CURATED COLLECTION

Questioning What You Think You Know

The most dangerous thing you can know is something you know for certain — on the virtue of doubt.

50 quotes found

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To know that you do not know is the best. To think you know when you do not is a disease.

—Lao TzuPhilosopher

Ancient World ERA • East Asia

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Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.

—Ernest HemingwayNovelist & Journalist

Early Modern ERA • North America

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Money is the water we swim in. Most of us don't know we're wet.

—Ayad AkhtarPlaywright & Novelist

Digital Age ERA • South Asia

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I don't study to know more, but to ignore less.

—Sor Juana Inés de la CruzPoet, Philosopher & Feminist

Renaissance ERA • Latin America

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What do they know of cricket who only cricket know?

—C.L.R. JamesHistorian, Novelist & Theorist

Post-War ERA • Caribbean

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Remain silent on that which you do not know, for silence is the mark of knowledge.

—Al-JahizWriter & Intellectual

Medieval ERA • MENA

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Books are the best of things, if you don't know the best of things.

—Maxim GorkyAuthor, Activist & Revolutionary

Early Modern ERA • Eastern Europe

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Everything I know, I know from life, not from books.

—Bohumil HrabalWriter & King

Late Modern ERA • Eastern Europe

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Those who know do not speak. Those who speak do not know.

—Lao TzuPhilosopher

Ancient World ERA • East Asia

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People these days don't know the truth, they merely follow the world's dusty tracks.

—Han ShanPoet

Medieval ERA • East Asia

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Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is an absurd one.

—VoltaireWriter, Historian & Philosopher

Enlightenment ERA • Western Europe

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The highest good is the knowledge of God, and the mind's highest virtue is to know God.

—Baruch SpinozaPhilosopher

Renaissance ERA • Western Europe

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The most difficult thing in life is to know yourself.

—Thales of MiletusPhilosopher & Mathematician

Ancient World ERA • Southern Europe

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The greatest thing in the world is to know how to belong to oneself.

—Michel de MontaignePhilosopher & Writer

Renaissance ERA • Western Europe

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The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge.

—Stephen HawkingTheoretical Physicist

Late Modern ERA • Western Europe

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We are made of star‑stuff. We are a way for the universe to know itself.

—Carl SaganAstronomer & Author

Post-War ERA • North America

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A nation that does not know its own history is condemned to repeat its mistakes.

—Karel Havlíček BorovskýJournalist, Poet & Satirist

Industrial Age ERA • Eastern Europe

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Know that destiny is the will of God, but man is the artisan of his own destiny.

—Sundiata KeitaKing

Medieval ERA • West Africa

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The world is always larger than we know. Arrival is a journey's beginning.

—V.S. NaipaulNovelist

Late Modern ERA • Caribbean

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The heart has its reasons which reason knows nothing of. We know truth not only by reason, but by heart.

—Blaise PascalMathematician, Physicist & Philosopher

Renaissance ERA • Western Europe

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