Democritus Quotes

The learned man knows that he is ignorant.

The natural desire of good men is knowledge.

They know enough who know how to learn.

The greater the step forward in knowledge, the greater is the one taken backward in search of wisdom.

The noblest pleasure is the joy of understanding.

Wisdom and understanding can only become the possession of individual men by travelling the old road of observation, attention, perseverance, and industry.

I do sometimes accuse people of ignorance, but that is not intended to be an insult. I'm ignorant of lots of things. Ignorance is something that can be remedied by education.

Question everything. Learn something. Answer nothing.

One of the great things about education is that it should stop you making mistakes - and I have made a lot of mistakes.

It is only through reading that one can understand how people are smarter than you and what they have left behind for you.

Wise men don't need concrete answers. By definition, they need wisdom." ~ Geraki

A capacity, and taste, for reading gives access to whatever has already been discovered by others.

Our understanding of the world around us is constantly being redefined and expanded, and so therefore, it is wiser to be passionate about seeking for truth than knowing it.

No man who worships education has got the best out of education... Without a gentle contempt for education no man's education is complete.

My mother was a dominant force in my life. She had a very specific idea about education, which was: you should know everything about everything. It was quite simple. There was no exclusivity, and there really was no judgment.

Being ignorant is not so much a shame, as being unwilling to learn.

Anything that gives us new knowledge gives us an opportunity to be more rational.

The greatest and noblest pleasure which we have in this world is to discover new truths, and the next is to shake off old prejudices.

The more I read, the more I realise what I don't know.

People disparage knowing and the intellectual life, and urge doing. I am content with knowing, if only I could know.

Education is not just about going to school and getting a degree. It's about widening your knowledge and absorbing the truth about life.

There are more men ennobled by study than by nature.

All men by nature desire knowledge.

The person is always happy who is in the presence of something they cannot know in full. A person as advanced far in the study of morals who has mastered the difference between pride and vanity.

As far as knowledge goes I've come a long way.