Theme

Knowledge

Learning, doubt, and the difference between a fact and an understanding. A number of these speakers are warning you not to fool yourself.

1. Facts are stubborn things.John AdamsArgument in defense of the British soldiers
2. That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.Neil ArmstrongWords spoken on the Moon
3. Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested.Francis BaconEssays
4. If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, Infinite.William BlakeThe Marriage of Heaven and Hell
5. The lyf so short, the craft so long to lerne.Geoffrey ChaucerThe Parliament of Fowls
6. Is it not pleasant to learn with a constant perseverance and application?ConfuciusAnalects
7. We must have perseverance and above all confidence in ourselves.Marie CuriePierre Curie
8. Endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.Charles DarwinOn the Origin of Species
9. I think, therefore I am.René DescartesDiscourse on the Method
10. Tell all the truth but tell it slant.Emily DickinsonPoem 1263
11. Above all, don’t lie to yourself.Fyodor DostoevskyThe Brothers Karamazov
12. When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.Arthur Conan DoyleThe Sign of the Four
13. I, at any rate, am convinced that He does not throw dice.Albert EinsteinLetter to Max Born
14. Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.Albert EinsteinInterview with George Sylvester Viereck
15. The first principle is that you must not fool yourself — and you are the easiest person to fool.Richard FeynmanCargo Cult Science
16. The interpretation of dreams is the royal road to a knowledge of the unconscious activities of the mind.Sigmund FreudThe Interpretation of Dreams
17. And yet it moves.Galileo GalileiAttributed after the trial of 1633
18. Gray, dear friend, is all theory, and green the golden tree of life.Johann Wolfgang von GoetheFaust
19. A wise man proportions his belief to the evidence.David HumeAn Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding
20. As far as we can discern, the sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light in the darkness of mere being.Carl JungMemories, Dreams, Reflections
21. Dare to know.Immanuel KantAnswering the Question: What Is Enlightenment?
22. Beauty is truth, truth beauty, — that is all ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.John KeatsOde on a Grecian Urn
23. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard.John F. KennedyAddress at Rice University
24. He who loves practice without theory is like the sailor who boards ship without a rudder and compass and never knows where he may cast.Leonardo da VinciNotebooks
25. The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point is to change it.Karl MarxTheses on Feuerbach
26. It is not down on any map; true places never are.Herman MelvilleMoby-Dick
27. I am still learning.MichelangeloAttributed in old age
28. To philosophize is to learn how to die.Michel de MontaigneEssays
29. I quote others only in order the better to express myself.Michel de MontaigneEssays
30. If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.Isaac NewtonLetter to Robert Hooke
31. The heart has its reasons, which reason does not know.Blaise PascalPensées
32. Man is only a reed, the weakest in nature, but he is a thinking reed.Blaise PascalPensées
33. You must change your life.Rainer Maria RilkeArchaic Torso of Apollo
34. We are a way for the cosmos to know itself.Carl SaganCosmos
35. It is only with the heart that one can see rightly. What is essential is invisible to the eye.Antoine de Saint-ExupéryThe Little Prince
36. The unexamined life is not worth living.SocratesPlato, Apology
37. Interpretation is the revenge of the intellect upon art.Susan SontagAgainst Interpretation
38. Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd.VoltaireLetter to Frederick the Great
39. The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.W. B. YeatsThe Second Coming

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