Greg Bear Quotes

We can be absolutely certain only about things we do not understand.

There are many things that I don't understand.

The more I see, the less I know.

The more I know, the less I understand

Every clarification breeds new questions.

To know anything well involves a profound sensation of ignorance.

Our knowledge is a receding mirage in an expanding desert of ignorance.

In order to have wisdom we must have ignorance.

The more I see the less I know for sure.

The greater the knowledge, the greater the doubt.

A sage steers by the bright light of confusion and doubt.

All wisdom ends in paradox.

The greater our knowledge increases the more our ignorance unfolds.

Anyone who isn't confused really doesn't understand the situation.

The opposite of a fact is falsehood, but the opposite of one profound truth may very well be another profound truth.

Doubt grows with knowledge.

I've reached the age of self-knowledge, so I don't know anything. People who claim that they know something are responsible for most of the fuss in the world.

Sometimes attaining the deepest familiarity with a question is our best substitute for actually having the answer.

It's very hard to know what wisdom is.

In expanding the field of knowledge we but increase the horizon of ignorance.

So basically, I don't know what I'm talking about. But maybe I do.

The one recurring theme in my writing, and in my life in general, is confusion. The fact that anytime you think you really know something, you're going to find out you're wrong - that is the rule. The moments where you think you have something figured out, those are the exceptions.

The more you learn, the more you learn you don't know.

Basically, I really love work that puts the reader into a kind of vertigo, into a real doubt, and a beautiful way to convey that, a really perfect metaphor for that, is to make the reader also experience doubt.

Only a blind man can easily define what light is. When you do not know, you are bold. Ignorance is always bold; knowledge hesitates. And the more you know, the more you feel that the ground underneath is dissolving. The more you know, the more you feel how ignorant you are.