July 9

People are mistaken in thinking that erudition is a merit. It is not the quantity of knowledge that is important, but its quality.

1

Although Socrates considered stupidity incompatible with wisdom, he did not call ignorance stupidity. But to not know yourself and to imagine that you know that which you do not—that he called insanity.

— Xenophon

2

We live in the age of philosophy, science and reason. It seems that all the sciences have merged to illuminate the way in this labyrinth of human life. Enormous libraries are open to all, everywhere gymnasiums, schools and universities allow us to make use of human wisdom that has been manifesting for thousands of years. It seems that everything is assisting the education of our mind and the strengthening of reason. So then, has all this made us better or wiser? Do we know more about the path and the purpose of our calling? Do we know more about what our duties are and, most important, what the good of life is? What has all this vain knowledge given us, apart from enmity, hatred, uncertainty and doubt? Every religious eduction and sect tries to prove that it alone has discovered the truth. Every writer thinks that he is the only one who knows where our good lies. One tries to prove to us that there is no body, another that there is no soul, a third that there is no link between the body and the soul, a fourth that a human being is an animal, a fifth that God is only a mirror.

— Rousseau

3

A man’s ignorance sometimes is not only useful but beautiful—while his knowledge, so called, is oftentimes worse than useless, beside being ugly. Which is the best man to deal with: He who knows nothing about a subject, and, what is extremely rare, knows that he knows nothing, or he who really knows something about it but thinks that he knows all?

— Thoreau

4

What a great deal of useless reading can be avoided by independent contemplation!

Is it the case that reading and learning are the same thing? Someone argued, not without reason, that even if book reading could help spread learning, it would be to the detriment of its quality and content. Too much reading is harmful for contemplation. Of all the scientists whom I have studied, the greatest thinkers were precisely the least well-read.

Misunderstandings would be prevented if people were taught not only what they should think, but how they should think.

— Lichtenberg

5

Do not fear ignorance, fear false knowledge. It is the source of all the evil in the world.

6

The one who knows how to conceal his stupidity is better than the one who wants to show off his wisdom.

7

To reach moral perfection it is necessary first of all to take care of one’s spiritual purity. And spiritual purity is achieved only when the heart seeks the truth and the will pursues holiness. And all this depends on true knowledge.

— Confucius

8

The mind is strengthened or weakened by reading as the body is by fresh or putrid air.

— John Ruskin

The knowledge that causes arguments is dubious.