Knowledge

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Knowledge is what is known; the confident understanding of a subject, potentially with the ability to use it for a specific purpose.

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Alphabetized by author or work.
  • Knowledge is, indeed, that which, next to virtue, truly and essentially raises one man above another.
    • Joseph Addison, The Guardian (1713), Letter of Alexander to Aristotle, No. 111.
  • Yet all that I have learn'd (hugh toyles now past)
    By long experience, and in famous schooles,
    Is but to know my ignorance at last.
    Who think themselves most wise are greatest fools.
  • To wisdom belongs the intellectual apprehension of things eternal; to knowledge, the rational apprehension of things temporal.
    • St. Augustine of Hippo, as quoted in The Anchor Book of Latin Quotations: with English translations‎ (1990) by Norbert Guterman, p. 375.
  • Πάντες ἄνθρωποι τοῦ εἰδέναι ὀρέγονται φύσει. Σημεῖον δ᾽ ἡ τῶν αἰσθήσεων ἀγάπησις: καὶ γὰρ χωρὶς τῆς χρείας ἀγαπῶνται δι᾽ αὑτάς, καὶ μάλιστα τῶν ἄλλων ἡ διὰ τῶν ὀμμάτων. Οὐ γὰρ μόνον ἵνα πράττωμεν ἀλλὰ καὶ μηθὲν μέλλοντες πράττειν τὸ ὁρᾶν αἱρούμεθα ἀντὶ πάντων ὡς εἰπεῖν τῶν ἄλλων. Αἴτιον δ᾽ ὅτι μάλιστα ποιεῖ γνωρίζειν ἡμᾶς αὕτη τῶν αἰσθήσεων καὶ πολλὰς δηλοῖ διαφοράς.
    • [All men naturally desire knowledge. An indication of this is our esteem for the senses; for apart from their use we esteem them for their own sake, and most of all the sense of sight. Not only with a view to action, but even when no action is contemplated, we prefer sight, generally speaking, to all the other senses.The reason of this is that of all the senses sight best helps us to know things, and reveals many distinctions.]
      • Aristotle, Metaphysics I 980a 21, tr. by Hugh Tredennick
  • I have taken all knowledge to be my province.
  • Knowledge is power.
    • Francis Bacon, Meditationes Sacræ [Sacred Meditations] (1597) "De Hæresibus" [Of Heresies]
  • For all knowledge and wonder (which is the seed of knowledge) is an impression of pleasure in itself.
    • Francis Bacon, The Advancement of Learning (1605), Book I, i, 3.
  • Through wisdom is an house builded; and by understanding it is established: And by knowledge shall the chambers be filled with all precious and pleasant riches.
  • Knowledge by suffering entereth,
    And life is perfected by death.
  • A man who knows how little he knows is well, a man who knows how much he knows is sick.
  • He knew what's what, and that's as high
    As metaphysic wit can fly.
  • Deep sighted in intelligences,
    Ideas, atoms, influences.
  • Nor do I know what is become
    Of him, more than the Pope of Rome.
    • Samuel Butler, Hudibras, Part I (1663-64), Canto III, line 263.
  • He knew whats'ever 's to be known,
    But much more than he knew would own.
  • The tree of knowledge is not that of life.
  • Knowledge is not happiness, and science
    But an exchange of ignorance for that
    Which is another kind of ignorance.
  • You can't manage knowledge — nobody can. What you can do is to manage the environment in which knowledge can be created, discovered, captured, shared, distilled, validated, transferred, adopted, adapted and applied.
    • Chris Collison and Geoff Parcell, Learning to Fly - Practical Knowledge Management from Leading and Learning Organizations (2005), Chapter 2, pages 24-25.
  • The Master said, "Yu, shall I teach you what knowledge is? When you know a thing, to hold that you know it; and when you do not know a thing, to allow that you do not know it; — this is knowledge."
    • Confucius in The Analects 2:17, as translated by Arthur Waley
    • Variant translation: "Yu, shall I teach you about knowledge? What you know, you know, what you don't know, you don't know. This is knowledge".
  • Knowledge and Wisdom, far from being one,
    Have oft-times no connexion. Knowledge dwells
    In heads replete with thoughts of other men,
    Wisdom in minds attentive to their own.
    • William Cowper, The Task (1785), Book VI, "Winter Walk at Noon", line 88. "Knowledge dwells," etc., found in: Milton, Paradise Lost, VII. Seldon, Table Talk. Young, Satires, VI. Night Thoughts, V.
  • Knowledge is proud that he has learned so much;
    Wisdom is humble that he knows no more.
    • William Cowper, The Task (1785), Book VI, "Winter Walk at Noon", l. 96.
  • In vain have you acquired knowledge if you do not impart it it to others.
  • To be conscious that you are ignorant is a great step to knowledge.
  • 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, in "What Life Means to Einstein: An Interview by George Sylvester Viereck" in The Saturday Evening Post (26 October 1929)
    • Variant: Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.
  • As our circle of knowledge expands, so does the circumference of darkness surrounding it.
    • Albert Einstein as quoted in Paper Prototyping: The Fast and Easy Way to Design and Refine User Interfaces (2003) by Carolyn Snyder
  • There is no knowledge that is not power.
  • If a man empties his purse into his head no man can take it from him. An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.
    • Ben Franklin, as quoted in Exercises in English Grammar (1909) by M. A. Morse
  • Who can direct, when all pretend to know?
  • The knowledge that we have can be analogous to a circle. Inside the circle is what we know and what we call knowledge; outside the circle is what we don't know and need to explore. As our circle of knowledge expands, so does the circumference of darkness surrounding it. So the more we know, the more we feel that we don't know.
    • Tian Hao, stating an idea he says had inspired him since childhood, and attributes to Albert Einstein, in Electrorheological Fluids: The Non-aqueous Suspensions (2005), Introduction (15 July 2005), p. v.
  • Knowledge is more than equivalent to force. The master of mechanicks laughs at strength.
    • Samuel Johnson, The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia (1759), Ch. 13.
  • Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, and knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful.
    • Samuel Johnson, The History of Rassselas, Prince of Abissinia (1759), Ch. 41.
  • Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information upon it.
  • Knowledge of the truth I may perhaps have attained to; happiness certainly not. What shall I do? Accomplish something in the world, men tell me. Shall I then publish my grief to the world, contribute one more proof for the wretchedness and misery of existence, perhaps discover a new flaw in human life, hitherto unnoticed? I might then reap the rare reward of becoming famous, like the man who discovered the spots on Jupiter. I prefer, however, to keep silent.
  • The beautiful thing about learning is nobody can take it away from you.
    • B.B. King, quoted outside the Main Library in uptown Charlotte, North Carolina, in The Charlotte Observer (5 October 1997) Page 2D
  • Knowledge is discovered, when ignorance is lost.
    • Jason F. Klein, "As life is written", Sonoma State University (1992).
  • Reading furnishes the mind only with materials of knowledge; it is thinking makes what we read ours.
    • John Locke, Of the Conduct of the Understanding (1706).
  • Diffused knowledge immortalizes itself.
  • I know that you believe you understand what you think I said, but I'm not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant.
    • Attributed to Robert McCloskey, U.S. State Department spokesman, by Marvin Kalb, CBS reporter, in TV Guide, 31 March 1984, citing an unspecified press briefing during the Vietnam war.
  • Penetrating so many secrets, we cease to believe in the unknowable. But there it sits nevertheless, calmly licking its chops.
  • I went into the temple, there to hear
    The teachers of our law, and to propose
    What might improve my knowledge or their own.
  • All things I thought I knew; but now confess
    The more I know, I know, I know the less.
    • John Owen (1616–1683), The works of John Owen, Bk. VI, p. 39; translation from Latin by Thomas Harvey, as cited in Henry Philip Dodd, The Epigrammatists (1870), p. 150.
  • How can the unknown merit reverence? In other words how can you revere that of which you are ignorant? At the same time, it would be ridiculous to propose that what we know merits reverence. What we know merits any one of a number of things, but it stands to reason reverence isn't one of them. In other words, apart from the known and the unknown, what else is there?
    • Harold Pinter in The Homecoming (1966), Lenny to Teddy in Act Two
  • That virtue only makes our bliss below,
    And all our knowledge is ourselves to know.
  • In vain sedate reflections we would make
    When half our knowledge we must snatch, not take.
  • Que nuist savoir tousjours et tousjours apprendre, fust ce
    D'un sot, d'une pot, d'une que—doufle
    D'un mouffe, d'un pantoufle.
    • What harm in learning and getting knowledge even from a sot, a pot, a fool, a mitten, or a slipper.
    • François Rabelais, Pantagruel (1532), III. 16.
  • As we know, There are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know, there are known unknowns, that is to say, we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns, the ones we do not know we do not know.
  • Wouldst thou know thyself, observe the actions of others.
    Wouldst thou other men know, look thou within thine own heart.
  • If you can look into the seeds of time,
    And say which grain will grow and which will not;
    Speak then to me.
  • But the full sum of me * *
    Is an unlesson'd girl, unschool'd, unpractis'd;
    Happy in this, she is not yet so old
    But she may learn.
  • Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers.
  • Who loves not Knowledge? Who shall rail
    Against her beauty? May she mix
    With men and prosper! Who shall fix
    Her pillars? Let her work prevail.
  • All schools, all colleges, have two great functions: to confer, and to conceal, valuable knowledge. The theological knowledge which they conceal cannot justly be regarded as less valuable than that which they reveal. That is, when a man is buying a basket of strawberries it can profit him to know that the bottom half of it is rotten.
  • For all the talk you hear about knowledge being such a wonderful thing, instinct is worth forty of it for real unerringness.
  • We have not the reverent feeling for the rainbow that the savage has, because we know how it is made. We have lost as much as we gained by prying into that matter.

[edit] Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations

Quotes reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 419-23.
  • There are four kinds of people, three of which are to be avoided and the fourth cultivated: those who don't know that they don't know; those who know that they don't know; those who don't know that they know; and those who know that they know.
    • Anonymous rendering of the Arab Proverb.
  • Knowledge and human power are synonymous, since the ignorance of the cause frustrates the effect.
  • Knowledge bloweth up, but charity buildeth up.
  • Nam et ipsa scientia potestas est.
  • For knowledge, too, is itself a power.
  • Pursuit of knowledge under difficulties.
    • Title given by Lord Brougham to a book published under the superintendence of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge (1830). Duke of Sussex, address to the Royal Society (1839). Prof. Craik, Volume bearing this title (1828).
  • Men are four:
    He who knows not and knows not he knows not, he is a fool—shun him;
    He who knows not and knows he knows not, he is simple—teach him;
    He who knows and knows not he knows, he is asleep—wake him;
    He who knows and knows he knows, he is wise—follow him!
    • Lady Burton, Life of Sir Richard Burton. Given as an Arabian Proverb. Another rendering in the Spectator (Aug. 11, 1894), p. 176. In Hesiod, Works and Days, 293. 7. Quoted by Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics (c. 325 BC), I. 4. Cicero, Pro Cluent., 31. Livy, Works, XXII. 29.
  • There's lots of people—this town wouldn't hold them;
    Who don't know much excepting what's told them.
  • For love is ever the beginning of Knowledge, as fire is of light.
  • What is all Knowledge too but recorded Experience, and a product of History; of which, therefore, Reasoning and Belief, no less than Action and Passion, are essential materials?
  • Ne quis nimis. (From the Greek.)
    • Know thyself.
    • Inscription attributed to Chilo of Thales, Pythagoras, Solon, on the Temple of Apollo at Delphi.
  • Nam non solum scire aliquid, artis est, sed, quædam ars etiam docendi.
    • Not only is there an art in knowing a thing, but also a certain art in teaching it.
    • Cicero, De Legibus, II. 19.
  • Minime sibi quisque notus est, et difficillime de se quisque sentit.
    • Every one is least known to himself, and it is very difficult for a man to know himself.
    • Cicero, De Oratore, III. 9.
  • Nescire autem quid ante quam natus sis acciderit, id est semper esse puerum.
    • Not to know what happened before one was born is always to be a child.
    • Cicero, De Oratore, XXXIV.
  • And is this the prime
    And heaven-sprung message of the olden time?
    • Coleridge. Referring to "Know thyself".
  • When you know a thing, to hold that you know it; and when you do not know a thing, to allow that you do not know it; this is knowledge.
    • Confucius, Analects, Book II, Chapter XVII.
  • Many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased.
    • Daniel, XII. 4.
  • Knowledge comes
    Of learning well retain'd, unfruitful else.
  • But ask not bodies (doomed to die),
    To what abode they go;
    Since knowledge is but sorrow's spy,
    It is not safe to know.
  • Thales was asked what was very difficult; he said: "To know one's self."
  • He that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow.
    • Ecclesiastes. I. 18.
  • Our knowledge is the amassed thought and experience of innumerable minds.
  • Knowledge is the antidote to fear,—
    Knowledge, Use and Reason, with its higher aids.
  • Was man nicht versteht, besitzt man nicht.
  • Eigentlich weiss man nur wenn man wenig weiss; mit dem Wissen wächst der Zweifel.
  • The first step to self-knowledge is self-distrust. Nor can we attain to any kind of knowledge, except by a like process.
    • J. C. and A. W. Hare, Guesses at Truth, p. 454.
  • Nec scire fas est omnia.
    • One cannot know everything.
    • Horace, Carmina, IV. 4. 22.
  • Si quid novisti rectius istis.
    Candidus imperti, si non, his utere mecum.
    • If you know anything better than this candidly impart it; if not, use this with me.
    • Horace, Epistles, I, 6, 67.
  • A desire of knowledge is the natural feeling of mankind; and every human being whose mind is not debauched, will be willing to give all that he has to get knowledge.
    • Samuel Johnson, Boswell's Life of Johnson. Conversation on Saturday, July 30, 1763.
  • Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information upon it.
  • E cœlo descendit nosce te ipsum.
    • This precept descended from Heaven: know thyself.
    • Juvenal, Satires, XI. 27.
  • There are gems of wondrous brightness
    Ofttimes lying at our feet,
    And we pass them, walking thoughtless,
    Down the busy, crowded street.
    If we knew, our pace would slacken,
    We would step more oft with care,
    Lest our careless feet be treading
    To the earth some jewel rare.
    • Rudyard Kipling, If We Only Understood. Attributed to him in Masonic Standard (May 16, 1908). Not found. Claimed for Bessie Smith.
  • Laissez dire les sots: le savoir a son prix.
    • Let fools the studious despise,
      There's nothing lost by being wise.
    • Jean de La Fontaine, Fables, VIII. 19.
  • Il connoît l'univers, et ne se connoît pas.
  • Not if I know myself at all.
    • Charles Lamb, Essays of Elia, The Old and the New Schoolmaster.
  • Wer viel weiss
    Hat viel zu sorgen.
  • The improvement of the understanding is for two ends: first, for our own increase of knowledge; secondly, to enable us to deliver and make out that knowledge to others.
    • John Locke, Some Thoughts Concerning Reading and Study. Appendix B.
  • 'Tain't a knowin' kind of cattle
    Thet is ketched with mouldy corn.
  • Scire est nescire, nisi id me scire alius scierit.
    • To know is not to know, unless someone else has known that I know.
    • Lucilius, Fragment.
  • Quid nobis certius ipsis
    Sensibus esse potest? qui vera ac falso notemus.
    • What can give us more sure knowledge than our senses? How else can we distinguish between the true and the false?
    • Lucretius, De Rerum Natura, I, 700.
  • Every addition to true knowledge is an addition to human power.
    • Horace Mann, Lectures and Reports on Education, Lecture I.
  • Et teneo melius ista quam meum nomen.
    • I know all that better than my own name.
    • Martial, Epigrams (c. 80-104 AD), IV. 37. 7.
  • Vous parlez devant un homme à qui tout Naples est connu.
    • You speak before a man to whom all Naples is known.
    • Molière, L'Avare, V. 5.
  • Faites comme si je ne le savais pas.
    • Act as though I knew nothing.
    • Molière, Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme, II. 6.
  • All things I thought I knew; but now confess
    The more I know I know, I know the less.
  • Scire tuum nihil est, nisi te scire hoc sciat alter?
    • Is then thy knowledge of no value, unless another know that thou possessest that knowledge?
    • Persius, Satires, I. 27.
  • Ego te intus et in cute novi.
    • I know you even under the skin.
    • Persius, Satires, III. 30. Same in Erasmus—Adagia.
  • Plus scire satius est, quam loqui.
    • It is well for one to know more than he says.
    • Plautus, Epidecus, I. 1. 60.
  • He that hath knowledge spareth his words.
    • Proverbs, XVII. 27.
  • I may tell all my bones.
    • Psalms, XXII. 17.
  • Then I began to think, that it is very true which is commonly said, that the one-half of the world knoweth not how the other half liveth.
  • Far must thy researches go
    Wouldst thou learn the world to know;
    Thou must tempt the dark abyss
    Wouldst thou prove what Being is;
    Naught but firmness gains the prize,
    Naught but fullness makes us wise,
    Buried deep truth e'er lies.
  • Willst du dich selber erkennen, so sieh' wie die andern es treiben;
    Willst du die andern versteh'n, blick in dein eigenes Herz.
    • If you wish to know yourself observe how others act.
      If you wish to understand others look into your own heart.
    • Friedrich Schiller, Votire Tablets, Xenien.
  • Natura semina scientiæ nobis dedit, scientiam non dedit.
    • Nature has given us the seeds of knowledge, not knowledge itself.
    • Seneca, Epistolæ Ad Lucilium, CXX.
  • Crowns have their compass—length of days their date—
    Triumphs their tomb—felicity, her fate—
    Of nought but earth can earth make us partaker,
    But knowledge makes a king most like his Maker.
  • We think so because all other people think so;
    Or because—or because—after all, we do think so;
    Or because we were told so, and think we must think so;
    Or because we once thought so, and think we still think so;
    Or because, having thought so, we think we will think so.
    • Henry Sidgewick. Lines which came to him in his sleep. Referred to by Dr. William Osler, Harveian Oration, given in the South Place Magazine (Feb., 1907).
  • And thou my minde aspire to higher things;
    Grow rich in that which never taketh rust.
  • Sweet food of sweetly uttered knowledge.
  • He knew what is what.
  • A life of knowledge is not often a life of injury and crime.
  • As for me, all I know is that I know nothing.
    • Socrates, Plato, Phædrus, Section CCXXXV.
  • Yet all that I have learn'd (hugh toyles now past)
    By lone experience, and in famous schooles,
    Is but to know my ignorance at last,
    Who think themselves most wise are greatest fools.
  • Knowledge alone is the being of Nature,
    Giving a soul to her manifold features,
    Lighting through paths of the primitive darkness,
    The footsteps of Truth and the vision of Song.
  • Faciunt næ intelligendo, ut nihil intelligant.
    • By too much knowledge they bring it about that they know nothing.
    • Terence, Andria, Prologue, XVII.
  • Namque inscitia est,
    Adversum stimulum calces.
    • For it shows want of knowledge to kick against the goad.
    • Terence, Phormio, I, 24, 27.
  • Knowledge, in truth, is the great sun in the firmament. Life and power are scattered with all its beams.
    • Daniel Webster, address delivered at the laying of the Corner-Stone of Bunker Hill Monument (1825).
  • Knowledge is the only fountain, both of the love and the principles of human liberty.
  • He who binds
    His soul to knowledge, steals the key of heaven.
  • Oh, be wise, Thou!
    Instructed that true knowledge leads to love.

[edit] Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895)

Quotes reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895).

  • Real knowledge, like every thing else of the highest value, is not to be obtained easily. It must be worked for, — studied for, — thought for, — and, more than all, it must be prayed for.
  • What a man knows should find its expression in what he does. The value of superior knowledge is chiefly in that it leads to a performing manhood.
  • There is oftentimes a great deal of knowledge where there is but little wisdom to improve that knowledge. It is not the most knowing Christian but the most wise Christian that sees, avoids, and escapes Satan's snares. Knowledge without wisdom is like mettle in a blind horse, which is often an occasion of the rider's fall.
  • Learning, without Christ, is among the most dangerous attainments the human race has ever secured, and one of the most unsatisfying.
  • If thou knewest the whole Bible by heart, and the sayings of all the philosophers, what would it profit thee without the love of God and without grace?
  • As all true virtue, wherever found, is a ray of the life of the All-Holy; so all solid knowledge, all really accurate thought, descends from the Eternal Reason, and ought, when we apprehend it, to guide us upwards to Him.
  • Let me always remember that it is not the amount of religious knowledge which I have, but the amount which I use, that determines my religious position and character.
  • An uneducated population may be degraded; a population educated, but not in righteousness, will be ungovernable. The one may be slaves, the other must be tyrants.
  • As revelation is the great strengthener of reason, the march of mind which leaves the Bible in the rear, is an advance, like that of our first parents in Paradise, towards knowledge, but, at the same time, towards death.
  • The end of learning is to know God, and out of that knowledge to love Him and imitate Him.
  • To understand at all what life means, one must begin with Christian belief. And I think knowledge may be sorrow with a man unless he loves.
  • The wish falls often warm upon my heart that I may learn nothing here that I cannot continue in the other world; that I may do nothing here but deeds that will bear fruit in heaven.
  • Every increase of knowledge may possibly render depravity more depraved, as well as it may increase the strength of virtue. It is in itself only power; and its value depends on its application.
  • The essential difference between that knowledge which is, and that which is not conclusive evidence of Christian character, lies in this: the object of the one is the agreement of the several parts of a theological proposition; the object of the other is moral beauty, the intrinsic loveliness of God and Divine things. The sinner sees and hates; the saint sees and loves.
  • How empty learning, and how vain is art,
    But as it mends the life, and guides the heart!
  • Much learning shows how little mortals know;
    Much wealth, how little worldlings can enjoy.

[edit] Proverbs

  • He who knows not, and knows not that he knows not, is a fool. Shun him.
    He who knows not, and knows that he knows not, is simple. Teach him.
    He who knows, and knows not that he knows, is asleep. Wake him.
    He who knows, and knows that he knows, is wise. Follow him.
    • Several variants began appearing in English language periodicals late in the 19th century, typically attributed as an Arabic or Persian proverb. E.g. Cosmopolitan, Volume 23 (May–October 1897), p. 315. Later variants typically use "a child" rather than "simple".

[edit] See also

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