Science

"Real knowledge never promoted either turbulence or unbelief; but its progress is the forerunner of liberality and enlightened toleration."

"Pursuit of knowledge under difficulties."

"Knowledge by suffering entereth, And life is perfected by death."

"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."

"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."

"Oh, be wise, Thou! Instructed that true knowledge leads to love."

"Much learning shows how little mortals know; Much wealth, how little worldlings can enjoy."

"Wouldst thou know thyself, observe the actions of others. Wouldst thou other men know, look thou within thine own heart."

"Willst du dich selber erkennen, so sieh' wie die andern es treiben; Willst du die andern versteh'n, blick in dein eigenes Herz."

"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."

"In vain sedate reflections we would make When half our knowledge we must snatch, not take."

"That virtue only makes our bliss below, And all our knowledge is ourselves to know."

"A little knowledge is a dangerous thing"

"Diffused knowledge immortalizes itself."

"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."

"Reading furnishes the mind only with materials of knowledge; it is thinking makes what we read ours."

"Wer viel weiss Hat viel zu sorgen."

"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."

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

"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."

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

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

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

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

"Was man nicht versteht, besitzt man nicht."

"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.""

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

"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!"

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

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

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

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

"..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."

"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."

"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."

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

"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."

"Faites comme si je ne le savais pas."

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

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

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

"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.]"

"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."

"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."

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

"Knowledge is folly unless grace guide it."

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

"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."

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