Virtues

"While knowledge is increasingly being viewed as a commodity or intellectual asset, there are some paradoxical characteristics of knowledge that are radically different from other valuable commodities. These knowledge characteristics include the following: • Using knowledge does not consume it. • Transferring knowledge does not result in losing it. • Knowledge is abundant, but the ability to use it is scarce. • Much of an organization’s valuable knowledge walks out the door at the end of the day."

"I shall maintain that there simply is no such thing as philosophical knowledge, nor any philosophical way of knowing anything, and defend the humble point that philosophy is indeed the love of wisdom."

"Knowing the theory of anything is contrasted with know-how in all the arts...Beethoven..Michelangelo..Shakespeare, all great exponents of know-how, probably knew how to manipulate their instruments to achieve the desired results long before they knew the theory of their art. Perhaps some of them never bothered to learn the theory. On the other hand, there are many who know the theory better than these, but who lack know-how....Although we acquire the skill of understanding words by experience, so that we know the correlations between them and things, between words and other words, and between words and feelings and actions, we do not do it by inductive reasoning. Nor must we think that we do it by deductive reasoning... In the main, words are cues rather than clues."

"Ideas are everywhere, but knowledge is rare."

"Knowledge is in the end based on acknowledgement."

"Let no one be deluded that a knowledge of the path can substitute Jor putting one foot in front of the other."

"I think of the need for more wisdom in the world, to deal with the knowledge that we have. At one time we had wisdom, but little knowledge. Now we have a great deal of knowledge, but do we have enough wisdom to deal with that knowledge?"

"People making bad choices ... and blame but themselves, the beginning reality tv show folks... glad we grew out of that, when you know better, you do better, right?"

"Knowledge is not eating, and we cannot expect to devour and possess what we mean. Knowledge is recognition of something absent; it is a salutation, not an embrace."

"What is the difference between merely knowing (or remembering, or memorizing) and understanding? ...A thing or idea seems meaningful only when we have several different ways to represent it–different perspectives and different associations. ...Then we can turn it around in our minds, so to speak: however it seems at the moment, we can see it another way and we never come to a full stop. In other words, we can 'think' about it. If there were only one way to represent this thing or idea, we would not call this representation thinking."

"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?"

"I think that asking “what's the point?” when referring to the contents of a study or research project can be indicative of a utilitarian, pragmatic, consumerist mindset. I believe that advanced civilizations should leave room for knowledge as a value in itself."

"The more we learn about the world, and the deeper our learning, the more conscious, specific, and articulate will be our knowledge of what we do not know, our knowledge of our ignorance. For this, indeed, is the main source of our ignorance — the fact that our knowledge can be only finite, while our ignorance must necessarily be infinite."

"To gain knowledge, we must learn to ask the right questions; and to get answers, we must act, not wait for answers to occur to us."

"A deep consideration of the essence of knowledge should reveal how knowledge corresponds to the truth. ... Darkness reigns when knowledge is silent. ... Knowledge is a unique kind of property, indeed: you can share it with others, while still possessing it. ... There is a fascinating entanglement of science and knowledge, which is expressed as scientific knowledge."

"The knowable world is incomplete if seen from any one point of view, incoherent if seen from all points of view at once, and empty if seen from nowhere in particular."

"Beyond the drumfire of daily crisis, therefore, there is arising the outlines of a robust and vital world community, founded on nations secure in their own independence, and united by their allegiance to world peace. It would be foolish to say that this world will be won tomorrow, or the day after. The processes of history are fitful and uncertain and aggravating. There will be frustrations and setbacks. There will be times of anxiety and gloom. The specter of thermonuclear war will continue to hang over mankind; and we must heed the advice of Oliver Wendell Holmes of "freedom leaning on her spear" until all nations are wise enough to disarm safely and effectively. Yet we can have a new confidence today in the direction in which history is moving. Nothing is more stirring than the recognition of great public purpose. Every great age is marked by innovation and daring--by the ability to meet unprecedented problems with intelligent solutions. In a time of turbulence and change, it is more true than ever that knowledge is power; for only by true understanding and steadfast judgment are we able to master the challenge of history."

"All types of knowledge, ultimately mean self knowledge."

"No one who examines the modern world can doubt that the great currents of history are carrying the world away from the monolithic idea towards the pluralistic idea--away from communism and towards national independence and freedom. No one can doubt that the wave of the future is not the conquest of the world by a single dogmatic creed but the liberation of the diverse energies of free nations and free men. No one can doubt that cooperation in the pursuit of knowledge must lead to freedom of the mind and freedom of the soul."

"When I speak of knowledge, as you know, I am speaking of that dark and true depth which understanding serves, waits upon, and makes accessible through language to ourselves and others. It is this depth within each of us that nurtures vision."

"Civilization enables us constantly to profit from knowledge which we individually do not possess and because each individual's use of his particular knowledge may serve to assist others unknown to him in achieving their ends that men as members of civilized society can pursue their individual ends so much more successfully than they could alone."

"But history may well remember this as a week for an act of lesser immediate impact, and that is the decision by the United States and the Soviet Union to seek concrete agreements on the joint exploration of space. Experience has taught us that an agreement to negotiate does not always mean a negotiated agreement. But should such a joint effort be realized, its significance could well be tremendous for us all. In terms of space science, our combined knowledge and efforts can benefit the people of all the nations: joint weather satellites to provide more ample warnings against destructive storms--joint communications systems to draw the world more closely together--and cooperation in space medicine research and space tracking operations to speed the day when man will go to the moon and beyond. But the scientific gains from such a joint effort would offer, I believe, less realized returns than the gains for world peace. For a cooperative Soviet-American effort in space science and exploration would emphasize the interests that must unite us, rather than those that always divide us. It offers us an area in which the stale and sterile dogmas of the cold war could be literally left a quarter of a million miles behind. And it would remind us on both sides that knowledge, not hate, is the passkey to the future--that knowledge transcends national antagonisms--that it speaks a universal language--that it is the possession not of a single class, or of a single nation or a single ideology, but of all mankind."

"Man's knowledge makes another leap through the test of practice. This leap is more important than the previous one. For it is this leap alone that can prove the correctness or incorrectness of the first leap in cognition, i.e., of the ideas, theories, policies, plans or measures formulated in the course of reflecting the objective external world. There is no other way of testing truth. Furthermore, the one and only purpose of the proletariat in knowing the world is to change it. Often, correct knowledge can be arrived at only after many repetitions of the process leading from matter to consciousness and then back to matter, that is, leading from practice to knowledge and then back to practice."

"We may be proud as a nation of our record in scientific achievement--but at the same time we must be impressed by the interdependence of all knowledge. I am certain that every scholar and scientist here today would agree that his own work has benefited immeasurably from the work of the men and women in other countries. The prospect of a partnership with Soviet scientists in the exploration of space opens up exciting prospects of collaboration in other areas of learning. And cooperation in the pursuit of knowledge can hopefully lead to cooperation in the pursuit of peace."

"The human sciences have to assume at least an equal responsibility in establishing the foundations of knowledge."

"I hold that every bit of definite knowledge has to have a mathematical aspect"

"Nothing can be achieved without knowledge, and yet everything can be achieved just through a pure heart."

"Charles Hartshorne, "Charles Hartshorne, Philosophy," in interview with Steven Vita, Veery journal (1996)"

"The best student in physics or mathematics, at school or university, is not one who memorizes formulae but one who is aware of the reason for them. For students, the more simply and docilely they receive the contents with which their teachers "fill" them in the name of knowledge, the less they are able to think and the more they become merely repetitive. The best philosophy student is not one who discourses, "ipsis verbis," on the philosophy of Plato, Marx, or Kant but one who thinks critically about their ideas and takes the risk of thinking too."

"No human mind can comprehend all the knowledge which guides the actions of society."

"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."

"Various attempts have been made in recent years to state necessary and sufficient conditions for someone's knowing a given proposition. The attempts have often been such that they can be stated in a form similar to the following: (a) S knows that P IFF (i) P is true, (ii) S believes that P, and (iii) S is justified in believing that P. ... These ... examples show that definition (a) does not state a sufficient condition for someone's knowing a given proposition."

"Knowledge is a deadly friend, If no one sets the rules. The fate of all mankind I see, Is in the hands of fools."

"We should admit rather that power produces knowledge (and not simply by encouraging it because it serves power or by applying it because it is useful); that power and knowledge directly imply one another."

"Knowledge about the process being modeled starts fairly low, then increases as understanding is obtained and tapers off to a high value at the end."

"There's no earthly way of knowing Which direction we are going There's no knowing where we're rowing Or which way the river's flowing Is it raining? Is it snowing? Is a hurricane a-blowing? Not a speck of light is showing So the danger must be growing Are the fires of hell a-glowing? Is the grisly reaper mowing? Yes, the danger must be growing 'Cause the rowers keep on rowing And they're certainly not showing Any signs that they are slowing!"

"And by the way, it’s knowledge that moves mountains, you know, not faith."

"Knowledge makes people special. Knowledge enriches life itself."

"Knowing, whatever its level, is not the act by which a subject transformed into an object docilely and passively accepts the contents others give or impose on him or her. Knowledge, on the contrary, necessitates the curious presence of subjects confronted with the world. It requires their transforming action on reality. It demands a constant searching. It implies invention and reinvention. It claims from each person a reflection on the very act of knowing."

"A man of knowledge lives by acting, not by thinking about acting... Thus a man of knowledge sweats and puffs and if one looks at him he is just like an ordinary man, except that the folly of his life is under his control."

"The trouble with people is not that they don't know but that they know so much that ain't so."

"How wrong it is to use God as a stop-gap for the incompleteness of our knowledge. If in fact the frontiers of knowledge are being pushed further and further back (and that is bound to be the case), then God is being pushed back with them, and is therefore continually in retreat. We are to find God in what we know, not in what we don’t know."

"Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known."

"While knowledge is orderly and cumulative, information is random and miscellaneous."

"Man's need of self-esteem entails the need for a sense of control over reality – but no control is possible in a universe which, by one's own concession, contains the supernatural, the miraculous and the causeless, a universe in which one is at the mercy of ghosts and demons, in which one must deal, not with the unknown, but with the unknowable; no control is possible if man proposes, but a ghost disposes; no control is possible if the universe is a haunted house."

"Knowing is the task of Subjects, not of objects. It is as a subject, and only as such, that a man or woman can really know. In the learning process the only person who really learns is s/he who appropriates what is learned, who apprehends and thereby re-invents that learning; s/he who is able to apply the appropriated learning to concrete existential situations. On the other hand, the person who is filled by another with "contents" whose meaning s/he is not aware of, which contradict his or her way of being in the world, cannot learn because s/he is not challenged."

"It is not my place to tell you whether there is indefeasible ignorance of ultimate reality. I am ignorant of whether there is or is not. But you should think of these things because there are no things more important, though there are no questions more difficult or less answerable. But one's whole life may be changed if one changes his mind about these questions."

"Penetrating so many secrets, we cease to believe in the unknowable. But there it sits nevertheless, calmly licking its chops."

"Nur dem, der Glück verachtet, wird Erkenntnis."

"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."