20 Of The Best Quotes About Knowledge

by TeachThought Staff

What is the definition of ‘knowledge’?

Oxford Dictionary defines knowledge as ‘facts, information, and skills acquired by a person through experience or education; the theoretical or practical understanding of a subject.’

See also The Assimilation vs Accommodation Of Knowledge

Wikipedia offers up a bit more detail and includes the concept of truth: ‘Knowledge is often understood as an awareness of facts or as practical skills, and may also mean familiarity with objects or situations. Knowledge of facts, also called propositional knowledge, is often defined as true belief that is distinct from opinion or guesswork by virtue of justification.’

David Deutsch, author of, among other books and theories, The Beginning of Infinity and The Fabric of Reality, considers knowledge different than data and information. His definition frames knowledge as an effect–information with causal power. Knowledge includes explanations about how the world works, a special kind of information that can be used to explain what causes things to happen.

This definition operates in terms of function rather than concepts, with Deutsch theorizing that knowledge is asymptotic–a curve of explanations that approaches but never arrives at absolute truth. Knowledge, then, is something that perpetuates itself in the environment.

This, of course, is more of a scientific and macro definition of knowledge as an accumulation that changes the world through processes that vary in scale from evolution to writing a book.

As for education–pedagogy and learning–we tend to think of knowledge in simpler terms. In this context, knowledge can be thought of as a collection of intangible tools that are both a cause and effect of learning. Put another way, knowledge is potentially curated both as individuals and society itself.

How people think about and define knowledge is itself a kind of knowledge, which is where the following quotes about knowledge, from philosophers like Aristotle and Kant to education-centered figures like John Dewey, can help clarify what knowledge is and how we, as a species, think about what is both a concrete and abstract idea.

See also The Best Education Quotes For Teachers

20 Quotes About Knowledge

“The acquisition of knowledge always involves the revelation of ignorance – almost is the revelation of ignorance. Our knowledge of the world instructs us first of all that the world is greater than our knowledge of it.” –Wendell Berry

“To those would-be solvers of ‘the human problem,’ who hope for knowledge equal to (capable of controlling) the world, it is a source of unremitting defeat and bewilderment….or perhaps we should say instead that all our problems tend to gather under two questions about knowledge: Having the ability and desire to know, how and what should we learn? And, having learned, how and for what should we use what we know?” –Wendell Berry

“Knowledge is Power, Power provides Information; Information leads to Education, Education breeds Wisdom; Wisdom is Liberation. People are not liberated because of lack of knowledge.” –Francis Bacon

“Individuals who abide in ignorance have a thousand shades of gray, and, without knowing it, many arguments can be formed for every conceivable cause.” –Niccolo Machiavelli

See also The Assimilation vs Accommodation Of Knowledge

“A true education is the intellectual growth of an individual achieved through the exercise of critical thinking, tolerance, and creativity.” –John Dewey

“To think for oneself is to think perfectly.” –Aristotle

“The greatest enemy of wisdom is simplicity.” –Plato

‘Where ignorance is bliss, this folly to be wise.’ –Thomas Gray

“A man may, indeed, acquire higher knowledge, but not by following or copying the rites of another, but by his own thinking.”

“Every separate step that a man takes in the goal of superior development is not in a way subordinate to the prior steps of human development that precede and come after him.” –O. Henry

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“To know nothing is strength.” –Albert Einstein

“Social pressure to strive for wisdom and understanding is the force that keeps all the steps of human development on the same track.” –Niels Gothenburg

“No man ever achieved tremendous success without learning — or, it should be added, without being forced to read his way out of a paper bag.” –Norman Borlaug

“However far we walk from intelligent, learned enlightenment, a man always has the seeds of ignorance he must strip and replant.” –Ernest Hemingway

“So much is to be learned in a day, that reading will never again make an excellent man so learned as he was yesterday.” —Olinga Rea

“What matters most in reading is not that it improves our intelligence, but that it does so by increasing and harmonizing our knowledge.” –Anne Lamott

“For to know nothing is nothing, not to want to know anything likewise, but to be beyond knowing anything, to know you are beyond knowing anything, that is when peace enters in, to the soul of the incurious seeker.” –Samuell Beckett

“For I was conscious that I knew practically nothing.” –Socrates

“We are all born ignorant, but one must work hard to remain stupid.” –Unknown

“Literacy is the commonwealth, distinguished by strict compliance with general and reasonable societal standards.” –Anne Frank

“Someone who knows nothing personally pleases no one.” –O. Henry

“Education is an institution that pits the critical mind against the facts of experience, to decide what is worth knowing.“ —Olin Stickle

“The secret of wisdom is to know what you know already, and to think that you know already.” —Socrates

More Quotes on Knowledge

“Knowledge is the eye of desire and can become the pilot of the soul.” –Will Durant

“An expert is a man who knows just that much more about his subject than his associates. Most of us are nearer the top than we think. We fail to realize how easy it is, how necessary it is to learn that fraction more.”

“What is all our knowledge worth? We do not even know what the weather will be tomorrow.” –Berthold Auerbach

“If I have seen farther than others, it is because I have stood on the shoulders of giants.” –Isaac Newton

“To each individual, the world will take on a different connotation of meaning–the importance lies in the desire to search for an answer.” –T. S. Eliot

“Knowledge is of no value unless you put it into practice.” –Anton Chekov

“The man who asks a question is a fool for a minute. The man who does not ask is a fool for life.” —Confucius

“To know that we know what we know, and to know that we do not know what we do not know, that is true knowledge.” —Nicolaus Copernicus

“It is impossible for a man to learn what he thinks he already knows”—Epictetus

“An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.” Benjamin Franklin

“Human behavior flows from three main sources: desire, emotion, and knowledge.” Plato

“Real knowledge is to know the extent of one’s ignorance.” —Confucius

“Zeal without knowledge is fire without light.” —Thomas Fuller

“That knowledge which purifies the mind and heart alone is true knowledge, all else is only a negation of knowledge.” —Ramakrishna

“Knowledge is the eye of desire and can become the pilot of the soul.” —Will Durant

Best Quotes About Knowledge