Semiotics

"Knowledge that stays at the tip of one's tongue Can always be used and expressed by the learned. The fool is deceived by what needs reference To a teacher or text for support."

"Manners must adorn knowledge, and smooth its way through the world. Like a great rough diamond, it may do very well in a closet by way of curiosity, and also for its intrinsic value; but it will never be worn, nor shine, if it is not polished."

"Scientia non habet inimicum nisi ignorantem"

"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."

"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."

"And seeing ignorance is the curse of God, Knowledge the wing wherewith we fly to heaven."

"Too much to know is to know naught but fame."

"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."

"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."

"And thou my minde aspire to higher things; Grow rich in that which never taketh rust."

"Sweet food of sweetly uttered knowledge."

"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."

"For all knowledge and wonder (which is the seed of knowledge) is an impression of pleasure in itself."

"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."

"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."

"He knew whats'ever 's to be known, But much more than he knew would own."

"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."

"Il connoît l'univers, et ne se connoît pas."

"Knowledge is folly unless grace guide it."

"Virtue is harder to be got than knowledge of the world; and, if lost in a young man, is seldom recovered."

"The only fence against the world is a thorough knowledge of it, into which a young gentleman should be enter'd by degrees, as he can bear it; and the earlier the better, so he be in safe and skillful hands to guide him. The scene should be gently open'd, and his entrance made step by step, and the dangers pointed out that attend him from several degrees, tempers, designs, and clubs of men. He should be prepared to be shocked by some, and caress'd by others; warned who are like to oppose, who to mislead, who to undermine him, and who to serve him. He should be instructed how to know and distinguish them; where he should let them see, and when dissemble the knowledge of them and their aims and workings."

"Mark what 'tis his mind aims at in the question, and not what words he expresses it in: and when you have informed and satisfied him in that, you shall see how his thoughts will enlarge themselves, and how by fit answers he may be led on farther than perhaps you could have imagine. For knowledge is grateful to the understanding, as light to the eyes."

"For in particulars our knowledge begins, and so spreads itself, by degrees, to generals [Footnote: This is the order in time of the conscious acquistion of knowledge that is human. The Essay might be regarded as a commentary on this one sentence. Our intellectual progress is from particulars and involuntary recipiency, through reactive doubt and criticism, into what is at last reasoned faith.]. Though afterwards the mind takes the quite contrary course, and having drawn its knowledge into as general propositions as it can, makes those familiar to its thoughts, and accustoms itself to have recourse to them, as to the standards of truth and falsehood. [Footnote: This is the philosophic attitude. Therein one consciously apprehends the intellectual necessities that were UNCONCIOUSLY PRESUPPOSED, its previous intellectual progress. In philosophy we 'draw our knowledge into as general propositions as it can' be made to assume, and thus either learn to see it as an organic while in a speculative unity, or learn that it cannot be so seen in a finite intelligence, and that even at the last it must remain 'broken' and mysterious in the human understanding.]"

"I went into the temple, there to hear The teachers of our law, and to propose What might improve my knowledge or their own."

"The end of learning is to know God, and out of that knowledge to love Him and imitate Him."

"Vous parlez devant un homme à qui tout Naples est connu."

"Faites comme si je ne le savais pas."

"Truth is ever to be found in simplicity, and not in the multiplicity and confusion of things. As the world, which to the naked eye exhibits the greatest variety of objects, appears very simple in its internal constitution when surveyed by a philosophical understanding, and so much the simpler by how much the better it is understood, so it is in the visions. It is the perfection of God's works that they are all done with the greatest simplicity. He is the God of order and not of confusion. And therefore as they would understand the frame of the world must endeavor to reduce their knowledge to all possible simplicity, so must it be in seeking to understand these visions."

"All things I thought I knew; but now confess The more I know, I know, I know the less."

"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."

"Nous sommes sur un milieu vaste, toujours incertains et flottants entre l'ignorance et la connaissance ; et si nous pensons aller plus avant, notre objet branle, et échappe nos prises ; il se dérobe, et fuit d'une fuite éternelle : rien ne le peut arrêter. C'est notre condition naturelle et, toutefois, la plus contraire à notre inclination. Nous brûlons du désir d'approfondir tout et d'édifier une tour qui s'élève jusqu'à l'infini. Mais tout notre édifice craque, et la terre s'ouvre jusqu'aux abîmes."

"..it is impossible that our rational part should be other than spiritual; and if any one maintain that we are simply corporeal, this would far more exclude us from the knowledge of things, there being nothing so inconceivable as to say that matter knows itself. It is impossible to imagine how it should know itself."

"We know what we are, but know not what we may be."

"If you can look into the seeds of time, And say which grain will grow and which will not; Speak then to me."

"Knowledge is, indeed, that which, next to virtue, truly and essentially raises one man above another."

"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."

"Knowledge is proud that he has learned so much; Wisdom is humble that he knows no more."

"What must be the knowledge of Him, from whom all created minds have derived both their power of knowledge, and the innumerable objects of their knowledge! What must be the wisdom of Him, from whom all things derive their wisdom!"

"Life is a jest; and all things show it. I thought so once; and now I know it."

"Upon the progress of knowledge the whole progress of the human race is immediately dependent: he who retards that, hinders this also. And he who hinders this, — what character does he assume towards his age and posterity? Louder than with a thousand voices, by his actions he proclaims into the deafened ear of the world present and to come — "As long as I live at least, the men around me shall not become wiser or better; — for in their progress I too, notwithstanding all my efforts to the contrary, should be dragged forward in some direction; and this I detest I will not become more enlightened, — I will not become nobler. Darkness and perversion are my elements, and I will summon all my powers together that I may not be dislodged from them.""

"Was man nicht versteht, besitzt man nicht."

"Eigentlich weiss man nur wenn man wenig weiss; mit dem Wissen wächst der Zweifel."

"Who can direct, when all pretend to know?"

"Knowledge is more than equivalent to force. The master of mechanicks laughs at strength."

"Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, and knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful."

"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."

"Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information upon it."

"That all our knowledge begins with experience there can be no doubt. For how is it possible that the faculty of cognition should be awakened into exercise otherwise than by means of objects which affect our senses, and partly of themselves produce representations, partly rouse our powers of understanding into activity, to compare, to connect, or to separate these, and so to convert the raw material of our sensuous impressions into a knowledge of objects, which is called experience? In respect of time, therefore, no knowledge of ours is antecedent to experience, but begins with it. But though all our knowledge begins with experience, it by no means follows, that all arises out of experience. For, on the contrary, it is quite possible that our empirical knowledge is a compound of that which we receive through impressions, and that which the faculty of cognition supplies from itself (sensuous impressions giving merely the occasion)... It is, therefore, a question which requires close investigation, and is not to be answered at first sight,—whether there exists a knowledge altogether independent of experience, and even of all sensuous impressions? Knowledge of this kind is called à priori, in contradistinction to empirical knowledge which has its sources à posteriori, that is, in experience."