Luc de Clapiers Quotes

Superficial knowledge ... is hurtful to those who possess true genius; for it necessarily draws them away from their main object, wastes their industry over details and subjects foreign to their needs and natural talent, and lastly does not serve, as they flatter themselves, to prove the breadth of their mind. In all ages there have been men of very moderate intelligence who knew much, and so on the contrary, men of the highest intelligence who knew very little. Ignorance is not lack of intelligence, nor knowledge a proof of genius.

I always worry that I'm a dilettante: I know something about lots of things but don't have exhaustive knowledge of much. Take dance music: I like enough of it and its history to be able to say a word or two about this or that record, but I'm nobody's authority. I couldn't name more than a couple of good drum'n'bass acts, and I have no idea what's big in the dance world right now.

It is necessary, in order to know things well, to know the particulars of them; and these, being infinite, make our knowledge eversuperficial and imperfect.

A mere index hunter, who held the eel of science by the tail. Index-hunter is a term used mockingly, meaning one who acquires superficial knowledge merely by consulting indexes. The '[holding] the eel of science by the tail' allusion was used in 1728 by Alexander Pope (q.v.).

A smattering of everything is worth little. It is a fallacy to suppose that an encyclopaedic knowledge is desirable. The mind is made strong, not through much learning, but by the thorough possession of something.

To be master of any branch of knowledge, you must master those which lie next to it, and thus to know anything you must know all.

Expertise in one field does not carry over into other fields. But experts often think so. The narrower their field of knowledge the more likely they are to think so.

It seems plain and self-evident, yet it needs to be said: the isolated knowledge obtained by a group of specialists in a narrow field has in itself no value whatsoever, but only in its synthesis with all the rest of knowledge and only inasmuch as it really contributes in this synthesis toward answering the demand, "Who are we?"

To form a strong opinion, you have to be knowledgeable about the subject. You have to have access to all the relevant information. You gotta be literally an expert.

If you go and talk to most people, they mean well but they don't have much of a breadth on education, of knowledge of understanding what the real issues are and therefore they listen to pundits on television who tell them what they are supposed to think and they keep repeating that until pretty soon they say, 'Oh, well that must be true.'

I have this assemblage of small facts, which looks like intelligence but no real depth of knowledge about anything. That's why I'm an actor.

There is nothing so stupid as the educated man if you get him off the thing he was educated in.

I know a lot about a few things - mostly useless things.

I always worry that I'm a dilettante: I know something about lots of things but don't have exhaustive knowledge of much.

One whose knowledge is confined to books and whose wealth is in the possession of others, can use neither his knowledge nor wealth when the need for them arises.

I don't know what's the matter with people: they don't learn by understanding; they learn by some other way - by rote, or something. Their knowledge is so fragile!

A smattering of everything, and a knowledge of nothing.

There's so much knowledge to be had that specialists cling to their specialties as a shield against having to know anything about anything else. They avoid being drowned.

To know only one thing well is to have a barbaric mind: civilization implies the graceful relation of all varieties of experience to a central humane system of thought. The present age is peculiarly barbaric: introduce, say, a Hebrew scholar to an ichthyologist or an authority on Danish place names and the pair of them would have no single topic in common but the weather or the war (if there happened to be a war in progress, which is usual in this barbaric age).

Cynics know the answers without having penetrated deeply enough to know the questions. When challenged by mysterious truths, they marshall 'facts.

The internet has spawned people for whom knowingness is more important than knowledge. It equips you with the illusion of offering knowledge instantly - and quite easily - so you can read a few articles on a few subjects and feel well informed but not actually know any of those subjects in any depth.

A mere index hunter, who held the eel of science by the tail.

To understand one thing well is better than understanding many things by halves.

He who speaks a bit of a foreign language has more delight in it than he who speaks it well; pleasure goes along with superficial knowledge.