou criest after knowledge, and liftest up thy voice for understanding; if thou seekest her as silver, and searchest for her as for hid treasures: Then shalt thou understand the fear of the Lord, and find the knowledge of God.
—The Holy Bible Scripture in the Christian Faith
Every generation enjoys the use of a vast hoard bequeathed to it by antiquity, and transmits that hoard, augmented by fresh acquisitions, to future ages.
—Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay (1800–59) English Historian, Essayist, Philanthropist
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.
—Georges Gurdjieff (1877–1949) Armenian Spiritual Leader, Occultist
Man is fed with fables through life, and leaves it in the belief he knows something of what has been passing, when in truth he knows nothing but what has passed under his own eyes.
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) American Head of State, Lawyer
Repetition is the mother of knowledge.
—African Proverb
Knowledge begets knowledge. The more I see, the more impressed I am—not with what we know—but with how tremendous the areas are as yet unexplored.
—John Glenn (1921–2006) American Pilot, Astronaut, Politician
We own almost all our knowledge not to those who have agreed but to those who have differed.
—Charles Caleb Colton (c.1780–1832) English Clergyman, Aphorist
In many things it is not well to say, “Know thyself” it is better to say, “Know others.”
—Menander (c.343–c.291 BCE) Greek Comic Dramatist, Poet
In every object there is inexhaustible meaning; the eye sees in it what the eye brings means of seeing.
—Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish Historian, Essayist
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