Home / Topics / Knowledge Quotes

Knowledge Quotes

Browse 6283 quotes about Knowledge.

Knowledge Quotes

“Too much openness and you accept every notion, idea, and hypothesis-which is tantamount to knowing nothing. Too much skepticism-especially rejection of new ideas before they are adequately tested-and you're not only unpleasantly grumpy, but also closed to the advance of science. A judicious mix is what we need.”

Needs Ideas Science Accepting Knowledge Knowing Too Much Acceptance Notion Rejection Openness Skepticism New Ideas Tested Hypothesis Grumpy Knowing Nothing

Author:Carl Sagan

“I think that we shall have to get accustomed to the idea that we must not look upon science as a 'body of knowledge,' but rather as a system of hypotheses; that is to say, as a system of guesses or anticipations which in principle cannot be justified, but with which we work as long as they stand up to tests, and of which we are never justified in saying that we know they are 'true' or 'more or less certain' or even 'probable.'”

Thinking Knows Looks Long Ideas Body Science Certain Principles Knowledge Tests Look Up Anticipation Hypothesis Justified Accustomed

Author:Karl Popper

“All things are made of atoms - little particles that move around in perpetual motion, attracting each other when they are a little distance apart, but repelling upon being squeezed into one another. In that one sentence, you will see, there is an enormous amount of information about the world, if just a little imagination and thinking are applied.”

“Any one who has studied the history of science knows that almost every great step therein has been made by the "anticipation of Nature," that is, by the invention of hypotheses, which, though verifiable, often had very little foundation to start with; and, not unfrequently, in spite of a long career of usefulness, turned out to be wholly erroneous in the long run.”

Knows Littles Long Has Beens Made Running Science Steps Careers Knowledge Foundation Invention Spite Anticipation Long Runs Hypothesis Usefulness History Of Science Long Careers

Book:Collected essays

Source: Collected essays

“It must be conceded that a theory has an important advantage if its basic concepts and fundamental hypotheses are 'close to experience,' and greater confidence in such a theory is certainly justified. There is less danger of going completely astray, particularly since it takes so much less time and effort to disprove such theories by experience. Yet more and more, as the depth of our knowledge increases, we must give up this advantage in our quest for logical simplicity in the foundations of physical theory.”

Source: Ideas and Opinions

“The growth of our knowledge is the result of a process closely resembling what Darwin called 'natural selection'; that is, the natural selection of hypotheses: our knowledge consists, at every moment, of those hypotheses which have shown their (comparative) fitness by surviving so far in their struggle for existence, a competitive struggle which eliminates those hypotheses which are unfit.”

Moments Science Process Growth Natural Results Existence Knowledge Struggle Hypothesis Selection Surviving Natural Selection Struggle For Existence

Author:Karl Popper

“I feel that, in a sense, the writer knows nothing any longer. He has no moral stance. He offers the reader the contents of his own head, a set of options and imaginative alternatives. His role is that of a scientist, whether on safari or in his laboratory, faced with an unknown terrain or subject. All he can do is to devise various hypotheses and test them against the facts.”

Knows Feels Art Facts Science Can Do Moral Knowledge Roles Subjects Reader Offers Tests Scientist Various Alternatives Hypothesis Imaginative Laboratory Stance Terrain Safari

Author:J. G. Ballard

“During the last two centuries and a half, physical knowledge has been gradually made to rest upon a basis which it had not before. It has become mathematical. The question now is, not whether this or that hypothesis is better or worse to the pure thought, but whether it accords with observed phenomena in those consequences which can be shown necessarily to follow from it, if it be true”

Ifs Has Beens Made Two Lasts Science Half Knowledge Century Pure Consequence Bases Mathematics Being True Observation Mathematical Hypothesis Accord

Book:A Budget of Paradoxes Reprinted, with the Author's Additions, from the Athenaeum Augustus De Morgan

Source: A Budget of Paradoxes Reprinted, with the Author's Additions, from the Athenaeum Augustus De Morgan

“Measurement has too often been the leitmotif of many investigations rather than the experimental examination of hypotheses. Mounds of data are collected, which are statistically decorous and methodologically unimpeachable, but conclusions are often trivial and rarely useful in decision making. This results from an overly rigorous control of an insignificant variable and a widespread deficiency in the framing of pertinent questions. Investigators seem to have settled for what is measurable instead of measuring what they would really like to know.”

“The question whether atoms exist or not... belongs rather to metaphysics. In chemistry we have only to decide whether the assumption of atoms is an hypothesis adapted to the explanation of chemical phenomena... whether a further development of the atomic hypothesis promises to advance our knowledge of the mechanism of chemical phenomena... I rather expect that we shall some day find, for what we now call atoms, a mathematico-mechanical explanation, which will render an account of atomic weight, of atomicity, and of numerous other properties of the so-called atoms.”

Science Knowledge Development Promise Weight Accounts Property Explanation Assumption Chemistry Chemicals Atoms Mechanism Metaphysics Hypothesis Adapted

Author:August Kekule