Jacques Attali Quotes

To know the world, one must construct it

For twenty-five centuries, Western knowledge has tried to look upon the world. It has failed to understand that the world is not for the beholding. It is for hearing. It is not legible, but audible. Our science has always desired to monitor, measure, abstract, and castrate meaning, forgetting that life is full of noise and that death alone is silent: work noise, noise of man, and noise of beast. Noise bought, sold, or prohibited. Nothing essential happens in the absence of noise.

It requires wisdom to understand wisdom: the music is nothing if the audience is deaf.

You wish to see; listen. Hearing is a step toward Vision.

If I can learn to understand this language without words, I can learn to understand the world.

There is a difference between listening and hearing, just as there is a difference between seeing and knowing.

You can not hear what you do not understand.

But we shall not know the world by looking at it; we know it by looking at the hovering fly.

What transforms this world is - knowledge. Do you see what I mean? Nothing else can change anything in this world. Knowledge alone is capable of transforming the world, while at the same time leaving it exactly as it is. When you look at the world with knowledge, you realize that things are unchangeable and at the same time are constantly being transformed.

Wherever we are, what we hear is mostly noise. When we ignore it, it disturbs us. When we listen to it, we find it fascinating.

People aren't hearing all the music.

Fundamentally, I have no idea how the world works, though I am trying to figure it out.

You heard me. You ain't blind.

Sit here long enough you get to know everything. You listen, see ?" She taps the side of her head. "Nobody listens any more. Everyone knows what they want to hear, but nobody actually listens.

We never know the reality of things: we see only what we are aware of. It is our consciousness that determines the shape of the world around us -- its size, motion and meaning.

I, who have never heard a sound, tell you there is no silence, and I, who have never seen a ray of light, tell you there is no darkness.

You can only live in the world you ken. The rest is just wishful thinking or paranoia.

The wise man knows of all things, as far as possible, although he has no knowledge of each of them in detail

All understanding begins with our not accepting the world as it appears.

Thinking does not lead to truth; truth is the beginning of thought.

Things of which there is sight, hearing, apprehension, these I prefer.

Truth is available to the ears that can hear it.

Is Knowledge knowable? If not, how do we know?

Ultimately, all things are known because you want to believe you know.