• A library may be very large; but if it is in disorder, it is not so useful as one that is small but well arranged. In the same way, a man may have a great mass of knowledge, but if he has not worked it up by thinking it over for himself, it has much less value than a far smaller amount which he has thoroughly pondered.—Arthur Schopenhauer, 19th-century German philosopher
  (1788–1860) "The Art of Literature: On Thinking for One’s Self," Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer, tr. T. Bailey Saunders (1851)
• A little knowledge that acts is worth infinitely more than much knowledge that is idle.—Kahlil Gibran, 20th-century Syrian-American mystic poet and painter
  (1883–1931) The Voice of the Master, pt. 2, ch. 8 (1960; repr. in A Second Treasury of Kahlil Gibran, tr. Anthony Ferris [1962])
• A man can only attain knowledge with the help of those who possess it. This must be understood from the very beginning. One must learn from him who knows.—George Gurdjieff, 19th-20th-century Greek-Armenian religious teacher and mystic
  (c. 1872–1949) Quoted in: P. D. Ouspensky, In Search of the Miraculous, ch. 2 (1949)
• All knowledge is of itself of some value. There is nothing so minute or inconsiderable that I would not rather know it than not.—Samuel Johnson, 18th-century English writer and lexicographer
  (1709–1784) quoted in James Boswell, The Life of Samuel Johnson
• All men by nature desire knowledge.—Aristotle, ancient Greek philosopher
  (384–322 B.C.E.) Metaphysics, bk. 1, ch. 1
• All wish to know, but none want to pay the fee.—Juvenal, 1st-2nd-century Roman poet
  (60–140) Satires
• Any piece of knowledge I acquire today has a value at this moment exactly proportioned to my skill to deal with it. Tomorrow, when I know more, I recall that piece of knowledge and use it better.—Mark van Doren, 20th-century American poet
  (1894–1972) Liberal Education (1943)
• As the Spanish proverb says, ‘He, who would bring home the wealth of the Indies, must carry the wealth of the Indies with him.’ So it is in travelling; a man must carry knowledge with him, if he would bring home knowledge.—Samuel Johnson, 18th-century English writer and lexicographer
  (1709–1784) Remark, 17 Apr. 1778, Quoted in James Boswell, The Life of Samuel Johnson, vol. 3 (1791)
• Bodily exercise, when compulsory, does no harm to the body; but knowledge which is acquired under compulsion obtains no hold on the mind.—Plato, ancient Greek philosopher (ca. 427–347 B.C.E.) The Republic
• Depend on it, there comes a time when for every addition of knowledge you forget something that you knew before. It is of the highest importance, therefore, not to have useless facts elbowing out the useful ones.—Arthur Conan Doyle, 19th-20th-century Scottish author and physician
  (1859–1930) A Study in Scarlet, 2 (1888)
• Emancipation from error is the condition of real knowledge.—Henri-Frédéric Amiel, 19th-century Swiss writer
  (1821–1881) The Private Journal of Henri Frédéric Amiel
• Everything has been said, yet few have taken advantage of it. Since all our knowledge is essentially banal, it can only be of value to minds that are not.—Raoul Vaneigem, contemporary Belgian Situationist philosopher
  (b. 1934) The Revolution of Everyday Life, Introduction (1967; tr. 1983)
• For all the talk you hear about knowledge being such a wonderful thing, instinct is worth forty of it for real unerringness.—Mark Twain, 19th-century American writer
  (1835–1910) (pen name of Samuel Clemens) Tom Sawyer Abroad
• For remember, my friend, the son of a shepherd who possesses knowledge is of greater worth to a nation than the heir to the throne, if he be ignorant. Knowledge is your true patent of nobility, no matter who your father or what your race may be.—Kahlil Gibran, 20th-century Syrian-American mystic poet and painter
  (1883–1931) "The Words of the Master," viii, in The Treasured Writings (1980)
• Human knowledge and human power meet in one; for where the cause is not known the effect cannot be produced.—Sir Francis Bacon, 16th–17th-century English philosopher, essayist and statesman
  (1561–1626) Aphorism iii, Novum Organum (1620)
• I was gratified to be able to answer promptly and I did. I said I didn't know.—Mark Twain, 19th-century American writer
  (1835–1910) (pen name of Samuel Clemens) Life on the Mississippi
• If a little knowledge is dangerous, where is the man who has so much as to be out of danger?—Thomas Henry Huxley, 19th-century English biologist and educator
  (1825–1895) On Elementary Instruction in Physiology (1877)
• It’s not so much what folks don’t know that causes problems, it’s what they do know that ain't so.—Artemus Ward, 19th-century American humorist
  (1834–1867) (pen name of Charles Farrar Browne) in James F. Clarity and Warren Weafer, Jr., "Briefings," New York Times, 18 October 1984
• It is not his possession of knowledge, of irrefutable truth, that makes the man of science, but his persistent and recklessly critical quest for truth.—Karl Popper, 20th-century British philosopher
  (1902–1994) The Logic of Scientific Discovery (1959)
• Know then thyself, presume not God to scan: The proper study of mankind is man.—Alexander Pope, 17th–18th-century English poet
  (1688–1744) An Essay on Man
• Knowing and not doing are equal to not knowing at all.—Anonymous Saying
• Knowing what you cannot do is more important than knowing what you can do. In fact, that’s good taste.—Lucille Ball, 20th-century American comic actress
  (1911–1989) quoted in The Real Story of Lucille Ball (1954)
• Knowledge accumulates in universities because freshmen bring in a little and seniors rarely take any away.—Academic Saying
• Knowledge fills a large brain; it merely inflates a small one.—Sydney J. Harris, 20th-century American journalist and author
  (1917–1986) syndicated column, Detroit Free Press, 7 January 1982
• Knowledge in itself is good and perfect when a learned person is also good, honorable, and humble in life. But if knowledge be joined with a proud, dishonorable, and wicked life, it is a poison.—Catherine of Siena, 14th century Italian mystic, diplomat, and saint
  (1347-1380) The dialogue of the seraphic virgin Catherine of Siena, ed. and tr. Algar Thorold (1896)
• Knowledge is free at the library. Just bring your own container.—Anonymous Saying
• Knowledge is not what the pupil remembers but what he cannot forget.—Anonymous Saying
• Knowledge is nothing but the continually burning up of error to set free the light of truth.—Rabindranath Tagore, 19th-20th-century Indian writer and philosopher
  (1861–1941) Sadhana (1913)
• Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information on it.—Samuel Johnson, 18th-century English writer and lexicographer
  (1709–1784) Remark, 18 April 1775, Quoted in James Boswell, The Life of Samuel Johnson, vol. 3 (1791)
• Knowledge is the conformity of the object and the intellect.—Averroes ibn-Rushd, 12th-century Spanish-Arab diplomat, philosopher, and physician
  (1126–1198) (abu-al-Walid Muhammad ibn-Ahmad) Destructio Destructionum
• Knowledge is the most democratic source of power.—Alvin Toffler, 20th-century American writer
  (b. 1928) Powershift: Knowledge, Wealth, and Violence at the Edge of the 21st Century, pt. 1, ch. 2, "The Democratic Difference" (1990)
• Knowledge is the only fountain both of the love and the principles of human liberty.—Daniel Webster, 19th-century American statesman and orator
  (1782–1852) in an address at the laying of the cornerstone of the Bunker Hill Monument, 17 June 1825
• Knowledge is the small part of ignorance that we arrange and classify.—Ambrose Bierce, 19th-20th-century American writer and journalist
  (1842–1914?) The Devil’s Dictionary (1881–1911)
• Knowledge is what we get when an observer, preferably a scientifically trained observer, provides us with a copy of reality that we can all recognize.—Christopher Lasch, contemporary American historian
  (b. 1932) "The Lost Art of Political Argument" (first published as "Journalism, Publicity, and the Lost Art of Political Argument," Gannett Center Journal, New York, Spring 1990)
• 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.—Blaise Pascal, 17th-century French mathematician, physicist and theologian
  (1623–1662) Pensées, no. 23 (c. 1654-62)
• Knowledge puffeth up, but charity edifieth. And if any man think that he knoweth any thing, he knoweth nothing yet as he ought to know.—Bible, 1 Corinthians 8:1-2
• Knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful.—Samuel Johnson, 18th-century English writer and lexicographer
  (1709–1784) Rasselas, ch. 41
• Liberty cannot be preserved without a general knowledge among the people.—John Adams, 2nd President of the U.S.
  (1735–1826) Dissertation on the Canon and the Feudal Law (1765)
• Man is distinguished, not only by his reason; but also by this singular passion from other animals . . . which is a lust of the mind, that by a perseverance of delight in the continual and indefatigable generation of knowledge, exceeds the short vehemence of any carnal pleasure.—Thomas Hobbes, 17th-century English philosopher
  (1588–1679) Leviathan, pt. 1, ch. 6 (1651)
• Man is not weak; knowledge is more than equivalent to force.—Samuel Johnson, 18th-century English writer and lexicographer
  (1709–1784) Imlac, in The History of Rasselas, ch. 13 (1759)
• Man knows much more than he understands.—Alfred Adler, 19th-20th-century Austrian psychiatrist
  (1870–1937) Social Interest (1939)
• 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.—Lord Chesterfield, 18th-century English statesman
  (1694–1773) (Philip Dormer Stanhope) Letter, 1 July 1748
• Of a truth, Knowledge is power, but it is a power reined by scruple, having a conscience of what must be and what may be; whereas Ignorance is a blind giant who, let him but wax unbound, would make it a sport to seize the pillars that hold up the long-wrought fabric of human good, and turn all the places of joy as dark as a buried Babylon.—George Eliot, 19th-century English writer
  (1819–1880) (pen name of Mary Ann Evans) Daniel Deronda, bk. 3, ch. 21 (1876)
• Our knowledge is a little island in a great ocean of nonknowledge.—Isaac Bashevis Singer, 20th-century Polish-American novelist and short-story writer
  (1904–1991) New York Times Magazine, 3 December 1978
• Our knowledge is the amassed thought and experience of innumerable minds: our language, our science, our religion, our opinions, our fancies we inherited.—Ralph Waldo Emerson, 19th-century American essayist and philosopher
  (1803–1882) "Quotations and Originality," Letters and Social Aims (1876)
• Talk about those subjects you have had long in your mind, and listen to what others say about subjects you have studied but recently. Knowledge and timber shouldn't be much used till they are seasoned.—Oliver Wendell Holmes, 19th-century American writer and physician; (1809–1894) The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table, ch. 6 (1858)
• The desire of knowledge, like the thirst of riches, increases ever with the acquisition of it.—Laurence Sterne, 18th-century English writer
  (1713–1768) Tristram Shandy, II.iii (1760)
• The greatest good of the mind is the knowledge of God, and the greatest virtue of the mind is to know God.—Baruch Spinoza, 17th-century Dutch philosopher
  (1632–1677) Ethics, bk. 4, prop. 28
• The knowledge of an unlearned man is living and luxuriant like a forest, but covered with mosses and lichens and for the most part inaccessible and going to waste; the knowledge of the man of science is like timber collected in yards for public works, which still supports a green sprout here and there, but even this is liable to dry rot.—Henry David Thoreau, 19th-century American essayist and naturalist
  (1817–1862) entry for 7 January 1851, Journals (1906)
• The knowledge of the world is only to be acquired in the world, and not in a closet.—Lord Chesterfield, 18th-century English statesman
  (1694–1773) (Philip Dormer Stanhope) Letters to His Son (1746, published 1774)
• The learned are mere literary drudges.—William Hazlitt, 18th–19th-century English essayist (1778–1830) "On the Ignorance of the Learned," in Edinburgh Magazine (July 1818; repr. in Table Talk [1821])
• The only fence against the world is a thorough knowledge of it.—John Locke, 17th-century English philosopher
  (1632–1704) Some Thoughts Concerning Education, sct. 88 (1693)
• The preservation of the means of knowledge among the lowest ranks is of more importance to the public than all the property of all the rich men in the country.—John Adams, 2nd President of the U.S.
  (1735–1826) Dissertation on the Canon and the Feudal Law (1765)
• The public have an insatiable curiosity to know everything, except what is worth knowing.— Oscar Wilde, 19th-century British playwright and writer
  (1854–1900) The Soul of Man under Socialism (1891)
• The things we know best are the things we haven't been taught.—Luc Vauvenargues , 18th-century French moralist
  (1715–1747) Refléxions et Maximes, no. 479 (1746)
• There are three principal means of acquiring knowledge available to us: observation of nature, reflection, and experimentation. Observation collects facts; reflection combines them; experimentation verifies the result of that combination. Our observation of nature must be diligent, our reflection profound, and our experiments exact. We rarely see these three means combined; and for this reason, creative geniuses are not common.—Denis Diderot, 18th-century French philosopher
  (1713–1784) On the Interpretation of Nature, no. 15 (1753; repr. in Selected Writings, ed. Lester G. Crocker [1966])
• There can be no knowledge without emotion. We may be aware of a truth, yet until we have felt its force, it is not ours. To the cognition of the brain must be added the experience of the soul.—Arnold Bennett, 19th-20th-century English writer and playwright
  (1867–1931) The Journals of Arnold Bennett, entry for 18 March 1897 (1932)
• There is no other source of knowledge but the intellectual manipulation of carefully verified observations.—Sigmund Freud, 19th-20th-century Austrian psychiatrist
  (1856–1939) Quoted in Puner, Freud, p. 267
• There is only one good, knowledge, and only one evil, ignorance.—Socrates, ancient Greek philosopher
  (469–399 B.C.E.) Quoted in Diogenes Laertius, Vitae Philosophorum, 2.31
• Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind.—Bertrand Russell, 19th-20th-century English philosopher and mathematician
  (1872–1970) Autobiography
• To be conscious that you are ignorant is a great step to knowledge.—Benjamin Disraeli, 19th-century writer and prime minister of Britain
  (1804–1881) Sybil (1845)
• To be proud of knowledge is to be blind with light.—Benjamin Franklin, 18th-century American statesman and inventor
  (1706–1790) Poor Richard’s Almanack (1756)
• To know the road ahead, ask those coming back.—Chinese Proverb
• We have not the reverent feeling for the rainbow that a savage has, because we know how it is made. We have lost as much as we gained by prying into that matter.—Mark Twain, 19th-century American writer
  (1835–1910) (pen name of Samuel Clemens) A Tramp Abroad, vol. 2, ch. 11 (1879)
• We know accurately only when we know little; with knowledge doubt enters.—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 18th-19th-century German poet and writer
  (1749–1832) Proverbs in Prose (1819)
• We shall not cease from exploration / And the end of all our exploring / Will be to arrive where we started / And know the place for the first time.—T.S. Eliot, 20th-century Anglo-American poet
  (1888–1965) "Little Gidding," Four Quartets
• What one knows is, in youth, of little moment; they know enough who know how to learn.—Henry Brooks Adams, 19th-20th-century American historian and writer
  (1838–1918) The Education of Henry Adams
• When two merchants exchange goods, each one surrenders part of his stock; but when two students exchange instruction, each one retains his own learning and acquires also the other’s. Is there a bigger bargain than this?—Simeon ben Lakish, Talmudic sage
  Midrash: Tanhuma (c. 200-275)
• 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.—Confucius, ancient Chinese sage
  (551-479 B.C.) Analects 2:17

© 1998 KPOZ

Discussion Forum

The following statements have been made concerning knowledge:

• All knowledge is of itself of some value. There is nothing so minute or inconsiderable that I would not rather know it than not.—Samuel Johnson, 18th-century English writer and lexicographer
  (1709–1784) quoted in James Boswell, The Life of Samuel Johnson
• Depend on it, there comes a time when for every addition of knowledge you forget something that you knew before. It is of the highest importance, therefore, not to have useless facts elbowing out the useful ones.—Arthur Conan Doyle, 19th-20th-century Scottish author and physician
  (1859–1930) A Study in Scarlet, 2 (1888)

Which author do you agree with, and why? Please e-mail your comments to: anewhaus@earthlink.net