Quotable Quotes — How Knowledge Works

These are the quotes about knowledge gathered over a long time from the giants who have provided us with the most profound insights into our collective understanding. But I'm going to start with one of my own, not because I think I'm better than those here who have inspired me all my life, but because this is my website and I can if I want:

"If there was no intelligence anywhere, all the things that are true about our universe would still be true. The universe doesn't need us to validate its reality. As far as we know knowledge is a uniquely human phenomenon, used for our own benefit and hopefully so that we can secure the future of our planet and all the life upon it. The universe isn't bothered one way or the other. Surely this means that we have a duty to ensure that our understandings are correct; to demand compelling demonstrability for what we think is true rather than just uncritically making it what we would like it to be. To do otherwise disrespects the universe and whichever creator you believe is responsible for its existence."

Roger Mould

Albert Einstein (1879-1955)

"Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid."

"A man (or woman) should look for what is, and not for what he thinks should be."

"A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new."

"The important thing is to not stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing."

"Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance you must keep moving."

"Once you stop learning, you start dying."

"I have no special talent. I am only passionately curious."

"Weak people revenge. Strong people forgive. Intelligent people ignore."

"What is right is not always popular, and what is popular is not always right."

"Education is not the learning of facts, it’s rather the training of the mind to think."

"Imagination is more important than knowledge. For while knowledge defines all we currently know and understand, imagination points to all we might yet discover and create."

Richard Feynman teaching at Cornell University

Richard Feynman (1918-88)

"Physics is like sex: sure, it may give some practical results, but that's not why we do it."

"It doesn't matter how beautiful your theory is, it doesn't matter how smart you are. If it doesn't agree with experiment, it's wrong."

"If you think you understand quantum mechanics, you don't understand quantum mechanics."

"If you can't explain something to a first year student, then you haven't really understood ."

"We absolutely must leave room for doubt or there is no progress and no learning. There is no learning without having to pose a question. And a question requires doubt. People search for certainty. But there is no certainty."

"Nobody ever figures out what life is all about, and it doesn't matter. Explore the world. Nearly everything is really interesting if you go into it deeply enough."

"The highest forms of understanding we can achieve are laughter and human compassion."

"I have a friend who's an artist, and he sometimes takes a view which I don't agree with. He'll hold up a flower and say, "Look how beautiful it is," and I'll agree. But then he'll say, "I, as an artist, can see how beautiful a flower is. But you, as a scientist, take it all apart and it becomes dull." I think he's kind of nutty. [...] There are all kinds of interesting questions that come from a knowledge of science, which only adds to the excitement and mystery and awe of a flower. It only adds. I don't understand how it subtracts."

Image from the Planetary Society by NASA

Carl Sagan (1934-96)

“Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known.”

“The nitrogen in our DNA, the calcium in our teeth, the iron in our blood, the carbon in our apple pies was made in the interiors of collapsing stars. We are made of star stuff.”

“Science is not only compatible with spirituality; it is a profound source of spirituality.”

“For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.”

“Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.”

“Who is more humble? The scientist who looks at the universe with an open mind and accepts whatever the universe has to teach us, or somebody who says everything in this book must be considered the literal truth and never mind the fallibility of all the human beings involved?”

“In science it often happens that scientists say, ‘You know that’s a really good argument; my position is mistaken,’ and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn’t happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion.”

“But the fact that some geniuses were laughed at does not imply that all who are laughed at are geniuses. They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, and they laughed at the Wright brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown.”

“The nuclear arms race is like two sworn enemies standing waist deep in gasoline, one with three matches, the other with five.”

“The truth may be puzzling. It may take some work to grapple with. It may be counterintuitive. It may contradict deeply held prejudices. It may not be consonant with what we desperately want to be true. But our preferences do not determine what's true."

Isaac Newton (1642-1726)

"If I have seen further than others, it is by standing upon the shoulders of giants."

"I know not how I seem to others, but to myself I am but a small child wandering upon the vast shores of knowledge, every now and then finding a small bright pebble to content myself with while the vast ocean of undiscovered truth lay before me."

"Every action has an equal and opposite reaction"

"My powers are ordinary. Only my application brings me success."

"What goes up must come down."

"What we know is a drop, what we don't know is an ocean."

"I keep the subject of my inquiry constantly before me, and wait till the first dawning opens gradually, by little and little, into a full and clear light."

"Nature does nothing in vain when less will serve; for Nature is pleased with simplicity and affects not the pomp of superfluous causes."

"If I have done the public any service, it is due to my patient thought.

Galileo Galilei (1564-1642)

"All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered; the point is to discover them."

"I have never met a man so ignorant that I couldn't learn something from him."

"In the sciences, the authority of thousands of opinions is not worth as much as one tiny spark of reason in an individual man."

"The sun, with all those planets revolving around it and dependent on it, can still ripen a bunch of grapes as if it had nothing else in the universe to do."

"Two truths cannot contradict one another."

"Philosophy is written in that great book which ever lies before our eyes — I mean the universe — but we cannot understand it if we do not first learn the language and grasp the symbols, in which it is written."

Stephen Hawking (1942-2018)

"Although I cannot move, and I have to speak through a computer, in my mind, I am free."

"It is very important for young people keep their sense of wonder and keep asking why."

"I am just a child who has never grown up. I still keep asking these 'how' and 'why' questions. Occasionally, I find an answer."

"I have noticed even people who claim everything is predestined, and that we can do nothing to change it, look before they cross the road."

"Science is not only a disciple of reason but, also, one of romance and passion."

"I may contradict myself, but at least I don't contradict myself."

"Ever since the dawn of civilization, people have not been content to see events as unconnected and inexplicable. They have craved an understanding of the underlying order in the world. Today we still yearn to know why we are here and where we came from. Humanity's deepest desire for knowledge is justification enough for our continuing quest. And our goal is nothing less than a complete description of the universe we live in."

"For millions of years mankind lived just like the animals. Then something happened which unleashed the power of our imagination: we learned to talk" (Pink Floyd used this quote in their track 'Keep Talking' together with the next quote. They even used Hawking's computerised voice).

"Mankind's greatest achievements have come about by talking and its greatest failures by not talking. It doesn’t have to be like this. All we have to do is keep talking"

Plato (right) and Aristotle from The School of Athens Fresco by Raphael - 1511

The Greek Philosophers

"Be a free thinker and don't accept everything you hear as truth. Be critical and evaluate what you believe in." - Aristotle

"The most important relationship we can all have is the one you have with yourself, the most important journey you can take is one of self-discovery. To know yourself, you must spend time with yourself, you must not be afraid to be alone. Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom." - Aristotle

"The more you know, the more you know you don't know." - Aristotle

"Criticism is something we can avoid easily by saying nothing, doing nothing, and being nothing." - Aristotle

"The secret of happiness, you see, is not found in seeking more, but in developing the capacity to enjoy less." - Socrates

"Awareness of ignorance is the beginning of wisdom." - Socrates

"Give me a place to stand, and a lever long enough, and I will move the world." - Archimedes

"Eureka!" - Archimedes

"The greatest medicine of all is teaching people how not to need it." - Hippocrates

"Make a habit of two things: to help; or at least to do no harm." - Hippocrates