Knowledge (n.) is an attitude, a passion, actually an illicit attitude. The compulsion to know is like dipsomania, erotomania, and homicidal mania that produces a character that is out of balance. It is knowledge of this sort, and not at all the truth, which the scientist goes after.
Knowledge (n.) is the infinite art of ambiguity: at its highest it brings opposing possibilities into equilibrium; decision, and the personality, begin only with the “ergo” of faith.
Knowledge (n.) does not defile a man — it is transparent, like the purest water, which is tasteless; suspicion defiles knowledge, as love purifies it.
Knowledge (n.) that thinks it enough to think the great starves like Midas — everything it touches turns to gold.
Knowledge (n.) even at its most glorious is only a presupposition; he who heaps up presuppositions is like the miser with money he cannot use — and he who knew so much that he appropriated nothing is as defrauded as he who knew little.
Knowledge (n.) unused is like a first mate who passed every exam and never went to sea: he knows what to do in a storm but not the terror when the stars vanish and the helm becomes the sea's toy.
Knowledge (n.) gained before God has a witness, an accomplice who knows you know, and from that complicity you can never slip back into innocent ignorance.
Knowledge (n.) brings sorrow, and as a man is educated the simple grows harder for him.