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Human Knowledge Quotes

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Human Knowledge Quotes

“Our categories arise from the fact that we are neural beings, from the nature of our bodily capacities, from our experience interacting in the world, and from our evolved capacity for basic-level categorization - a level at which we optimally interact with the world. Evolution has not required us to be as accurate above and below the basic level as at the basic level, and so we are not.”

Human KnowledgeCategorizationConceptualizationLimits Of Knowledge
Book:Philosophy in the Flesh: The Embodied Mind and Its Challenge to Western Thought
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“It is the close observation of little things which is the secret of success in business, in art, in science, and in every pursuit in life. Human knowledge is but an accumulation of small facts made by successive generations of men--the little bits of knowledge and experience carefully treasured up by them growing at length into a mighty pyramid.”

MenHumansLittlesArtMadeFactsBitsSecretGrowingGenerationsLittle BitPursuitObservationLengthLittle ThingsBusiness SuccessAccumulationPyramidsSecret To SuccessHuman KnowledgeTreasuredKnowledge And Experience
Book:Self-help: With Illustrations of Character and Conduct
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“Hitherto the principle of causality was universally accepted as an indispensable postulate of scientific research, but now we are told by some physicists that it must be thrown overboard. The fact that such an extraordinary opinion should be expressed in responsible scientific quarters is widely taken to be significant of the all-round unreliability of human knowledge. This indeed is a very serious situation.”

ShouldHumansFactsScienceResponsibilitySituationOpinionPrinciplesKnowledgeTakenAcceptanceSeriousResearchResponsibleExtraordinaryRoundsAcceptedSignificantThrownQuartersIndispensablePhysicistScientific ResearchHuman KnowledgeCausalityOverboardUnreliability
Book:The new science: 3 complete works: Where is science going? The universe in the light of modern physics; The philosophy of physics
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“And last of all we have the secondary forms of crystals bursting in upon us, and sparkling in the rigidity of mathematical necessity and telling us, neither of harmony of design, usefulness or moral significance, nothing but spherical trigonometry and Napier's analogies. It is because we have blindly excluded the lessons of these angular bodies from the domain of human knowledge that we are still in doubt about the great doctrine that the only laws of matter are those which our minds must fabricate, and the only laws of mind are fabricated for it by matter.”

MindHumansStillsMatterBodyLastsFormLawMoralDoubtDesignLessonsHarmonyDoctrineMathematicalSignificanceDomainCrystalsUsefulnessAnalogiesExcludedBurstingSparklingRigidityHuman KnowledgeFabricateTrigonometry
Book:The Scientific Letters and Papers of James Clerk Maxwell: 1846-1862
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“The seers of ancient India had, in their experiments and efforts at spiritual training and the conquest of the body, perfected a discovery which in its importance to the future of human knowledge dwarfs the divinations of Newton and Galileo , even the discovery of the inductive and experimental method in Science was not more momentous.”

HumansBodySpiritualEffortTrainingDiscoveryIndiaImportanceMethodAncientExperimentsConquestNewtonDwarfsHuman KnowledgeSeersAncient India
Book:The Upanishads--II : Kena And Other Upanishads
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“Modern man, seeking a middle position in the evaluation of sense impression and thought, can, following Plato , interpret the process of understanding nature as a correspondence, that is, a coming into congruence of pre-existing images of the human psyche with external objects and their behaviour. Modern man, of course, unlike Plato , looks on the pre-existent original images also as not invariable, but as relative to the development of a conscious point of view, so that the word "dialectic" which Plato is fond of using may be applied to the process of development of human knowledge.”

MenHumansLooksMayCoursesProcessUnderstandingViewsModernMiddlePositionObjectsDevelopmentConsciousOriginalsSeekingFollowingPoint Of ViewImpressionRelativeBehaviourPlatoEvaluationModern ManCorrespondenceHuman KnowledgeDialecticsHuman PsycheCongruenceUnderstanding Nature
Author:Wolfgang Pauli
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“The main object of the work was to present such a survey of the advances already made in physical knowledge, and of the mode in which they have been made, as might serve as a real and firm basis for our speculations concerning the progress of human knowledge, and the processes by which sciences are formed.”

HumansHas BeensMadeRealMightProcessProgressObjectsBasesFirmSpeculationSurveysHuman Knowledge
Book:History of the Inductive Sciences: I. The Greek school philosophy, with reference to physical science. II. The physical sciences in ancient Greece. III. Greek astronomy. IV. Physical science in the middle ages. V. Formal astronomy after the stationary period
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“The phrase 'contrary to all expectations' rings through the story of the progress of human knowledge. It was 'contrary to all expectations' that the Earth was found to revolve around the sun, and not the other way round, and that a mould growing in one of Dr. Alexander Fleming's dishes was found to be capable of destroying bacteria. When in 1989 the spacecraft Voyager 2 got close enough to the planet Naptune to take detailed pictures of the surface, they were 'contrary to all expectations'.”

WayHumansEnoughStoriesEarthScienceFoundSunGrowingProgressPlanetsCapableExpectationsRoundsSurfaceContraryRingsPhrasesDestroyingDishesDrsMouldBacteriaHuman KnowledgeSpacecraft
Author:Anthony Terence Quincey Stewart
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“Ignorance lies at the bottom of all human knowledge, and the deeper we penetrate the nearer we arrive unto it. For what do we truly know, or what can we clearly affirm, of any one of those important things upon which all our reasonings must of necessity be built--time and space, life and death, matter and mind?”

KnowsMindHumansImportantMatterLyingSpaceIgnoranceBuiltImportant ThingsBottomDeeperReasoningLife And DeathTime And SpacePenetrateHuman Knowledge
Book:Lacon: Or Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think
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“One of the major challenges facing creative individuals is that of building upon the continuity of human knowledge while achieving novel insights. ... On the one hand, to intensify an inquiry and develop a sense of commitment to a creative life, the learner needs models, teachers, and collaborators. On the other hand, the individual, while building upon the past, needs to transform it, and thus broaden his or her choices.”

NeedsHumansHandsPastChoicesIndividualChallengesCreativityNovelCreativeTeacherAchieveBuildingMajorsModelsCommitmentInnovationInsightInquiryContinuityLearnersCollaboratorsHuman KnowledgeCreative Life
Author:Vera John-Steiner
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“The unconscious is the only available source of religious experience. This in certainly not to say that what we call the unconscious is identical with God or is set up in his place. It is simply the medium from which religious experience seems to flow. As to what the further cause of such experience might be, the answer to this lies beyond the range of human knowledge.”

HumansSeemsMightLyingCausesReligiousAnswersSourceFlowAvailableMediumsRangeUnconsciousIdenticalHuman KnowledgeReligious Experience
Author:Carl Jung
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“Discoveries are always accidental; and the great use of science is by investigating the nature of the effects produced by any process or contrivance, and of the causes by which they are brought about, to explain the operation and determine the precise value of every new invention. This fixes as it were the latitude and longitude of each discovery, and enables us to place it in that part of the map of human knowledge which it ought to occupy. It likewise enables us to use it in taking bearings and distances, and in shaping our course when we go in search of new discoveries.”

HumansUseValuesCoursesCausesProcessEffectsOughtDiscoveryDistanceDetermineInventionOperationsMapsPreciseInvestigatingHuman KnowledgeLatitudeNew DiscoveriesNew InventionsUses Of ScienceLatitude And Longitude
Author:Benjamin Thompson
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“The true bounds and limitations, whereby human knowledge is confined and circumscribed,... are three: the first, that we do not so place our felicity in knowledge, as we forget our mortality: the second, that we make application of our knowledge, to give ourselves repose and contentment, and not distates or repining: the third, that we do not presume by the contemplation of Nature to attain to the mysteries of God.”

GivingFirstsHumansThreeForgetKnowledgeMysteryThirdsBoundsLimitationContemplationContentmentMortalityApplicationGod KnowsConfinedReposeFelicityHuman KnowledgeMystery Of God
Author:Francis Bacon
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“Upon a given body to generate and superinduce a new nature or new natures is the work and aim of human power. To discover the Form of a given nature, or its true difference, or its causal nature, or fount of its emanation... this is the work and aim of human knowledge.”

HumansBodyFormGivenDifferencesKnowledgeAimHuman KnowledgeHuman Power
Book:The Novum Organon,: Or a True Guide to the Interpretation of Nature
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“You do not settle whether an argument is justified by merely showing that it is of some use. The distinction is not between useful and useless experiments but between barbarous and civilized behaviour. Vivisection is a social evil because if it advances human knowledge, it does so at the expense of human character.”

IfsHumansDoeCharacterUseEvilSocialArgumentExperimentsUselessSettlingDistinctionCivilizedExpensesBehaviourJustifiedHuman KnowledgeVivisectionSocial Evils
Author:George Bernard Shaw
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“My two older brothers are both molecular biologists and neuroscientists, and I feel like representing them accurately is never done in movies, and I really wanted to at least capture the spirit of a Ph.D. student whose goal and aspiration is to increase the sum total of human knowledge. That is noble. That was really, really important, to capture the three-dimensionality of scientists. Scientists fall in love, scientists have the greatest sense of humor, scientists are passionate.”

FeelsHumansTwoImportantDoneWantedSpiritFallThreeGoalStudentsBrotherScientistIncreaseFalling In LovePassionateNobleAspirationSense Of HumorCaptureRepresentingBiologistOlder BrotherHuman KnowledgeGoals And Aspirations
Author:Mike Cahill
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“No general description of the mode of advance of human knowledge can be just which leaves out of account the social aspect of knowledge. That is of its very essence. What a thing society is! The workingman, with his trade union, knows that. Men and women moving in polite society understand it, still better. But Bohemians, like me, whose work is done in solitude, are apt to forget that not only is a man as a whole little better than a brute in solitude, but also that everything that bears any important meaning to him must receive its interpretation from social considerations.”

KnowsMenHumansLittlesStillsImportantDoneWholeMovingSocialForgetBearsSolitudeMen And WomenAspectEssenceAccountsTradeUnionsLike MeConsiderationDescriptionInterpretationPoliteBrutesMoving InHuman KnowledgeTrade Unions
Author:Charles Sanders Peirce
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“In my view there is a level of human knowledge that involves just getting it right aptly. This "animal" epistemic level is an inferior level in just the way of Diana's long shot in the dark while drunk. That shot is inferior in a certain respect if too poorly selected as a hunter's archery shot, even if not quite as poorly selected as would be a shot aimed at the moon. Even if Diana's too risky shot turns out to be apt by attaining success through sublime archery dexterity, it is still inferior in the particular respect of being so risky and hence so poorly selected.”

IfsWayHumansLongStillsWould BeCertainTurnsDarkAnimalLevelsViewsParticularMoonShotsDrunkInferiorsSublimeHuntersSelectedDianaHuman KnowledgeArcheryDexterityLong Shots
Author:Ernest Sosa
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“There's a sense in which Marx does contribute to the fund of human knowledge, and we can no more dismiss him than we can [George] Hegel or [Jean-Jacques] Rousseau or [Baruch] Spinoza or [Charles] Darwin; you don't have to be a Darwinian to appreciate Darwin's views, and I don't have to be a Marxist to appreciate what is valid in a number of [Karl] Marx's writings-and Marx would call that a form of simple commodity production rather than capitalism.”

WritingHumansDoeFormSimpleViewsNumbersCapitalismAppreciateProductionsFundCommodityMarxistHegelHuman KnowledgeSpinozaJean Jacques RousseauJacques Rousseau
Author:Murray Bookchin
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“Elections, for their part, are typically popularity contests rather than measures of candidates' relative competency or effectiveness. Imagine if scientific truth were determined according to which scientist was most popular. To be successful, scientists would have to be charismatic and attractive - and human knowledge would suffer terribly.”

IfsHumansSufferingSuccessfulImagineScientistElectionDeterminedAttractiveCandidatesBeing SuccessfulRelativePopularityContestsEffectivenessCharismaticHuman KnowledgeScientific TruthCompetenciesPopularity Contest
Author:Nathan Myhrvold
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