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“He who knows only his own side of the case, knows little of that.”
Understanding a position requires serious contact with competing arguments; familiarity with only one side can produce confidence without real comprehension.
Source note: On Liberty, Chapter 2; Mill argues for open discussion because opposing views expose weaknesses and sharpen understanding.
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“All men by nature desire to know.”
Aristotle treats the desire for knowledge as a basic human tendency, giving curiosity a foundational place in the movement from perception toward understanding.
Source note: Metaphysics, Book I, chapter 1, W. D. Ross translation; the work opens with this claim before discussing sensation, memory, experience, art, and knowledge.
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“I neither know nor think that I know.”
Voice: Dialogue speaker · Socrates
Socrates locates a small advantage in recognizing the boundary of his own knowledge: uncertainty is intellectually healthier than possessing the same ignorance while mistaking it for wisdom.
Source note: Plato, Apology, Benjamin Jowett translation, Project Gutenberg #1656. Socrates says this after examining a politician whom others considered wise; the wording is dialogue speech attributed to Socrates within Plato’s work, not a claim that Socrates knew literally nothing.
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“The unexamined life is not worth living.”
Voice: Dialogue speaker · Socrates
Socrates links a worthwhile human life with reflection on beliefs, conduct, and reasons rather than unexamined routine.
Source note: Apology 38a; wording varies by translation.
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“I am not young enough to know everything.”
Barrie reverses the cliché that age brings complete wisdom, making youthful certainty—not age—the comic claim to omniscience.
Source note: The Admirable Crichton, Act 1; Ernest Woolley repeats the paradox while the others struggle to follow it.
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“We must know the truth; and we must avoid error.”
James separates two intellectual duties—seeking truth and avoiding falsehood—to show that prioritizing one over the other can produce different habits of belief and inquiry.
Source note: The Will to Believe, essay “The Will to Believe”; Project Gutenberg #26659. James immediately argues that truth-seeking and error-avoidance are distinct laws rather than two phrasings of one command.