Quotes about Knowledge

Faith is not knowledge of what the mystery of the universe is, but the conviction that there is a mystery, and that it is greater than us.

Beware of despair.  You do not serve a tyrant, but your service is to a kind Lord, Who, taking nothing from you, He has given you all.  And when you did not exist at all, He fashioned you so that you would be in that [ state ] in which you now are.  Who is sufficient to render Him thanks for the fact that He has brought us into existence?  O the immeasurable grace!  Who can sufficiently honor Him with hymns?  For He has given us knowledge of all things.  And not only those which are manifest, but also of the hidden things.  For we know that if there is anything we do not know, it is necessary for us only to ask this [ knowledge ] from Him.

The most common ego identifications have to do with possessions, the work you do, social status and recognition, knowledge and education, physical appearance, special abilities, relationships, person and family history, belief systems, and often also political, nationalistic, racial, religious, and other collective identifications.

None of these is you.

Nobody can give us what we really already are. Wouldn’t it be terrible if somebody could give you what you really are? …’cause if they could give it to you, they could take it away.

Wisdom without love is like having lungs but no air to breathe. Do not seek wisdom in order to acquire knowledge but in order to live and love more fully.

Love is active penetration of the other person, in which my desire to know is stilled by union. In the act of fusion I know you, I know myself, I know everybody - and I "know" nothing.

The Universe story is the quintessence of reality. We perceive the story. We put it in our language, the birds put it in theirs, and the trees put it in theirs. We can read the story of the Universe in the trees. Everything tells the story of the Universe. The winds tell the story, literally, not just imaginatively. The story has its imprint everywhere, and that is why it is so important to know the story. If you do not know the story, in a sense you do not know yourself; you do not know anything.

    What is the greatest experience you can have? It is the hour of the great contempt. The hour when your happiness, too, arouses your disgust, and even your reason and your virtue.
    The hour when you say, 'What matters my happiness? It is poverty and filth and wretched contentment. But my happiness ought to justify existence itself.'
    The hour when you say, 'What matters my reason? Does it crave knowledge as the lion his food? It is poverty and filth and wretched contentment.'
    The hour when you say, 'What matters my virtue? As yet it has not made me rage. How weary I am of my good and my evil! All that is poverty and filth and wretched contentment.'

Faith is harder to shake than knowledge, love succumbs less to change than respect, hate is more enduring than aversion, and the impetus to the mightiest upheavals on this earth has at all times consisted less in a scientific knowledge dominating the masses than in a fanaticism which inspired them and sometimes in a hysteria which drove them forward.

There is little to know to do good.

The Buddhas, the World-Honored Ones, for one great cause alone appear in the world. The Buddhas, the World-Honored Ones, appear in the world because they wish to cause the beings to hear of the Buddha's knowledge and insight and thus enable them to gain purity. They appear in the world because they wish to demonstrate the Buddha's knowledge and insight to the beings. They appear in the world because they wish to cause the beings to understand. They appear in the world because they wish to cause the beings to enter into the path of the Buddha's knowledge and insight.

Self-knowledge or knowledge of truth is not had by resorting to a guru (preceptor) nor by the study of scripture, nor by good works: it is attained only by means of inquiry inspired by the company of wise and holy men. One's inner light alone is the means, naught else. When this inner light is kept alive, it is not affected by the darkness of inertia.

If only we could touch
the things of this world
at their center, if we could only hear
tiny leaves of birch
struggling toward April,
then we would know.   

Proclaim the only truth you can be totally sure of: "I don't know."

Study as if you have not reached your goal - hold it as if you were afraid of losing what you have.

Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit; wisdom is knowing not to put it in a fruit salad

When an ordinary man attains knowledge, he is a sage; when a sage attains understanding, he is an ordinary man.

In our society, confidence leads to knowledge - which leads to power - which leads to pride - which leads to a fear of seeming ignorant - which constricts learning like an iron vice.  We must understand that confidence is a blessing, for it is the embodiment of self-love, and through it we find the fuel for innovation and progress.  We must realize that ignorance is merely the opportunity to learn more.  And lastly, we must marvel rather than groan at the fact that there will always be more to learn...
Only then will we be free of the intellectual prisons we have so readily caged ourselves within.

The thing we know best is that of which we are least conscious.

The gurus come from the sickliest nation on earth to tell us how to live. And we pay them for it.

Every man should be his own guru; every woman her own gurette.

The safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato.

To know truth is to be truth.

The great aim of education is not knowledge, but action.

To understand spiritual intention and insight is the knowledge of the rock people. Within each of us is the story of yesterday

Just try to learn the truth by approaching a spiritual master. Inquire from him submissively and render service unto him. The self-realized soul can impart knowledge unto you because he has seen the truth (Bg. 4-34).

In my lifetime I have learnt that one race is not superior to another.
In my lifetime I have learnt that one sex is not superior to another.
I await the day when one religion is not considered superior  to another.

Genuine security arises from actual, first-hand knowledge that one is both capable and worthy of achieving happiness (through conscious, responsible action) and, once having attained it, that he deserves it.

But the jiva [living being] is endowed with ego and his knowledge is limited, whereas Ishwar is without ego and is omniscient.

It is no good to try to stop knowledge from going forward. Ignorance is never better than knowledge