Knowledge quotes

Theaetetus, around Stephanus 201a–c, Socrates explaining his law-court counterexample while speaking with Theaetetus. Benjamin Jowett English translation, Project Gutenberg #1726. The full sentence is spoken by Socrates in the dramatic dialogue, not from Jowett’s prefatory commentary; no claim is made about modern evidence law.

Symposium, Socrates recounting Diotima’s teaching, Benjamin Jowett translation, Project Gutenberg #1600. Diotima is a reported speaker within the dialogue; the passage is philosophical argument about ignorance and desire for wisdom.

Essay “On Books and Reading,” in a public-domain English collection of Schopenhauer’s essays.

Of Studies, in Bacon’s instructions for how different kinds of books should be read.

Human, All-Too-Human, Part I, aphorism 578, “Partial Knowledge”; Helen Zimmern translation; sentence shortened before the final clause about popularity and persuasion.

The Republic, Book V; Socrates places opinion between knowledge and ignorance in the argument about what each apprehends.

From the Latin “ipsa scientia potestas est”; common English rendering.

The Physical Basis of Mind, chapter on consciousness and unconsciousness; Project Gutenberg #60212. Lewes is discussing ambiguity of scientific terms, so the line supports communication and conceptual clarity rather than a claim that all disputes are merely verbal.

On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History; Carlyle describes books as durable containers of human memory and achievement.

Dhammapada 82, F. Max Müller translation, Project Gutenberg #2017. The verse belongs to a Buddhist canonical collection and remains a textual source voice rather than a quotation by a modern individual author.

Job 12:7, King James Version; Job appeals to creatures and the earth as witnesses within his argument about divine power and human understanding.

The Souls of Black Folk, “Of the Training of Black Men.” This is the opening clause of a longer sentence in which Du Bois describes the university as an organ connecting real life with growing knowledge of life.

The Republic, Book VII, Jowett translation; Socrates argues that education should draw the mind rather than rely only on compulsion.

John 8:32, King James Version.

Areopagitica; excerpt from Milton’s comparison between killing a person and destroying a good book.

Tao Teh King, Chapter 71, James Legge translation, Project Gutenberg #216.

Essay “Of Studies”; Bacon distinguishes different depths and purposes of reading.

The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex, Introduction, represented by Project Gutenberg #2300. Darwin writes that 'ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge' while rejecting confident claims that human origins could never be solved by science. The frozen quotation capitalizes the clause as a standalone sentence although it appears after a colon in the witness; it remains a historical scientific argument, not a universal quantitative law about confidence.

Essay “On Books and Reading,” public-domain English text.

Pudd’nhead Wilson, Calendar epigraph paired with the starving-dog comparison.

Of Studies; Bacon distinguishes the intellectual uses of reading, conversation, and writing within the essay’s compact account of study and judgment.

The Joyful Wisdom, aphorism 196; Thomas Common translation.

Poem “Locksley Hall”; the contrast distinguishes readily acquired knowledge from the slower development of judgment and wisdom.

The Sign of the Four, Chapter VI, ‘Sherlock Holmes Gives a Demonstration,’ Project Gutenberg #2097. Holmes tells Watson that after eliminating impossible entry routes, ‘whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth,’ then applies the precept to the locked-room investigation and the hole in the roof. It is fictional detective reasoning in a specific evidential setup, not a universal rule that any improbable remaining hypothesis is automatically true without sound premises or exhaustive elimination.

The Devil’s Dictionary, entry “Education,” Project Gutenberg #972. This is a deliberately cynical comic dictionary definition and should be read as satire rather than as a literal educational theory.

Democracy and Education (1916), Chapter XI, “Experience and Thinking.” Dewey describes experience as a relation between doing and undergoing consequences, then immediately qualifies the active-passive formulation by saying that valuable experience includes cognition insofar as relationships and continuities are perceived. Verified against Project Gutenberg #852 and the scan-backed Wikisource Chapter XI transcription. The sentence is not a denial that cognition matters and is not presented as modern neuroscientific evidence.

Newton to Robert Hooke, Cambridge, February 5, 1675/76, represented by the Newton Project normalized transcription. The historical letter uses older spelling; this record follows the project’s normalized “farther” and “shoulders of giants” wording.

Wake-Robin; Burroughs reflects on close observation of natural life and the limits of easy comprehension.

Laws, Book V, Benjamin Jowett English translation. Explicit excerpt: an ellipsis omits the intervening phrase about domestic economy, politics and the arts; the surrounding passage praises arithmetic while warning against separating skill from moral aims.

Areopagitica, in Milton’s defense of a city actively reading, discussing, and testing ideas.

The Art of War, Chapter III “Attack by Stratagem,” section 18, Lionel Giles translation (1910), beginning on printed page 24 / scan leaf 80 and continuing onto printed page 25 / scan leaf 81 in the original Giles edition on Wikisource, cross-checked against Project Gutenberg #17405. The enemy/self-knowledge sentence closes Chapter III’s discussion of conditions for victory and remains translation-mediated military strategy rather than a modern psychological or self-help claim.

Amours de Voyage, Letter X, “Claude to Eustace,—from Rome,” Project Gutenberg #1393. Claude’s two sentences about knowledge appear in the fictional verse-letter sequence after he turns from Roman politics toward study. This is Clough’s fictional epistolary voice, not direct autobiography or an empirical claim about happiness.

Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica, General Scholium, added to the second edition in 1713; represented by the 1846 Andrew Motte English translation on Wikisource. “I frame no hypotheses” is kept inside Newton’s specific discussion of gravity and experimental philosophy rather than treated as a blanket prohibition on hypotheses in modern science.

Proverbs 3:13 in the King James Version; the verse begins a passage praising the value of wisdom.

The American Scholar; Emerson argues that books should awaken independent thought rather than replace it.

Ada Lovelace, Note G to her 1843 translation of Luigi Menabrea’s “Sketch of the Analytical Engine Invented by Charles Babbage.” The claim concerns the proposed Analytical Engine in its historical design context and is not generalized into a factual limit on modern AI systems.

The Physical Basis of Mind, Problem I, “The Study of Psychology,” in the discussion of modern scientific method; Project Gutenberg #60212. The wording belongs to Lewes’s 1877 framework, not current philosophy-of-science consensus.

Opticks, Query 30, represented from the fourth corrected edition text (1730) by Inters.org. Newton states this as a question within his historical natural-philosophy speculation; it is not presented as a modern account of particle physics or matter–energy conversion.

Dhammapada 63, Chapter V, “The Fool,” F. Max Müller translation, Project Gutenberg #2017. The verse belongs to a Buddhist canonical collection and remains a textual source voice rather than a modern individual-author quotation.

Areopagitica, Project Gutenberg #608. The sentence appears in Milton’s argument against licensing and prior restraint on printing. It is a defense of open intellectual encounter, not a claim that every expression is harmless or beyond later judgment.

An Essay on Criticism, Part II; Pope warns that shallow learning can produce premature confidence before deeper study tempers judgment.

Lectures on Art, Lecture IV, Project Gutenberg #19164. Ruskin’s anti-autonomist theory of art is retained as his position rather than a universal definition.

The World as Will and Idea, Vol. I, First Book, §1, Haldane and Kemp translation, Project Gutenberg #38427. “Idea” translates Vorstellung in this historical philosophical vocabulary and should not be read as the everyday sense of a passing thought.

Final Causes, Book I, Chapter I, “The Principle,” opening sentence, William Affleck translation (1878). The represented public-domain scan prints the sentence on p. 17 after Robert Flint’s prefatory matter. Janet begins by denying that finality functions as an automatic a priori principle like causality; this remains nineteenth-century philosophical teleology rather than current scientific consensus.

“An August Midnight,” Project Gutenberg #3168. The line is poetic speculation about nonhuman knowledge rather than a scientific claim about insect cognition.

Knickerbocker's History of New York, Book I, Chapter II, Project Gutenberg #13042. Exact-witness review corrects the inherited broad Book I locator: the “mighty soap-bubbles” sentence closes the chapter’s comic survey of competing cosmogonic theories. It belongs to Diedrich Knickerbocker’s satirical pseudo-history and anti-pedantic rhetoric, not Irving rejecting science as a method.

Some Thoughts Concerning Education, Part VIII, section 118. Locke calls children's curiosity an appetite after knowledge and gives practical directions for encouraging questions. The passage remains seventeenth-century educational/parenting counsel rather than contemporary developmental-science or guaranteed learning-outcome evidence.

A Serious Proposal to the Ladies, Part I, printed page 56 in the represented 1697 two-part edition, Project Gutenberg #54984. Astell writes that a rational mind will be employed while arguing that women denied serious intellectual education may be driven toward inferior materials. Original spelling is retained; the passage belongs to her explicitly religious and educational proposal, not contemporary educational-outcome research.

Latter-Day Pamphlets, No. I “The Present Time”; Project Gutenberg #1140. The excerpt completes Carlyle’s sentence about knowing the present time and what it bids people do; the local political context remains essential.

The Tatler No. 147; the comparison presents reading as a form of regular exercise for the mind.