Quotes about Knowledge

There is nothing so minute or inconsiderable that I would not rather know it than not know it.

Between falsehood and useless truth there is little difference. As gold which he cannot spend will make no man rich, so knowledge which cannot apply will make no man wise.

When a king asked Euclid, the mathematician, whether he could not explain his art to him in a more compendious manner? he was answered, that there was no royal way to geometry.

People have now a-days, (said he,) got a strange opinion that every thing should be taught by lectures. Now, I cannot see that lectures can do so much good as reading the books from which the lectures are taken. I know nothing that can be best taught by lectures, except where experiments are to be shewn. You may teach chymistry by lectures.—You might teach making of shoes by lectures!

ACROAMATICAL  (ACROAMA'TICAL)   adj.[   Gr. I bear.]Of or pertaining to deep learning; the opposite of exoterical.

may, notwithstanding, be questioned whether, except his bible, he ever read a book entirely through. Late in life, if any man praised a book in his presence, he was sure to ask, "Did you read it through?" If the answer was in the affirmative, he did not seem willing to believe it.

Ignorance, when it is voluntary, is criminal; and he may properly be charged with evil who refused to learn how he might prevent it.

This world, where much is to be done and little to be known.

He that adopts the sentiments of another whom he has reason to believe wiser than himself is only to be blamed when he claims the honours which are not due but to the author, and endeavours to deceive the world into praise and veneration; for to learn is the proper business of youth; and whether we increase our knowledge by books, or by conversation, we are equally indebted to foreign assistance.

Nothing has so much exposed men of learning to contempt and ridicule as their ignorance of things which are known to all but themselves.

APODICTICAL  (APODI'CTICAL)   adj.[from    evident truth; demonstration.]Demonstrative; evident beyond contradiction. Holding an apodictical knowledge, and an assured knowledge of it; verily, to persuade their apprehensions otherwise, were to make Euclid believe, that there were more than one centre in

the fountain of content must spring up in the mind: and that he who has so little knowledge of human nature, as to seek happiness by changing any thing but his own dispositions, will waste his life in fruitless efforts, and multiply the griefs which he purposes to remove .