Michael Polanyi Quotes

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

Knowledge, unlike information, is a human characteristic; there can be information no one knows, but there can't be knowledge no one knows.

This means that no single logic is strong enough to support the total construction of human knowledge.

To every object there correspond an ideally closed system of truths that are true of it and, on the other hand, an ideal system of possible cognitive processes by virtue of which the object and the truths about it would be given to any cognitive subject.

All human knowledge thus begins with intuitions, proceeds thence to concepts, and ends with ideas.

I have been a strong proponent of helping people understand that during the last decade or so, as it lies at the very bottom of how we know anything. Let me give a couple examples to get that point across.

Information is endlessly available to us; where shall wisdom be found?

The important thing is how we know, not what or how much.

One cannot come back too often to the question what is knowledge and to the answer knowledge is what one knows.... Knowledge is the thing you know and how can you know more than you do know.

We do not know a truth without knowing its cause.

All human knowledge takes the form of interpretation.

All our knowledge begins with the senses, proceeds then to the understanding, and ends with reason. There is nothing higher than reason.

Knowledge consists in understanding the evidence that establishes the fact, not in the belief that it is a fact.

No Discourse whatsoever, can End in absolute Knowledge of Fact.

It is the duty of the human understanding to understand that there are things which it cannot understand, and what those things are

Data is not necessarily information. Information does not necessarily lead to knowledge. And knowledge is not always sufficient to discover truth and breed wisdom.

From fiction, you do not get to learn much because it is only imagination. Whereas, from non-fiction, people can understand and learn from the realities it covers.

It's one thing thinking something and another thing knowing it.

Small facts lead to great knowing.

Human reason has this peculiar fate that in one species of its knowledge it is burdened by questions which, as prescribed by the very nature of reason itself, it is not able to ignore, but which, as transcending all its powers, it is also not able to answer.

Ultimately all knowing, from the highest to the lowest, is the result of experience; it arises on the way of experiences.

Science is not wisdom.

Know what you know and know that you don't know what you don't know — that is the characteristic of one who knows.

No human mind can comprehend all the knowledge which guides the actions of society.

Ideas are everywhere, but knowledge is rare.