Knowledge Quotes

But yet I am firmly persuaded that a great deal of consciousness, every sort of consciousness, in fact, is a disease. ~ Notes from the Underground by Fyodor Dostoevsky I was something that lay under the sun and felt it, like the pumpkins, and I did not want to be anything more. I was entirely happy. Perhaps we feel like that when we die and become a part of something entire, whether it is sun and air, or goodness and knowledge. ~ My Antonia by Willa Cather "Is it not? Is it not? Breadth of view, my dear Mr. Mac, is one of the essentials of our profession. The interplay of ideas and the oblique uses of knowledge are often of extraordinary interest." ~ The Valley of Fear by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle It is far safer to know too little than too much. People will condemn the one, though they will resent being called upon to exert themselves to follow the other. ~ The Way of All Flesh by Samuel Butler Provided that nothing like useful knowledge could be gained from them, provided they were all story and no reflection, she had never any objection to books at all. ~ Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen "I consider that a man's brain originally is like a little empty attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture as you choose. A fool takes in all the lumber of every sort that he comes across, so that the knowledge which might be useful to him gets crowded out, or at best is jumbled up with a lot of other things, so that he has a difficulty in laying his hands upon it. Now the skilful workman is very careful indeed as to what he takes into his brain-attic. He will have nothing but the tools which may help him in doing his work, but of these he has a large assortment, and all in the most perfect order. It is a mistake to think that that little room has elastic walls and can distend to any extent. Depend upon 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." ~ A Study in Scarlet by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle What can we know? What are we all? Poor silly half-brained things peering out at the infinite, with the aspirations of angels and the instincts of beasts. ~ The Stark Munro Letters by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle Some eighty thousand years are supposed to have existed between paleolithic and neolithic man. Yet in all that time he only learned to grind his flint stones instead of chipping them. But within our father's lives what changes have there not been? The railway and the telegraph, chloroform and applied electricity. Ten years now go further than a thousand then, not so much on account of our finer intellects as because the light we have shows us the way to more. Primeval man stumbled along with peering eyes, and slow, uncertain footsteps. Now we walk briskly towards our unknown goal. ~ The Stark Munro Letters by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle "Isn't it splendid to think of all the things there are to find out about? It just makes me feel glad to be alive--it's such an interesting world. It wouldn't be half so interesting if we know all about everything, would it? There'd be no scope for imagination then, would there?" ~ Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery "You seek for knowledge and wisdom, as I once did; and I ardently hope that the gratification of your wishes may not be a serpent to sting you, as mine has been." ~ Frankenstein by Mary Shelley