Zhuangzi Quotes

Man wasn't made to share the universe with gods. Their ways are not meant for the humble likes of us. But we've decoded some of their secrets regardless. Like worms, we've grabbed on to the talons of eagles and learned some small truths and means of flight. But we can never really fly. We try, and succeed to a certain extent, but the fall is always - will always be - there.

Of course, I don't know everything. Considering the infinite amount of knowledge that one could acquire in a virtually innumerable array of intellectual disciplines, it's probably more accurate to say that I don't know anything.

I was brought up to believe that the only thing worth doing was to add to the sum of accurate information in the world.

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

A little too wise, they say, do ne'er live long.

What we want is to see the child in pursuit of knowledge, and not knowledge in pursuit of the child.

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.

We are shallow because we are 'mayabang,' ego driven, and do not have the humility to understand that we are only human, much too human to mistake knowledge for wisdom.

Nothing is so fatal to the progress of the human mind as to suppose that our views of science are ultimate; that there are no mysteries in nature; that our triumphs are complete, and that there are no new worlds to conquer.

I try to be well informed. I don't know how well I do all the time, but I try nonetheless.

There is an army of the informed wanting to be more informed.

The only thing more dangerous than ignorance is arrogance.

The more you think you know, the more closed-minded you'll be.

My father taught me that learning is an endless process, and that there is no limit to the amount of knowledge a person can contain. You are never too old to learn something new, or too young to learn too much.

There's no limit to how much you'll know, depending how far beyond zebra you go.

Now that physics is proving the intelligence of the universe what are we to do about the stupidity of mankind? I include myself. I know that the earth is not flat but my feet are. I know that space is curved but my brain has been condoned by habit to grow in a straight line. What I call light is my own blend of darkness. What I call a view is my hand-painted trompe-l'oeil. I run after knowledge like a ferret down a ferret hole. My limitations, I call the boundaries of what can be known. I interpret the world by confusing other people's psychology with my own.

Only gods can safely risk perfection ... it's a dangerous thing for a man.

Knowledge is boundless,--human capacity, limited.

Think not to match yourself against the gods, for men that walk the earth cannot hold their own with the immortals.

One can become as intellectually arrogant about spirituality as about empirical science.

Be for ever a student. He and he alone is an old man who feels that he has learnt enough and has need for no more knowledge.

If there's anything worse than knowing too little, it's knowing too much. Education will broaden a narrow mind, but there's no known cure for a big head. The best you can hope is that it will swell up and bust.

The history of science shows that great mysteries get solved. It may be that there's an answer that humans are too stupid to understand. I'm intrigued by that possibility.

There are, in effect, two things, to know and to believe one knows; to know is science; to believe one knows is ignorance.

A foolish man thinks he knows everything. A wise man knows he doesn't.