Knowledge is power, but only if you do something with it. These quotes explore learning, expertise, wisdom, ignorance, and the lifelong project of trying to understand a world that keeps changing faster than you can study it.
“You don't have to be a brain surgeon to be a valuable person. You become valuable because of the knowledge that you have. And that doesn't mean you won't fail sometimes. The important thing is to keep trying.”
“As the biggest library if it is in disorder is not as useful as a small but well-arranged one, so you may accumulate a vast amount of knowledge but it will be of far less value than a much smaller amount if you have not thought it over for yourself.”
“Knowledge is like money: the more he gets, the more he craves.”
“You cannot simply put something new into a place. You have to absorb what you see around you, what exists on the land, and then use that knowledge along with contemporary thinking to interpret what you see.”
“Knowledge is the life of the mind.”
“Let us tenderly and kindly cherish, therefore, the means of knowledge. Let us dare to read, think, speak, and write.”
“So long as these kinds of inequalities persist, all of us who are given expensive educations have to live with the knowledge that our victories are contaminated because the game has been rigged to our advantage.”
“Illness is the doctor to whom we pay most heed to kindness, to knowledge, we make promise only pain we obey.”
“I'm a student of world religion, so to me, it's hugely important to have knowledge and to understand what people are doing.”
“The study and knowledge of the universe would somehow be lame and defective were no practical results to follow.”
“A toothache, or a violent passion, is not necessarily diminished by our knowledge of its causes, its character, its importance or insignificance.”
“Where there is shouting, there is no true knowledge.”
“His priority did not seem to be to teach them what he knew, but rather to impress upon them that nothing, not even... knowledge, was foolproof.”
“No power in society, no hardship in your condition can depress you, keep you down, in knowledge, power, virtue, influence, but by your own consent.”
“There is no desire more natural than the desire for knowledge.”
“The first step in a person's salvation is knowledge of their sin.”