Thomas Pynchon Quotes

I was born not knowing and have had only a little time to change that here and there.

To be conscious that you are ignorant is a great step to knowledge.

Someone once said that the most important knowledge is knowledge of our own ignorance. Our schools are depriving millions of students of that kind of knowledge by promoting "self-esteem" and encouraging them to have opinions on things of which they are grossly ignorant, if not misinformed.

I began to understand with a terrible sureness that we teach what we need to learn and write what we need to know.

Man is an ignoramus athirst for knowledge.

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

Whether it's 18 years old or 40 years old, we think we know what's going on. But if you're lucky enough to continue the journey, its amazing how we keep learning how much we didn't know.

No man should escape our universities without knowing how little he knows.

Learning how to learn is the most precious thing we have in life.

All experience is good experience.

A college education shows a man how little other people know.

Whoso neglects learning in his youth, loses the past and is dead for the future.

The doorstep to the temple of wisdom is a knowledge of our own ignorance.

The learning and knowledge that we have, is, at the most, but little compared with that of which we are ignorant.

When I was younger, I felt it essential to see every movie ever made. Now I feel as though I've got to read every book, see every art show, watch every play and opera and concert and so on. It does not end, and of course there is truth in the old cliche that the more one knows, the more one realizes one knows nothing at all.

The more I learn about things, I realise how wrong I was before.

Knowing what I don't know helps me every day.

Like anyone else, a lot of what I do and how I think has been shaped by my family and my overall life experience. Many who know me say I am also defined by my curiosity and thirst for learning. I buy more books than I can finish. I sign up for more online courses than I can complete. I fundamentally believe that if you are not learning new things, you stop doing great and useful things. So family, curiosity and hunger for knowledge all define me.

I think self-education is the greatest and best thing you could ever make.

When you think you know it all, there's not much that you'll learn.

If one does not reflect, one thinks oneself master of everything; but when one does reflect, one realizes that one is master of nothing.

A person is truly a human if he or she learns, and teaches, and inspires others. It is difficult to regard as truly human someone who is ignorant and has no desire to learn.

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.

Someone has said,"Education is going from an unconscious to conscious awareness of one's ignorance."..No one has a corner on wisdom. All the name-dropping in the world does not heighten the significance of our character. If anything, it reduces it. Our acute need is to cultivate a willingness to learn and to remain teachable.