We are at the very beginning of time for the human race. It is not unreasonable that we grapple with problems. But there are tens of thousands of years in the future. Our responsibility is to do what we can, learn what we can, improve the solutions, and pass them on. Richard P Feynman
I don’t know what’s the matter with people: they don’t learn by understanding, they learn by some other way – by rote or something. Their knowledge is so fragile! Richard P Feynman
We absolutely must leave room for doubt or there is no progress and there is 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. People are terrified – how can you live and not know? It is not odd at all. You only think you know, as a matter of fact. And most of your actions are based on incomplete knowledge and you really don’t know what it is all about, or what the purpose of the world is, or know a great deal of other things. It is possible to live and not know. Richard P Feynman, The Pleasure of Finding Things Out: The Best Short Works of Richard P Feynman
Science is much more than a body of knowledge. It is a way of thinking. This is central to its success. Science invites us to let the facts in, even when they don’t conform to our preconceptions. It counsels us to carry alternative hypotheses in our heads and see which ones best match the facts. It urges on us a fine balance between no-holds-barred openness to new ideas, however heretical, and the most rigorous skeptical scrutiny of everything – new ideas and established wisdom. We need wide appreciation of this kind of thinking. It works. It’s an essential tool for a democracy in an age of change. Our task is not just to train more scientists but also to deepen public understanding of science. Carl Sagan, Skeptical Inquirer 14:3 ‘Why We Need to Understand Science’
Science is a way of thinking much more than it is a body of knowledge. Carl Sagan
The significance of our lives and our fragile planet is then determined only by our own wisdom and courage. We are the custodians of life's meaning. We long for a Parent to care for us, to forgive us our errors, to save us from our childish mistakes. But knowledge is preferable to ignorance. Better by far to embrace the hard truth than a reassuring fable. If we crave some cosmic purpose, then let us find ourselves a worthy goal. Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot
Science frees us from superstition and dogma, and enables us to base our knowledge on evidence. Richard Dawkins, Enemies of Reason: Slaves to Superstition, Channel 4 2007
Fortunately science, like that nature to which it belongs, is neither limited by time nor by space. It belongs to the world, and is of no country and of no age. The more we know, the more we feel our ignorance; the more we feel how much remains unknown; and in philosophy, the sentiment of the Macedonian hero can never apply – there are always new worlds to conquer. Humphry Davy, Royal Society discourse 30th November 1925
The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom. Isaac Asimov
People who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do. Isaac Asimov
Knowledge is indivisible. When people grow wise in one direction, they are sure to make it easier for themselves to grow wise in other directions as well. On the other hand, when they split up knowledge, concentrate on their own field, and scorn and ignore other fields, they grow less wise – even in their own field. Isaac Asimov, The Roving Mind ch25, 1983
Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science. Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man
There are in fact two things, science and opinion; the former begets knowledge, the latter ignorance. Hippocrates
Human consciousness is just about the last surviving mystery. A mystery is a phenomenon that people don’t know how to think about – yet. There have been other great mysteries: the mystery of the origin of the universe, the mystery of life and reproduction, the mystery of the design to be found in nature, the mysteries of time, space, and gravity. These were not just areas of scientific ignorance, but of utter bafflement and wonder. We do not yet have all the answers to any of the questions of cosmology and particle physics, molecular genetics and evolutionary theory, but we do know how to think about them ... With consciousness, however, we are still in a terrible muddle. Consciousness stands alone today as a topic that often leaves even the most sophisticated thinkers tongue-tied and confused. And, as with all of the earlier mysteries, there are many who insist – and hope – that there will never be a demystification of consciousness. Daniel C Dennett, Consciousness Explained
Science is what you know, philosophy is what you don’t know. Bertrand Russell
There is much pleasure to be gained from useless knowledge. Bertrand Russell
Dogmatism and scepticism are both, in a sense, absolute philosophies; one is certain of knowing, the other of not knowing. What philosophy should dissipate is certainty, whether of knowledge or ignorance. Bertrand Russell
We owe a huge debt to Galileo for emancipating us all from the stupid belief in an Earth-centred or man-centred (let alone God-centred) system. He quite literally taught us our place and allowed us to go on to make extraordinary advances in knowledge. Christopher Hitchens
The offer of certainty, the offer of complete security, the offer of an impermeable faith that can’t give way, is an offer of something not worth having. I want to live my life taking the risk all the time that I don’t know anything like enough yet; that I haven’t understood enough; that I can’t know enough; that I’m always hungrily operating on the margins of a potentially great harvest of future knowledge and wisdom. I wouldn’t have it any other way. Christopher Hitchens
He knows the universe and does not know himself. Jean de la Fontaine, 1621-95, Fables bk8
As long as you still experience the stars as something above you, you still lack a viewpoint of knowledge. Friedrich Nietzsche
The man of knowledge must be able not only to love his enemies but also to hate his friends. Friedrich Nietzsche
To truly know the world, look deeply within your own being; to truly know yourself, take real interest in the world. Rudolf Steiner, Verses and Meditations
Herein lies the tragedy of the age: not that men are poor … not that men are wicked … but that men know so little of men. W E B du Bois, 1868-1963
There is no absolute knowledge ... All information is imperfect. Jacob Bronowski, The Ascent of Man 11/13: Knowledge or Certainty ***** BBC 1973
All knowledge, all information, between human beings can only be exchanged within a play of tolerance. ibid.
All knowledge is limited. It’s an irony of history that at the very time this was being worked out, there should arise under Hitler and Germany and giants elsewhere a counter-conception, a principle of monstrous certainty. When the future looks back on the 1930s, it will think of them as a crucial confrontation of culture as I have been expounding it – the Ascent of Man. Against the throwback of despotic belief to the notion that they have absolute certainty. ibid.
When people believe that they have absolute knowledge with no test in reality this is how they behave. This is what men do when they aspire to the knowledge of gods. ibid.
We have to cure ourselves of the itch for absolute knowledge and power. ibid.
Knowledge is not a loose-leaf notebook of facts; above all it is a responsibility for the integrity of what we are. Jacob Bronowski, The Ascent of Man 13/13: The Long Childhood
Behind Galileo’s downfall were two questions that are central to the whole story of Science and Religion: Who owns knowledge and what makes one source of knowledge more reliable than another? Horizon: The End of God? A Horizon Guide to Science and Religion, BBC 2010
Reading furnishes the mind only with materials of knowledge; it is thinking that makes what we read ours. John Locke
The commonwealth of learning is not at this time without master-builders, whose mighty designs, in advancing the sciences, will leave lasting monuments to the admiration of posterity … in an age that produces such masters as the great Huygenius and the incomparable Mr Newton … ’tis ambition enough to be employed as an under-labourer in clearing ground a little, and removing some of the rubbish that lies in the way of knowledge. John Locke, An Essay concerning Human Understanding, 1690
No man’s knowledge here can go beyond his experience. ibid.
It is one thing to show a man that he is in error, and another to put him in possession of truth. ibid.
The improvement of understanding is for two ends: first, our own increase of knowledge; secondly, to enable us to deliver that knowledge to others. ibid.