Omnipotence is not knowing how everything is done; it’s just doing it.

The highest form of ignorance is when you reject something you don’t know anything about.

Knowledge about life is one thing; effective occupation of a place in life, with its dynamic currents passing through your being, is another.

Please don’t make the mistake of thinking that ‚Oryx and Crake‘ is anti-science. Science is a way of knowing, and a tool. Like all ways of knowing and tools, it can be turned to bad uses. And it can be bought and sold, and it often is. But it is not in itself bad. Like electricity, it’s neutral.

I do not believe in a fate that falls on men however they act; but I do believe in a fate that falls on them unless they act.

He who knows best knows how little he knows.

A truly good book teaches me better than to read it. I must soon lay it down, and commence living on its hint. What I began by reading, I must finish by acting.

The degree of one’s emotions varies inversely with one’s knowledge of the facts.

The word ‚belief‘ is a difficult thing for me. I don’t believe. I must have a reason for a certain hypothesis. Either I know a thing, and then I know it – I don’t need to believe it.

Example is the school of mankind, and they will learn at no other.

We are always doing something for posterity, but I would fain see posterity do something for us.

For my part I know nothing with any certainty, but the sight of the stars makes me dream.

Everywhere in life, the true question is not what we gain, but what we do.

One thing is sure. We have to do something. We have to do the best we know how at the moment… If it doesn’t turn out right, we can modify it as we go along.

If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.

What can I know? What ought I to do? What can I hope?

So many objections may be made to everything, that nothing can overcome them but the necessity of doing something.

Study men, not historians.

Between the ages of fifteen and twenty-four, I must have read a whole library.

I am often amazed at how much more capability and enthusiasm for science there is among elementary school youngsters than among college students.

Chaotic action is preferable to orderly inaction.

All that mankind has done, thought or been: it is lying as in magic preservation in the pages of books.

Knowledge without justice ought to be called cunning rather than wisdom.

Ultimately, education in its real sense is the pursuit of truth. It is an endless journey through knowledge and enlightenment.

Knowledge is true opinion.

Knowledge will give you power, but character respect.

The doors of wisdom are never shut.

We seem gradually to be groping toward an understanding of the world of subatomic particles, but we really do not know how far we have yet to go in this task.

Shun no toil to make yourself remarkable by some talent or other; yet do not devote yourself to one branch exclusively. Strive to get clear notions about all. Give up no science entirely; for science is but one.

The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing.

Dogmatism and skepticism are both, in a sense, absolute philosophies; one is certain of knowing, the other of not knowing. What philosophy should dissipate is certainty, whether of knowledge or ignorance.

Things won are done, joy’s soul lies in the doing.

The one exclusive sign of thorough knowledge is the power of teaching.

Do you want to know who you are? Don’t ask. Act! Action will delineate and define you.

The proper study of mankind is books.

Words do two major things: They provide food for the mind and create light for understanding and awareness.

Action is character.

In much of society, research means to investigate something you do not know or understand.

The pursuit of science leads only to the insoluble.

Wisdom alone is the science of other sciences.

Reading is equivalent to thinking with someone else’s head instead of with one’s own.

Science has explained nothing; the more we know the more fantastic the world becomes and the profounder the surrounding darkness.

For, verily, great love springs from great knowledge of the beloved object, and if you little know it, you will be able to love it only little or not at all.

Ignorant men raise questions that wise men answered a thousand years ago.

Each piece, or part, of the whole of nature is always merely an approximation to the complete truth, or the complete truth so far as we know it. In fact, everything we know is only some kind of approximation because we know that we do not know all the laws as yet.

No sooner said than done – so acts your man of worth.

We always overestimate the change that will occur in the next two years and underestimate the change that will occur in the next ten. Don’t let yourself be lulled into inaction.

A learned blockhead is a greater blockhead than an ignorant one.

Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.

Learning without thought is labor lost; thought without learning is perilous.

Action expresses priorities.

The difference between what we do and what we are capable of doing would suffice to solve most of the world’s problems.

What you don’t do can be a destructive force.

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

Much learning does not teach understanding.

To act is to be committed, and to be committed is to be in danger.

Sure it’s a big job; but I don’t know anyone who can do it better than I can.

Few people are capable of expressing with equanimity opinions which differ from the prejudices of their social environment. Most people are even incapable of forming such opinions.

Men blaspheme what they do not know.

Temptation is just the feeling that you’re the most independent person on planet Earth. That you know everything. That’s something that we all go through as a kid. Now, this lifestyle that I’m in, the same thing exists! But it’s 10 times worse, because everything is at my disposal. When you’re in the limelight, you can get anything you want.

The aim of a college education is to teach you to know a good man when you see one.