Francois de La Rochefoucauld Quotes

I do not approve the maxim which desires a man to know a little of everything. Superficial knowledge, knowledge without principles, is almost always useless and sometimes harmful knowledge.

To understand matters rightly we should understand their details; and as that knowledge is almost infinite, our knowledge is always superficial and imperfect.

I am conscious of my inability to grasp, in all its details and positive developments, any very large portion of human knowledge.

No one sees further into a generalization than his own knowledge of detail extends.

In proportion as man approaches the outer rim, he becomes lost in details, and the more he is preoccupied with details, the less he can understand them.

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.

Ignorance is a treasure of infinite price that most men squander, when they should cherish its least fragments; some ruin it by educating themselves, others, unable to so much as conceive of making use of it, let it waste away. Quite on the contrary, we should search for it assiduously in what we think we know best. Leaf through a dictionary or try to make one, and you will find that every word covers and masks a well so bottomless that the questions you toss into it arouse no more than an echo.

None of our beliefs are quite true; all have at least a penumbra of vagueness and error.

(Reply on what constitutes scientific proof:)"The question is much too difficult for me.

I prefer true but imperfect knowledge, even if it leaves much undetermined and unpredictable, to a pretense of exact knowledge that is likely to be false.

I would have offered you a forest of truth, but you wish to speak of a single leaf

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.

More details, more devils.

It is in applied psychology, if anywhere, that today we should be modest and grant validity to a number of apparently contradictory opinions; for we are still far from having anything like a thorough knowledge of the human psyche, that most challenging field of scientific enquiry. For the present we have merely more or less plausible opinions that defy reconciliation.

Truth lies in a small compass! The Aristotelians say, all truth is contained in Aristotle, in one place or another. Galileo makes Simplicius say so, but shows the absurdity of that speech by answering all truth is contained in a lesser compass, namely, in the alphabet.

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

I know nothing, because I know too much, and understand not nearly enough and never will.

Reality is always greater - much greater - than what we know, than whatever we can say about it.

I'm not going to talk too much politics because I'm not smart enough to do that.

It is an advantage to all narrow wisdom and narrow morals that their maxims have a plausible air; and, on a cursory view, appear equal to first principles. They are light and portable. They are as current as copper coin; and about as valuable.

The more I know, the less I understand

Truth is much too complicated to allow anything but approximations.

No one really knows enough to be a pessimist.

Never trust to general impressions, my boy, but concentrate yourself upon details.