intellectual modesty Quotes

Many would be wise if they did not think themselves wise.

They only are wise who know that they know nothing.

Do not believe that you alone can be right.The man who thinks that,The man who maintains that only he has the powerTo reason correctly, the gift to speak, the soul-A man like that, when you know him, turns out empty.

The wise know too well their weakness to assume infallibility; and he who knows most knows best how little he knows.

I've read Proust and Stendhal. That keeps you in your place.

We forget that Socrates was famed for wisdom not because he was omniscient but because he realized at the age of seventy that he still knew nothing.

There is an unseemly exposure of the mind, as well as of the body.

The wisest man is generally he who thinks himself the least so.

The wisest man is he who does not fancy that he is so at all.

We need modesty not only in the way we dress; we need intellectual modesty.

I try to steer away from high metaphysical belief because I think we humans do best when we realize that we don't know all that much.

Conceit is a privilege of the ignorant; the wise man is humble because he knows how little he knows.

Of all that writ, he was the wisest bard, who spoke this mighty truth- He that knew all that ever learning writ, Knew only this-that he knew nothing yet.

Long experience has taught me this about the status of mankind with regard to matters requiring thought: the less people know and understand about them, the more positively they attempt to argue concerning them, while on the other hand to know and understand a multitude of things renders men cautious in passing judgment upon anything new.

To recognize our bias toward error should teach us modesty and reflection, and to forgive it should help us avoid the inhumanity of thinking we ourselves are not as fallible as those who, in any instance, seem most at fault. Science can give us knowledge, but it cannot give us wisdom. Nor can religion, until it puts aside nonsense and distraction and becomes itself again.

What I learned is that it's arrogant to be certain of anything. The world is a complex place and only idiots or assholes think they know it all.

The unanswerable mysteries... the attitude that all is uncertain... to summarize it - the humility of the intellect.

Methinks sometimes I have no more wit than a Christian.

Women ought not to know their own wit, because they will still be showing it, and so spoil it.

Always consider your intellect to be lacking; otherwise too much faith in it surely leads to error.

If men are really humble, they will realize that they discover, but do not create, truth.

However modest one may be in one's demand for intellectual cleanliness, one cannot help feeling, when coming into contact with the New Testament, a kind of inexpressible discomfiture: for the unchecked impudence with which the least qualified want to raise their voice on the greatest problems, and even claim to be judges of such things, surpasses all measure. The shameless levity with which the most intractable problems (life, world, God, purpose of life) are spoken of, as if they were not problems at all but simply things that these little bigots knew!

Well I am certainly wiser than this man. It is only too likely that neither of us has any knowledge to boast of; but he thinks that he knows something which he does not know, whereas I am quite conscious of my ignorance. At any rate it seems that I am wiser than he is to this small extent, that I do not think that I know what I do not know.

Let each of us boldly and honestly say: How little it is that I really know!

It is unwise to be too sure of one's own wisdom.