Knower

“ However we may subsequently add to our present account by considering how knowledge appears to the knower, that will not invalidate anything that we may arrive at by considering how knowledge appears to the external observer. ”

“ We are unknown, we knowers, ourselves to ourselves: this has its own good reason. ”

“ The known, that is to say, what we are accustomed to, so that we no longer marvel at it, the commonplace, any kind of rule to which we are habituated, all and everything in which we know ourselves to be at home:—what? is our need of knowing not just this need of the known? the will to discover in everything strange, unusual, or questionable, something which no longer disquiets us? ”

“ I would ask of my friends or foes, no matter which—I mean those who do not believe as I do—those who look upon us as a set of fanatics, I would ask a few questions of the world of mankind, of the greatest philosophers, of the greatest geniuses, and of the men of the most profound knowledge on the face of the earth, Can you tell me where you get your knowledge? ”

“ Verily, if you could have looked into the heart of the person he addressed, and heard him speak, you would have cried admiringly, "Knowledge is power; and this man, if as able on a larger field of action, should play no mean part in the history of his time." ”

“ Knowledge pulsates in me, as I receive it, communing with myself on my unquiet or tearful pillow—or as it visits me, brought on the streaming moonlight, or from the fields afire with noon-splendour, or looking at me from human eyes, and stirring round and around me in the tumult of men—Your knowledge comes in a holy stillness and chillness, as if spelt off tombstones. ”

“ How do we gain knowledge of a human being, that is to say of his motives? "By observing his actions in many different circumstances, especially in extremities of joy, sorrow, fear, temptation, and then by comparing his actions with what we, or others, have done in the same circumstances?" ”

“ Knowledge which will be really useful, really worth knowing? Knowledge which I shall know accurately, and practically too, so that I can use it in daily life, for myself and my fellow-men? Knowledge, too, which shall be clear knowledge, not warped or coloured by my own fancies, passions, prejudices, but pure, and calm, and sound ”

“ What in the land of knowledge the discoverer knows, He knows, discovers, only for your gain The treasures that the thinker has amassed, He will enjoy within your arms alone, Soon as his knowledge, beauty-ripe at last. ”

“ In fact it resembles knowledge only in being an attitude and a feeling very similar to some attitudes and feelings which may and often do accompany knowledge. But ‘Knowledge’ is an immensely potent emotive word engendering reverence towards any state of mind to which it is applied. And these ‘feelings of significance’ are those among our states of mind which most deserve to be revered. That they should be so obstinately described as knowledge even by those who most carefully remove from them all the characteristics of knowledge is not surprising. ”

“ In regard to one man's knowledge at a given time, universals, like particulars, may be divided into those known by acquaintance, those known only by description, and those not known either by acquaintance or by description. ”

“ LEONARD.—"It is true, sir: I would but ask whether it is not by knowledge that we arrive at the qualities and virtues you so well describe, but which you seem to consider as coming to us through channels apart from knowledge?"
PARSON.—"If you mean by the word 'knowledge' something very different from what you express in your Essay—and which those contending for mental instruction, irrespective of religion and ethics, appear also to convey by the word—you are right; but, remember, we have already agreed that by the word' knowledge' we mean culture purely intellectual." ”

“ And what does it mean to me, after all? What does all this knowing mean to me? It means nothing.'
'You are merely making words,' he said; 'knowledge means everything to you. Even your animalism, you want it in your head. ”

“ Its object is or should be to prepare him both in his will and in his intelligence to make a thoroughly illuminating use of his experience in life. His experience,—as a man of business, a husband, a father, a citizen, a friend,—has been made real to him, not merely by the zest with which he has sought it and the sincerity with which he has accepted it, but by the disinterested intelligence which he has brought to its understanding. ”

“ Each incident stands out, every phrase acquires new force, each link in the argument is riveted, in fact we have performed The Act of Knowing, and that which we have read, or heard, becomes a part of ourselves, it is assimilated after the due rejection of waste matter. Like those famous men of old we have found out “knowledge meet for the people” and to our surprise it is the best knowledge conveyed in the best form that they demand. ”

“ It was as if some one whom they had known all their lives, quite familiar in their daily life, should suddenly have stood up and declared himself to have been an eye-witness to most marvellous proceedings. ”

“ As I have elsewhere remarked, knowledge is one thing, understanding what we know another, and a loving life of what we understand another still. We may have a knowledge of the customs of polite society. ”

“ It was so in my training. We seek to silence all opinions, all half-truths, all thinking, in fact, in order to Know. We postulate, of course, a center of Spontaneous Knowledge, or Genius, above the mind. ”

“ It must, therefore, be understood, that the allurements are in the things themselves which are learnt and known, and that it is they themselves which excite us to learning and to the acquisition of information. ”

“ The diligence with which you endeavour to cultivate the knowledge of nature, manners, and life, will perhaps incline you to pay some regard to the observations of one who has been taught to know mankind by unwelcome information, and whose opinions are the result, not of solitary conjectures, but of practice and experience. ”

“ But, while I am descanting [599] upon the conduct of the understanding, and the best mode of acquiring knowledge, some men may be disposed to ask, “Why conduct my understanding with such endless care? and what is the use of so much knowledge?” What is the use of so much knowledge? What is the use of so much life? What are we to do with the seventy years of existence allotted to us? ”

“ His knowledge, his reading—politics, philosophy, everything, in short—the brilliancy of his talking when he gets excited, even the extraordinary variety of his personal acquaintance—why, there is nothing going on that he does not know about. ”

“ To know a little, would be worth the expense of this world." "You read of but one wise man," says Congreve, "and all that he knew was—that he knew nothing." "The curiosity of knowing things has been given to man for a scourge." "If God," said Lessing, "held all truth shut in his right hand, and in his left nothing but the restless instinct for truth, though with the condition of forever and ever erring, and should say to me, Choose! ”

“ How full of information, of philosophic observation, of accurate knowledge! It appears to be written by men of trained intellect and of experience,—educated men of the world, who, by reason of their position and character, have access to the highest sources of information. ”

“ Nay, whatsoever proceedeth from these Mines of divine Wisdom and these Treasuries of eternal knowledge is truth, and naught else but the truth. The saying: “Knowledge is one point, which the foolish have multiplied” is a proof of Our argument, and the tradition: “Knowledge is a light which God sheddeth into the heart of whomsoever He willeth” a confirmation of Our statement. ”

“ This conviction, or impression if you will, has become stronger with years and with the knowledge of life; years have imparted, and time has but confirmed me in, the notion that any skill I possess lies in the detection of character, and the unravelment of that tangled skein which makes up human motives. ”

“ Again, we have insight when, as I insist, our acquaintance with our object is not only coherent but close and personal. Insight you cannot obtain at second hand. You can learn by rote and by hearsay many things; but if you have won insight, you have won it not without the aid of your own individual experience. ”

“ I repeat, no one knows but ourselves how much we have seen, and read, and heard, where we have been, and what we have studied, and, if we are sufficiently clever, we can let the outside world know just as much as we want it to know and no more. ”

“ Often, indeed, had he needed, sometimes he had even sighed for, the companionship of an equal or superior mind; one who, by the comprehension of his thought, and the richness of his knowledge, and the advantage of his experience, might strengthen and illuminate and guide his obscure or hesitating or unpractised intelligence. ”

“ This spirit, however, without knowledge, would be little better than a brutal rage. Let us tenderly and kindly cherish, therefore, the means of knowledge. Let us dare to read, think, speak, and write. Let every order and degree among the people rouse their attention and animate their resolution. ”

“ By the ancients, and by unreflecting people perhaps to- day, knowledge is explained as the passage of something from without into the mind — the latter, so far, at least, as its sensible affections go, being passive and receptive. ”

“ The great thinkers of the first rank who have undertaken to sound the significance of rational knowledge, {xxxv} and who have appreciated the meaning of the synthetic unity of the knowing mind and the world of objects that submit to its forms of thought, have recognized that there must be some deep-lying fundamental relation between the mind that knows and the world that is known, some Reality common to both outer and inner realms. ”

“ The 'Topic' of the Thought.—If we then consider the cognitive function of different states of mind, we may feel assured that the difference between those that are mere 'acquaintance' and those that are 'knowledges-about' is reducible almost entirely to the absence or presence of psychic fringes or overtones. Knowledge about a thing is knowledge of its relations. ”

“ I had never met a person whose mind was stored with more useful and extensive knowledge,—who had, in fact, mastered such an infinite variety of subjects, and who yet retained all his activity for the details of ordinary business. ”

“ The immediate data of consciousness are named by some philosophers sense data, by others, presentations, by others images, and there is much controversy as to their nature and existence, but with this controversy we are not here concerned—we are seeking to make clear an obvious distinction, namely, the distinction between knowledge by acquaintance and knowledge by description. ”

“ To lay open all the sources from which errour flows in upon him who contemplates his own character, would require more exact knowledge of the human heart, than, perhaps, the most acute and laborious observers have acquired. ”

“ Such knowledge is not the knowledge won by the understanding alone, but it is acquaintance with a living Person, like the knowledge which loving souls have of each other; and he who has that knowledge as the issue of his own experience may smile at doubts and questionings, and say with the Apostle of Love, 'We know that we are of God, ... ”

“ In order to know life, one must know human beings. He elaborated on this. It meant mingling with human beings, taking part in their lives, watching and comprehending the significance of the ramifications of their actions and emotions. ”

“ A man knows the names and the faces of his acquaintances. But he has some sort of insight into the characters of his familiar friends. As these examples suggest, insight is a name for a special sort and degree of knowledge. Insight is knowledge that unites a certain breadth of range, a certain wealth of acquaintance together with a certain unity and coherence of grasp, and with a certain closeness of intimacy whereby the one who has insight is brought into near touch with the objects of his insight. ”

“ As a result, we have particularly assumed the duty in our historical novels, or romanticized histories, of telling things which no one has told before, and of relating matters which we know, but of which very few persons share that knowledge with us. ”

“ If we are wiser than others, this should be evidenced by the goodness of our conversation, not by the roughness or vanity of it. Words that inform, and heal, and do good, are the marks of wisdom; not those that look great, and do mischief, and are the occasions of evil, either in ourselves or others. 2. True wisdom may be known by its works. The conversation here does not refer only to words, but to the whole of men's practice; therefore it is said, Let him show out of a good conversation his works. True wisdom does not lie in good notions or speculations so much as in good and useful actions. ”

“ Let us resume our reflections upon men, their characters, their manners, in a word, our reflections upon the world. They may help you to form yourself, and to know others; a knowledge very useful at all ages, very rare at yours. ”

“ Such conditions require comprehensive knowledge of complex matters. From such mastery the thinker results,—the thinker of consideration and considerateness. He can perceive a series of facts and the relation of each to each. ”

“ And now, if for a paragraph or two I may be even offensively abstruse, the conditions of our positive experience, of our actual knowledge, are such, and are commonly recognized to be such, that there must always be an unknown. ”

“ But when it came to be clearly felt by such persons that their endeavors were suggested by the love of knowledge, a motive different from the motives which lead to the wisdom of active life, a name was adopted of a more appropriate, as well as of a more modest signification, and they were termed philosophers, or lovers of wisdom. ”