Knowledge Quotes

Knowledge is power.
(Ipsa Scientia Potestas Est)
– Sir Francis Bacon
Knowledge is essential to conquest; only according to our ignorance are we helpless. Thought creates character. Character can dominate conditions. Will creates circumstances and environment.
– Anne Besant
That there should one Man die ignorant who had capacity for Knowledge, this I call a tragedy.
– Thomas Carlyle
The knowledge of the world is only to be acquired in the world, and not in a closet.
– Lord Chesterfield
Knowledge is a comfortable and necessary retreat and shelter for us in advanced age, and if we do not plant it while young, it will give us no shade when we grow old.
– Phillip Chesterfield
Not to know what has been transacted in former times is to be always a child. If no use is made of the labors of past ages, the world must remain always in the infancy of knowledge.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
I am not one who was born in the possession of knowledge; I am one who is fond of antiquity, and earnest in seeking it there.
– Confucius
When a man's knowledge is sufficient to attain, and his virtue is not sufficient to enable him to hold, whatever he may have gained, he will lose again.
– Confucius
It is in the knowledge of the genuine conditions of our lives that we must draw our strength to live and our reasons for living.
– Simone de Beauvoir
It is knowledge that influences and equalizes the social condition of man; that gives to all, however different their political position, passions which are in common, and enjoyments which are universal.
– Benjamin Disraeli
The more extensive a man's knowledge of what has been done, the greater will be his power of knowing what to do.
– Benjamin Disraeli
To be conscious that you are ignorant is a great step to knowledge.
– Benjamin Disraeli
The ideal engineer is a composite ... He is not a scientist, he is not a mathematician, he is not a sociologist or a writer; but he may use the knowledge and techniques of any or all of these disciplines in solving engineering problems.
– N. W. Dougherty
I ask you to look both ways. For the road to a knowledge of the stars leads through the atom; and important knowledge of the atom has been reached through the stars.
– Sir Arthur Eddington
For the truth of the conclusions of physical science, observation is the supreme Court of Appeal. It does not follow that every item which we confidently accept as physical knowledge has actually been certified by the Court; our confidence is that it would be certified by the Court if it were submitted. But it does follow that every item of physical knowledge is of a form which might be submitted to the Court. It must be such that we can specify (although it may be impracticable to carry out) an observational procedure which would decide whether it is true or not. Clearly a statement cannot be tested by observation unless it is an assertion about the results of observation. Every item of physical knowledge must therefore be an assertion of what has been or would be the result of carrying out a specified observational procedure.
– Sir Arthur Eddington
All our progress is an unfolding, like a vegetable bud. You have first an instinct, then an opinion, then a knowledge as the plant has root, bud, and fruit. Trust the instinct to the end, though you can render no reason.
– Ralph Waldo Emerson
The more the fruits of knowledge become accessible to men, the more widespread is the decline of religious belief.
– Sigmund Freud
What is it about genus arboretum that socks us in the figurative solar plexus? We see a logging truck go cruising down the road, stacked with a bunch of those fresh-cut giants, we feel like we lost a brother. Next thing you know, we're in The Brick, we're flopping money down on the bar. Wood. We're under a roof. Wood. We're walking the floors. Wood. Grabbing a pool cue. That's wood. Our friends in the forest carry a set of luggage from the mythical baggage carousel. Tree of life, tree of knowledge, family tree, Buddha's Bodhi tree. Page one of life, in the beginning. Genesis 3:22. Adam and Eve. They're kicking back in the garden of Eden and boom, they get an eviction notice. Why is that? Lest they should also take of the tree of life, eat and live forever. A definitive Yahweh no-no. Be good to yourself, go out and plant a wet one on a tree.
– Diane Frolov and Robin Green
If you have knowledge, let others light their candles at it.
– Margaret Fuller
Far better to think historically, to remember the lessons of the past. Thus, far better to conceive of power as consisting in part of the knowledge of when not to use all the power you have. Far better to be one who knows that if you reserve the power not to use all your power, you will lead others far more successfully and well.
– A. Bartlett Giamatti
Modesty is a shining light; it prepares the mind to receive knowledge, and the heart for truth.
– Madam Guizot
My mother drew a distinction between achievement and success. She said that 'achievement is the knowledge that you have studied and worked hard and done the best that is in you. Success is being praised by others, and that's nice, too, but not as important or satisfying. Always aim for achievement and forget about success.'
– Helen Hayes
Abundance of knowledge does not teach men to be wise.
– Heraclitus
Knowledge and timber shouldn't be much used till they are seasoned.
– Oliver Wendell Holmes
Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information on it.
– Samuel Johnson
Mankind have a great aversion to intellectual labor; but even supposing knowledge to be easily attainable, more people would be content to be ignorant than would take even a little trouble to acquire it.
– Samuel Johnson
People are difficult to govern because they have too much knowledge.
– Lao Tzu
Men can know more than their ancestors did if they start with a knowledge of what their ancestors had already learned....That is why a society can be progressive only if it conserves its traditions.
– Walter Lippmann
Our feelings are our most genuine paths to knowledge.
– Audre Lorde
Where there is much desire to learn, there of necessity will be much arguing, much writing, many opinions; for opinions in good men is but knowledge in the making.
– John Milton
Modern Man is the victim of the very instruments he values most. Every gain in power, every mastery of natural forces, every scientific addition to knowledge, has proved potentially dangerous, because it has not been accompanied by equal gains in self-understanding and self-discipline.
– Lewis Mumford
Just the knowledge that a good book is awaiting one at the end of a long day makes that day happier.
– Kathleen Norris
Indeed, what is there that does not appear marvelous when it comes to our knowledge for the first time? How many things, too, are looked upon as quite impossible until they have been actually effected?
– Pliny the Elder
Knowledge, if it does not determine action, is dead to us.
– Plotinus
Science may set limits to knowledge, but should not set limits to imagination.
– Bertrand Russell
The main things which seem to me important on their own account, and not merely as means to other things, are knowledge, art, instinctive happiness, and relations of friendship or affection.
– Bertrand Russell
Hereafter, in a better world than this,
I shall desire more love and knowledge of you.
– William Shakespeare
Knowledge must come through action; you can have no test which is not fanciful, save by trial.
– Sophocles
Wisdom is the right use of knowledge. To know is not to be wise. Many men know a great deal, and are all the greater fools for it. There is no fool so great a fool as a knowing fool. But to know how to use knowledge is to have wisdom.
– Charles Haddon Spurgeon
The knowledge of the world is only to be acquired in the world, and not in the closet.
– Phillip Earl Stanhope
If we value the pursuit of knowledge, we must be free to follow wherever that search may lead us. The free mind is not a barking dog, to be tethered on a ten-foot chain.
– Adlai E. Stevenson Jr.
I have learned throughout my life as a composer chiefly through my mistakes and pursuits of false assumptions, not by my exposure to founts of wisdom and knowledge.
– Igor Stravinsky
Education: that which reveals to the wise, and conceals from the stupid, the vast limits of their knowledge.
– Mark Twain
CHRIS: The bane and blessing of human nature. That old cat killer, curiosity. Something so deeply embedded in our psyches that it screams to us from ancient myths of Pandora. Eve. Lot's wife.
JOEL: Eve lost paradise, Lot's wife was turned into a pillar of salt. Knowledge doesn't come cheap my friend.
CHRIS: Good or bad, curiosity is woven into our DNA like tonsils or like the opposable thumb. It's the fire under the ass of the human experience!
– Jeffrey Vlaming
To acquire knowledge, one must study; but to acquire wisdom, one must observe.
– Marilyn vos Savant
Never lose sight of this important truth, that no one can be truly great until he has gained a knowledge of himself, a knowledge which can only be acquired by occasional retirement.
– Johann Georg von Zimmermann
Youth is the period in which a man can be hopeless. The end of every episode is the end of the world. But the power of hoping through everything, the knowledge that the soul survives its adventures, that great inspiration comes to the middle-aged.
– Gilbert K. Chesterton
You cannot blame the mismanagement of the economy or the fact that we have not invested adequately in education in order to give our people the knowledge, the skills and the technology that they need in order to be able to use the resources that Africa has to gain wealth.
– Wangari Maathai
Without television and mass communication, that knowledge wouldn't exist. So I think it actually has the possibility of turning people into more understanding and more empathetic people.
– John Warnock
With our knowledge of modern-day genetics, we realize that it was possible for God to place the potential for all people throughout history into the genes of Adam and Eve when He created them.
– Walter Lang
Where the private sector, or anyone else, has skills, knowledge and resources that can help to deliver a high quality of education and to raise standards, we should use them.
– Estelle Morris
When I climb into my car, I enter my destination into a GPS device, whose spatial memory supplants my own. I have photographs to store the images I want to remember, books to store knowledge and now, thanks to Google, I rarely have to remember anything more than the right set of search terms to access humankind's collective memory.
– Joshua Foer
When a child comes in, I believe that it's a 'multipersonhood,' and it knows it, its consciousness knows it, and it has a nuclei in the center of its consciousness that is the repository of all experience and all knowledge. And when you look in the eyes of your baby and you feel this sense that they are an old soul, I believe indeed they are.
– Shirley MacLaine
Well, there are two kinds of happiness, grounded and ungrounded. Ungrounded happiness is cheesy and not based on reality. Grounded happiness is informed happiness based on the knowledge that the world sometimes sucks, but even then you have to believe in yourself.
– Andy Grammer
We live in an age of instant knowledge. And there's almost a sense of entitlement to that.
– J. J. Abrams
We have to realize only in communication, in real knowledge, in real reaching out, can there be an understanding that there's humanity everywhere, and that's what I'm trying to do.
– Mira Nair
We are approaching a new age of synthesis. Knowledge cannot be merely a degree or a skill... it demands a broader vision, capabilities in critical thinking and logical deduction without which we cannot have constructive progress.
– Li Ka Shing
We all agree that its fit to be as Happy as we can, and we need no Instructor to teach us this Knowledge, 'tis born with us, and is inseparable from our Being, but we very much need to be Inform'd what is the true Way to Happiness.
– Mary Astell
True friendship can afford true knowledge. It does not depend on darkness and ignorance.
– Henry David Thoreau
Today mythical thinking has fallen into disrepute we often dismiss it as irrational and self-indulgent. But the imagination is also the faculty that has enabled scientists to bring new knowledge to light and to invent technology that has made us immeasurably more effective.
– Karen Armstrong
To those who have chosen the profession of medicine, a knowledge of chemistry, and of some branches of natural history, and, indeed, of several other departments of science, affords useful assistance.
– Charles Babbage
To maximize our potential to enhance our health and our knowledge, we should remain open to new understanding and evolving technology or resources that might inspire a change in our approach to these important questions.
– Samuel Wilson
Thought is the wind, knowledge the sail, and mankind the vessel.
– Augustus Hare
Those Dutchmen had hardly any imagination or fantasy, but their good taste and their scientific knowledge of composition were enormous.
– Vincent van Gogh
These are tough times and under this Tory-led government many people in Manchester are suffering and getting left behind. If elected I will use all my energy, skills, experience and knowledge to stand up for our communities and get things done for the better.
– Lucy Powell
There's only one effectively redemptive sacrifice, the sacrifice of self-will to make room for the knowledge of God.
– Aldous Huxley
There's no such thing is aging, but maturing and knowledge. It's beautiful, I call that beauty.
– Celine Dion
There is no substitute for accurate knowledge. Know yourself, know your business, know your men.
– Lee Iacocca
There is no self-knowledge but an historical one. No one knows what he himself is who does not know his fellow men, especially the most prominent one of the community, the master's master, the genius of the age.
– Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
The youth of an art is, like the youth of anything else, its most interesting period. When it has come to the knowledge of good and evil it is stronger, but we care less about it.
– Samuel Butler
The two operations of our understanding, intuition and deduction, on which alone we have said we must rely in the acquisition of knowledge.
– Rene Descartes
The Supreme Court has insulted you over and over again, Lord. They've taken your Bible away from the schools. They've forbidden little children to pray. They've taken the knowledge of God as best they can, and organizations have come into court to take the knowledge of God out of the public square of America.
– Pat Robertson
The secret of improved plant breeding, apart from scientific knowledge, is love.
– Luther Burbank
The science of politics is the one science that is deposited by the streams of history, like the grains of gold in the sand of a river and the knowledge of the past, the record of truths revealed by experience, is eminently practical, as an instrument of action and a power that goes to making the future.
– Lord Acton
The realm of immediate or personal knowledge is a narrow circle in which these bodies move the realm of knowledge derived through faith is as wide as the universe, and old as eternity.
– Matthew Simpson
The President regards the Japanese as a brave people but courage, though useful in time of war, is subordinate to knowledge of arts hence, courage without such knowledge is not to be highly esteemed.
– Townsend Harris
The more knowledge you have, the greater will be your fear of Allah.
– Abu Bakr
The knowledge of the realm of death makes it possible for the shaman to move freely back and forth and mediate these journeys for other people.
– Stanislav Grof
The knowledge of God is the cause of things. For the knowledge of God is to all creatures what the knowledge of the artificer is to things made by his art.
– Saint Thomas Aquinas
The knowledge of God is very far from the love of Him.
– Blaise Pascal
The knowledge of languages was very useful. I have a university degree in foreign languages and literature.
– Emma Bonino
The interpretation of dreams is the royal road to a knowledge of the unconscious activities of the mind.
– Sigmund Freud
The improver of natural knowledge absolutely refuses to acknowledge authority, as such. For him, skepticism is the highest of duties blind faith the one unpardonable sin.
– Thomas Huxley
The good life is one inspired by love and guided by knowledge.
– Bertrand Russell
The first responsibility of the Muslim is as teacher. That is his job, to teach. His first school, his first classroom is within the household. His first student is himself. He masters himself and then he begins to convey the knowledge that he has acquired to the family. The people who are closest to him.
– H. Rap Brown
The family teaches us about the importance of knowledge, education, hard work and effort. It teaches us about enjoying ourselves, having fun, keeping fit and healthy.
– Kamisese Mara
The education that prepared me was my general education classes, which I tried to avoid when I was a stupid undergraduate, but which gave me the foundation of general knowledge that makes a career as a writer possible.
– Orson Scott Card
The current state of knowledge is a moment in history, changing just as rapidly as the state of knowledge in the past has ever changed and, in many instances, more rapidly.
– Jean Piaget
The control of information is something the elite always does, particularly in a despotic form of government. Information, knowledge, is power. If you can control information, you can control people.
– Tom Clancy
The best advice I ever got was that knowledge is power and to keep reading.
– David Bailey
The amount of meetings I've been in - people would be shocked. But that's how you gain experience, how you can gain knowledge, being in meetings and participating. You learn and grow.
– Tiger Woods
The age we live in is a busy age in which knowledge is rapidly advancing towards perfection.
– Jeremy Bentham
Taking it in its wider and generic application, I understand faith to be the supplement of sense or, to change the phrase, all knowledge which comes not to us through our senses we gain by faith in others.
– Matthew Simpson
Someday in the distant cyborg future, when our internal and external memories fully merge, we may come to possess infinite knowledge. But that's not the same thing as wisdom.
– Joshua Foer
Science, we are repeatedly told, is the most reliable form of knowledge about the world because it is based on testable hypotheses. Religion, by contrast, is based on faith. The term 'doubting Thomas' well illustrates the difference.
– Paul Davies
Schools are not intended to moralize a wicked world, but to impart knowledge and develop intelligence, with only two social aims in mind: prepare to take on one's share in the world's work, and perhaps in addition, lend a hand in improving society, after schooling is done.
– Jacques Barzun
Only on paper has humanity yet achieved glory, beauty, truth, knowledge, virtue, and abiding love.
– George Bernard Shaw
One must know combinations, one must have a true knowledge of food to be in the moment.
– Charlie Trotter
On the basis of biological, sociological, and historical knowledge, we should recognize that the individual self is subject to death or decay, but the sum total of individual achievement, for better or worse, lives on in the immortality of The Larger.
– Hu Shih
No matter how mistaken Communist ideas may be, the experience and knowledge gained by trying them out have given a tremendous impetus to thought and imagination.
– Anne Sullivan Macy