Jonathan Swift Quotes

If all you have is faith, then you never actually know anything.

Knowledge is true opinion.

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

Belief and knowledge are considered to be two different things. But they are not.

The farther reason looks the greater is the haze in which it loses itself.

Opinion is the medium between knowledge and ignorance.

A very great deal more truth can become known than can be proved.

We'd all like to be certain of what we know, but I think the most important question is to ask yourself do you really know what you know?

All that belongs to human understanding, in this deep ignorance and obscurity, is to be sceptical, or at least cautious, and not to admit of any hypothesis whatever, much less of any which is supported by no appearance of probability.

On the road halfway between faith and criticism stands the inn of reason. Reason is faith in what can be understood without faith, but it's still a faith, since to understand presupposes that there's something understandable.

Is there any knowledge in the world which is so certain that no reasonable man could doubt it?

He who doubts, knows - knows as much as can be known.

Grown people know that they do not always know the way of things, and even if they think they know, they do not know where and how they got the proof.

You must learn all things, both the unshaken heart of persuasive truth, and the opinions of mortals in which there is no true warranty.

We must not let go manifest truths because we cannot answer all questions about them.

The agnostic does not simply say, "l do not know." He goes another step, and he says, with great emphasis, that you do not know. He insists that you are trading on the ignorance of others, and on the fear of others. He is not satisfied with saying that you do not know, -- he demonstrates that you do not know, and he drives you from the field of fact -- he drives you from the realm of reason -- he drives you from the light, into the darkness of conjecture -- into the world of dreams and shadows, and he compels you to say, at last, that your faith has no foundation in fact.

Every advance in knowledge brings us face to face with the mystery of our own being.

Belief is in ignorance. If you know, you know. And it is good that if you don’t know, know that you don’t know — the belief can deceive you. The belief can create an atmosphere in your mind, where, without knowing, you start thinking that you know. Belief is not trust, and the more strongly you say that you believe totally, the more you are afraid of the doubt within you.

God forbid that Truth should be confined to Mathematical Demonstration!

Seeing is believing and believing is knowing and knowing beats unknowing and the unknown.

Logic is the foundation of the certainty of all the knowledge we acquire.

We do not know a truth without knowing its cause.

To know is always better, no matter what the answer might be.

She wouldn't say what we both knew. 'The reason you will not say it is, when you say it, even to yourself, you will know it is true: is that it? But you know it is true now. I can almost tell you the day when you knew it is true. Why won't you say it, even to yourself?' She will not say it.

Every science in a certain degree starts from faith, and, on the contrary, faith, which does not lead to science, is mistaken faith or superstition, but real, genuine faith it is not.