Knowledge Quotes - Page 39

• Some mathematician, I believe, has said that true pleasure lies not in the discovery of truth, but in the search for it.

  Leo Tolstoy

  Lying, Believe, Math

  LEO TOLSTOY (1961). “ANNA KARENINA”

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• ...one can hardly deny that mankind has a common store of thoughts which is transmitted from one generation to another.

  Gottlob Frege

  Mind, Generations, Common

  Gottlob Frege (1952). “Translations from the Philosophical Writings of Gottlob Frege”

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• It is possible, of course, to operate with figures mechanically, just as it is possible to speak like a parrot: but that hardly deserves the names of thought. It only becomes possible at all after the mathematical notation has, as a result of genuine thought, been so developed that it does the thinking for us, so to speak.

  Gottlob Frege

  Thinking, Names, Mind

  Gottlob Frege, J. L. Austin (1980). “The Foundations of Arithmetic: A Logico-Mathematical Enquiry Into the Concept of Number”, p.4, Northwestern University Press

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• Could one imagine a stone's having consciousness? And if anyone can do so-why should that not merely prove that such image-mongery is of no interest to us?

  Ludwig Wittgenstein

  Mind, Stones, Consciousness

  Ludwig Wittgenstein (1958). “Philosophical Investigations”

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• 'Imagine a person whose memory could not retain what the word 'pain' meant-so that he constantly called different things by that name-but nevertheless used the word in a way fitting in with the usual symptoms and presuppositions of pain'-in short he uses it as we all do. Here I should like to say: a wheel that can be turned though nothing else moves with it, is not part of the mechanism.

  Ludwig Wittgenstein

  Pain, Memories, Moving

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• You ask: What is it that philosophers have called qualitative states? I answer, only half in jest: As Louis Armstrong said when asked what jazz is, 'If you got to ask, you ain't never gonna get to know.'

  Ned Block

  Mind, Answers, Half

  Ned Joel Block (2007). “Consciousness, function, and representation”, The MIT Press

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• We do not live in several different, or even two different, worlds, a mental world and a physical world, a scientific world and a world of common sense. Rather, there is just one world; it is the world we all live in, and we need to account for how we exist as part of it.

  John Searle

  Two, Common Sense, Mind

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• ...monetary exchanges have interesting things in common; Gresham's law, if true, says what one of these interesting things is. But what is interesting about monetary exchanges is surely not their commonalities under physical description. A natural kind like a monetary exchange could turn out to be co-extensive with a physical natural kind; but if it did, that would be an accident on a cosmic scale.

  Jerry Fodor

  Law, Interesting, Mind

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• ...there are special sciences not because of the nature of our epistemic relation to the world, but because of the way the world is put together: not all natural kinds (not all the classes of things and events about which there are important, counterfactual supporting generalizations to make) are, or correspond to, physical natural kinds.

  Jerry Fodor

  Class, Mind, Important

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• The primitive sign of wanting is trying to get.

  G. E. M. Anscombe

  Mind, Trying, Primitive

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• There are lots of cases where we know more about how the world works than we do about how we know how it works. That's no paradox. Understanding the structure of galaxies is one thing, understanding how we understand the structure of galaxies is quite another. There isn't the slightest reason why the first should wait on the second and, in point of historical fact, it didn't. This bears a lot of emphasis; it turns up in philosophy practically everywhere you look.

  Jerry Fodor

  Philosophy, Waiting, Understanding

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• We forfeit three-quarters of ourselves in order to be like other people.

  Arthur Schopenhauer

  Inspirational, Philosophical, Order

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• To attain knowledge, add things every day To attain wisdom, remove things every day

  Laozi

  Motivational, Spiritual, Add

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• You generally hear that what a man doesn't know doesn't hurt him, but in business what a man doesn't know does hurt.

  Gerald Brenan

  Hurt, Business, Men

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• Reading is at the center of our lives. The library is our brain. Without the library, you have no civilization.

  Ray Bradbury

  Reading, Civilization, Brain

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• You have first an instinct, then an opinion, then a knowledge, as the plant has root, bud, and fruit.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Roots, Progress, Bud

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1983). “Essays and Lectures”, p.419, Library of America

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• It is not a question how much a man knows, but what use he can make of what he knows.

  J. G. Holland

  Men, Use, Knows

  J. G. HOLLAND (1866). “PLAIN TALKS ON FAMILIAR SUBJECTS”, p.40

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• In spiritual matters, knowledge is dependent upon being; as we are, so we know.

  Aldous Huxley

  Spiritual, Matter, Dependent

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• It often requires more courage to read some books than it does to fight a battle.

  Sutton E. Griggs

  Book, Reading, Fighting

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• A good library is a place, a palace where the lofty spirits of all nations and generations meet.

  Shmuel Niger

  Library, Generations, Palaces

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• Ignorance may be bliss, but it certainly is not freedom, except in the minds of those who prefer darkness to light and chains to liberty. The more true information we can acquire, the better for our enfranchisement.

  Robert Hugh Benson

  Freedom, Ignorance, Light

  Robert Hugh Benson (1913). “Papers of a Pariah”

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• Nothing will divide this nation more than ignorance, and nothing can bring us together better than an educated population.

  John Sculley

  Education, Ignorance, Together

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• A man is never astonished that he doesn't know what another does, but he is surprised at the gross ignorance of the other in not knowing what he does.

  Thomas Chandler Haliburton

  Ignorance, Men, Knowing

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• Every climate scientist has his or her own views on some issues that differ from the mainstream in detail. But the broad findings of the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) have general support amongst scientists with relevant specialist expertise. The broad wisdom of the IPCC is strongly contested by a small number, and a small minority, of reputed climate scientists. It is not contested by the large majority of specialists, and by the leaders of the relevant learned academies in the countries of great scientific accomplishment.

  Ross Garnaut

  Country, Ignorance, Numbers

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• To be truly ignorant, be content with your own knowledge.

  Zhuangzi

  Life, Letting Go, Ignorant

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