Society and the World

Real knowledge is to know the extent of one’s ignorance.

Those who know nothing of foreign languages know nothing of their own.

All wish to possess knowledge, but few, comparatively speaking, are willing to pay the price.

To know that we know what we know, and that we do not know what we do not know, that is true knowledge.

Beware of false knowledge; it is more dangerous than ignorance.

The only source of knowledge is experience.

Thinking is more interesting than knowing, but less interesting than looking.

You know more than you think you know, just as you know less than you want to know.

Knowledge is of no value unless you put it into practice.

Knowledge is of no value unless you put it into practice.

Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Willing is not enough; we must do.

Nothing that is worth knowing can be taught.

I am a humanist, which means, in part, that I have tried to behave decently without expectations of rewards or punishments after I am dead.

I am a humanist, which means, in part, that I have tried to behave decently without expectations of rewards or punishments after I am dead.

Right is right even if no one is doing it; wrong is wrong even if everyone is doing it.

The assumption that animals are without rights and the illusion that our treatment of them has no moral significance is a positively outrageous example of Western crudity and barbarity. Universal compassion is the only guarantee of morality.

The assumption that animals are without rights and the illusion that our treatment of them has no moral significance is a positively outrageous example of Western crudity and barbarity. Universal compassion is the only guarantee of morality.

Most of the evil in this world is done by people with good intentions.

So far, about morals, I know only that what is moral is what you feel good after and what is immoral is what you feel bad after.

To educate a person in the mind but not in morals is to educate a menace to society.

To educate a person in the mind but not in morals is to educate a menace to society.

In a word, I was too cowardly to do what I knew to be right, as I had been too cowardly to avoid doing what I knew to be wrong.

Without freedom there can be no morality.

Without freedom there can be no morality.