Knowledge

"A name made great is a name destroyed. He who does not increase his knowledge decreases it."

"The knowledge of anything, since all things have causes, is not acquired or complete unless it is known by its causes. Therefore in medicine we ought to know the causes of sickness and health. And because health and sickness and their causes are sometimes manifest, and sometimes hidden and not to be comprehended except by the study of symptoms, we must also study the symptoms of health and disease. Now it is established in the sciences that no knowledge is acquired save through the study of its causes and beginnings, if it has had causes and beginnings; nor completed except by knowledge of its accidents and accompanying essentials. Of these causes there are four kinds: material, efficient, formal, and final."

"Prudens quaestio dimidium scientiae."

"...if perception is only knowledge or a means towards knowledge; since he who perceives, has knowledge thereby, according to the special character of the senses, by sight of colours, by taste of savours and so forth: then whatsoever has knowledge in whatsoever manner may be said without impropriety in some sense to perceive. Therefore, O Lord, although Thou art not a body, yet of a truth Thou hast in this sense perception in the highest degree, since Thou knowest all things in the highest degree; but not in the sense wherein an animal that has knowledge by means of bodily feeling is said to have perception."

"Knowledge comes Of learning well retain'd, unfruitful else."

"The eye with which I see God is the same with which God sees me. My eye and God's eye is one eye, and one sight, and one knowledge, and one love."

"Knowledge comes through likeness. And so because the soul may know everything, it is never at rest until it comes to the original idea, in which all things are one. And there it comes to rest in God."

"For the more a man knows, the more worthy he is."

"You must know that if a person, who has attained a certain degree of perfection, wishes to impart to others, either orally or in writing, any portion of the knowledge which he has acquired of these subjects, he is utterly unable to be as systematic and explicit as he could be in a science of which the method is well known. The same difficulties which he encountered when investigating the subject for himself will attend him when endeavouring to instruct others: viz., at one time the explanation will appear lucid, at another time, obscure: this property of the subject appears to remain the same both to the advanced scholar and to the beginner. For this reason, great theological scholars gave instruction in all such matters only by means of metaphors and allegories."

"sic: si omnes homines natura scire desiderant, ergo maxime scientiam maxime desiderabunt. Ita arguit Philosophus I huius cap. 2. Et ibidem subdit: "quae sit maxime scientia, illa scilicet quae est circa maxime scibilia". Maxime autem dicuntur scibilia dupliciter: uel quia primo omnium sciuntur sine quibus non possunt alia sciri; uel quia sunt certissima cognoscibilia. Utroque autem modo considerat ista scientia maxime scibilia. Haec igitur est maxime scientia, et per consequens maxime desiderabilis."

"You must acquire the best knowledge first, and without delay; it is the height of madness to learn what you will later have to unlearn."

"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?"

"I cannot look at something through someone else's eyes. I can only truly know something which I know."

"Shun too great a desire for knowledge, for in it there is much fretting and delusion. Intellectuals like to appear learned and to be called wise. Yet there are many things the knowledge of which does little or no good to the soul, and he who concerns himself about other things than those which lead to salvation is very unwise."

"He knew what is what."

"I have taken all knowledge to be my province."

"Knowledge is power."

"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."

"I find that even those that have sought knowledge for itself, and not for benefit, or ostentation, or any practicable enablement in the course of their life, have nevertheless propounded to themselves a wrong mark, namely, satisfaction, which men call truth, and not operation. For as in the courts and services of princes and states, it is a much easier matter to give satisfaction than to do the business; so in the inquiring of causes and reasons it is much easier to find out such causes as will satisfy the mind of man and quiet objections, than such causes as will direct him and give him light to new experiences and inventions."

"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."

"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."