KNOWLEDGE
Wise men know their own ignorance and are ever ready to learn. Humility is the
child of knowledge. Michael Angelo was found by the Cardinal Farnese walking in
solitude amid the ruins of the Coliseum, and when he expressed his surprise, the
great artist answered, “I go yet to school that I may continue to learn.” Who among
us can after this talk of finishing our education? We have need to learn of all around
us. He must be very foolish who cannot tell us something; or more likely we must be
more foolish not to be able to learn of him. FA110
A very small book would hold most men’s learning, and every line would have a
mistake in it. PP142
“Knowledge is power,” men say. Alas! Knowledge when not used, is wrath, wrath,
WRATH to the uttermost, against the man who knows, and yet doeth that which he
knoweth to be wrong. 194.238
Oh, man, thou hast accumulated knowledge until thou hast become a walking
cyclopædia, but what shalt thou take with thee? What difference shall there be
between thy hollow skull and that of the meanest peasant, when some wanton
sexton, in some future year, shall take it up, or split it with his spade? What shalt
thou be the better for all those big thoughts that have stretched thy skull, and all
those marvellous conceptions that have made it ache so much, that thou couldst
scarcely carry it upon thy shoulders? Thou wilt go back again to thy fellow earth, and
the worm shall eat thee, and the philosopher shall taste no sweeter to his tooth than
did the peasant. 247.183
What we know is as nothing when compared with what we know not. 299.101
The usual rule is that the more we really know the more conscious we are of the
littleness of our knowledge. 1386.667
We know enough to make us know that we know very little. The most advanced
intellects in the church are but as infants compared with the Ancient of Days. We are
of yesterday, and know nothing: with all our experience, with all our study, with all
our meditation, with all our illumination, we remain “little children” when measured
by the boundless knowledge of the Lord. 1711.158
Accursed is that man who heaps to himself knowledge till he becomes wise as
Solomon, and then prostitutes it to base ends by using it to aggrandize his wealth, to
pamper his appetites, to bolster his unbelief, or to conceal his vice. A man by knowing
more may become all the more a devil. His growing information may only increase
his condemnation. 1763.61
If knowledge were bliss the devil would be in heaven. 1874.662
Knowledge is not wisdom. He is wisest who does not wish to know what God has not
revealed. Here, surely, ignorance is bliss: it would be folly to be wise. 2242.65
That insatiable craving to know everything just draws away the life of men from
what ought to be their insatiable craving, namely, to be like God, to know him, to
trust him, to love him, and to serve him. 2441.565
One says of Father Adam that he knew a great deal, and it was a pity that he did not
know one thing more, namely, that he knew enough; for had he known that he knew
enough, he would not have eaten of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and
evil. Thou knowest enough when thou believest. 2441.570
In trying to comprehend the Almighty, we are like a child, with a thimble, seeking to
tell the size of the sea. We cannot, at our utmost, hold more than a thimbleful; and
beside that, our thimble leaks. The powers that we have are warped and spoiled by
sin and sinful influence. When we come into this world, our powers are very far from
being fully developed; and as they are being developed, somebody or other comes
along, and warps us with prejudice in our early youth; and as we grow older, we
make other prejudices of our own, so that what we might know we sometimes do not
care to know. 2862.607
Knowledge may prejudice a person as much as ignorance does. 3053.400
I should not like to say a hard thing of God’s people, but I believe there are many of
them who do not want to know too much. 3353.222