W. N. P. Barbellion Quotes

In your thirst for knowledge, be sure not to drown in all the information.

The pursuit of knowledge is an intoxicant, a lure that scientists and explorers have known from ancient times; indeed, exhilaration in the pursuit of knowledge is part of what has kept our species so adaptive.

I have read my books by many lights, hoarding their beauty, their wit or wisdom against the dark days when I would have no book, nor a place to read. I have known hunger of the belly kind many times over, but I have known a worse hunger: the need to know and to learn.

Sometimes when I'm in a bookstore or library, I am overwhelmed by all the things that I do not know. Then I am seized by a powerful desire to read all the books, one by one.

I started reading. I read everything I could get my hands on...By the time I was thirteen I had read myself out of Harlem. I had read every book in two libraries and had a card for the Forty-Second Street branch.

There are many, many books I've read and I think this is quite naïve actually because we all just try to uncover something. But the universe at large is full of questions that we still don't know anything about and there will be always young people brilliant who are going to make new discoveries.

I have never been able to understand anyone on this planet who lacks a need for knowledge. Is it not God's greatest gift to us all, this capacity to think, to wonder, to imagine?

And how shall I think of you?' He considered a moment and then laughed. 'Think of me with my nose in a book!

Some men covet knowledge out of a natural curiosity and inquisitive temper; some to entertain the mind with variety and delight; some for ornament and reputation; some for victory and contention; many for lucre and a livelihood; and but few for employing the Divine gift of reason to the use and benefit of mankind.

I don’t really know what “intellectual” means, but if it means you’ve got a desire to learn, you’ve got a desire to look for things that haven’t been presented to you, then, maybe. I think that “intellectual” is quite an exclusive word. I think it’s just for anyone that has a thirst or a hunger to improve themselves, or a yearning to escape from somewhere to get to a better place.

We ought to be ten times as hungry for knowledge as for food for the body.

I read,' I say. 'I study and read. I bet I've read everything you've read. Don't think I haven't. I consume libraries. I wear out spines and ROM drives. I do things like get in a taxi and say, "The library, and step on it.

A man becomes a philosopher by reason of a certain perplexity, from which he seeks to free himself.

Personally, I don't pick books for how people think about me. I read books so I can learn.

The desire for knowledge shapes a man.

It is the pain of ignorance which makes one into a seeker.

I have always thirsted for knowledge, I have always been full of questions.

I think I may have too much of a scientific mindset and am always looking for the caveats and qualifications in any situation. I never thought seriously of doing a PhD until relatively late in the day. I was always diligent at the book-work at university but the brightest amongst my friends all seemed to have a more intuitive grasp of the subject.

My chief time for reading is at night while brushing my hair before I go to bed, and as you may suppose, but little profit and pleasure can be derived from such mere sips at the well of knowledge. 'Tis a great privation to me, for my desire for information increases instead of diminishing, and I look forward with great anxiety to the time when I can improve my poor neglected mind and learn some of the few exhaustless store of things which I wish to know.

The thing that keeps me most awake is the desire and curiosity to learn more.

The pursuit of knowledge is, I think, mainly actuated by love of power. And so are all advances in scientific technique.

I was doing a terrible thing in using the very books you clung to, to rebut you on every hand, on every point! What traitors books can be! You think they're backing you up, and then they turn on you. Others can use them, too, and there you are, lost in the middle of the moor, in a great welter of nouns and verbs and adjectives.

Vice is perhaps a desire to learn everything.

Curiosity might be pictured as being made up of chains of small questions extending outwards, sometimes over huge distances, from a central hub composed of a few blunt, large questions.

Man is an ignoramus athirst for knowledge.