knowledge Quotes

There are three principal means of acquiring knowledge... observation of nature, reflection, and experimentation. Observation collects facts; reflection combines them; experimentation verifies the result of that combination.

In order to shake a hypothesis, it is sometimes not necessary to do anything more than push it as far as it will go.

Bad company is as instructive as licentiousness. One makes up for the loss of one's innocence with the loss of one's prejudices.

Only a very bad theologian would confuse the certainty that follows revelation with the truths that are revealed. They are entirely different things.

Our observation of nature must be diligent, our reflection profound, and our experiments exact. We rarely see these three means combined; and for this reason, creative geniuses are not common.

Skepticism is the first step on the road to philosophy.

Only the educated are free.

We are not to give credit to the many, who say that none ought to be educated but the free; but rather to the philosophers, who say that the well-educated alone are free.

We give advice by the bucket, but take it by the grain.

My whole life is waiting for the questions to which I have prepared answers.