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Knowledge Quotes

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Knowledge Quotes

“To the modern spirit nothing is, or can be rightly known, except relatively and under conditions.”

Spirit Known Knowledge Modern Conditions

Book:The Works of Walter Pater

Source: The Works of Walter Pater

“In recent years our knowledge of modern technology has increased considerably, and as a result we have witnessed remarkable material progress, but there has not been a corresponding increase in human happiness. There is no less suffering in the world today, and there are no fewer problems. Indeed, it might be said that there are now more problems and greater dangers than ever before.”

Source: Modern Buddhism: The Path of Compassion and Wisdom - Volume 1 Sutra

“I am not of the opinion generally entertained in this country [England], that man lives by Greek and Latin alone; that is, by knowing a great many words of two dead languages, which nobody living knows perfectly, and which are of no use in the common intercourse of life. Useful knowledge, in my opinion, consists of modern languages, history, and geography; some Latin may be thrown into the bargain, in compliance with custom, and for closet amusement.”

“The medieval university looked backwards; it professed to be a storehouse of old knowledge. The modern university looks forward, and is a factory of new knowledge.”

Looks Knowledge Modern College University Factories Backwards Medieval New Knowledge

Author:Thomas Huxley

“Modern man thinks he loses something - time - when he does not do things quickly. Yet he does not know what to do with the time he gains, except kill it.”

Thinking Knows Men Doe Time Loses Knowledge Learning Modern Gains Time Management Wasting Time Modernism Modern Man Art Of Loving Time To Kill

Book:The Art of Loving: The Centennial Edition

Source: The Art of Loving: The Centennial Edition

“What does cookery mean? It means the knowledge of Medea and of Circe, and of Calypso, and Sheba. It means knowledge of all herbs, and fruits, and balms and spices... It means the economy of your great-grandmother and the science of modern chemistry, and French art, and Arabian hospitality. It means, in fine, that you are to see imperatively that everyone has something nice to eat.”

Mean Doe Art Knowledge Economy Nice Modern Food Fine Cooking Fruit Grandmother Culinary Chemistry Hospitality Spices Herbs Cookery Arabian Great Grandmother Calypso Medea

Author:John Ruskin

“Where there is the tree of knowledge, there is always Paradise: so say the most ancient and most modern serpents.”

Knowledge Tree Modern Ancient Paradise Serpent Tree Of Knowledge

Book:Beyond Good and Evil

Source: Beyond Good and Evil

“A modern theory of knowledge which takes account of the relational as distinct from the merely relative character of all historical knowledge must start with the assumption that there are spheres of thought in which it is impossible to conceive of absolute truth existing independently of the values and position of the subject and unrelated to the social context.”

Character Values Social Knowledge Impossible Modern Subjects Position Theory Accounts Absolutes Historical Assumption Relative Spheres Absolute Truth Theory Of Knowledge Historical Knowledge

Author:Karl Mannheim

“I do not understand modern physics at all, but my colleagues who know a lot about the physics of very small things, like the particles in atoms, or very large things, like the universe, seem to be running into one queerness after another, from puzzle to puzzle.”

Knows Seems Running Science Universe Understanding Knowledge Modern Physics Atoms Colleagues Puzzles Small Things Particles Modern Physics Large Things

Author:Lewis Thomas

“If I have put the case of science at all correctly, the reader will have recognised that modern science does much more than demand that it shall be left in undisturbed possession of what the theologian and metaphysician please to term its 'legitimate field'. It claims that the whole range of phenomena, mental as well as physical-the entire universe-is its field. It asserts that the scientific method is the sole gateway to the whole region of knowledge.”

Source: The Grammar of Science

“But science is the great instrument of social change, all the greater because its object is not change but knowledge, and its silent appropriation of this dominant function, amid the din of political and religious strife, is the most vital of all the revolutions which have marked the development of modern civilisation.”

“Modern physics has changed nothing in the great classical disciplines of, for instance, mechanics, optics, and heat. Only the conception of hitherto unexplored regions, formed prematurely from a knowledge of only certain parts of the world, has undergone a decisive transformation. This conception, however, is always decisive for the future course of research.”

Source: Philosophical problems of quantum physics

“One and all We lend an ear-nay, Science takes thereto- Encourages the meanest who has racked Nature until he gains from her some fact, To state what truth is from his point of view, Mere pin-point though it be: since many such Conduce to make a whole, she bids our friend Come forward unabashed and haply lend His little life-experience to our much Of modern knowledge.”

Littles States Whole Facts Science Views Knowledge Modern Truth Is Research Gains Ears Mere Point Of View Life Experience Pins

Book:The Agamemnon of Aeschylus, La Saisiaz, Etc.

Source: The Agamemnon of Aeschylus, La Saisiaz, Etc.

“The resolution of revolutions is selection by conflict within the scientific community of the fittest way to practice future science. The net result of a sequence of such revolutionary selections, separated by periods of normal research, is the wonderfully adapted set of instruments we call modern scientific knowledge.”

Source: The Structure of Scientific Revolutions: 50th Anniversary Edition

“Unanimity of opinion may be fitting for a church, for the frightened or greedy victims of some (ancient, or modern) myth, or for the weak and willing followers of some tyrant. Variety of opinion is necessary for objective knowledge. And a method that encourages variety is also the only method that is comparable with a humanitarian outlook.”

Source: Against method: outline of an anarchistic theory of knowledge

“What the founders of modern science ... had to do, was not criticize and to combat certain faulty theories, and to correct or to replace them by better ones. They had to do something quite different. They had to destroy one world and replace it by another. They had to reshape the framework of our intellect itself, to restate and to reform its concepts, to evolve a new approach to Being, a new concept of knowledge, and a new concept of science - and even to replace a pretty natural approach, that of common sense, by another which is not natural at all.”