Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel Quotes

In praising science, it does not follow that we must adopt the very poor philosophies which scientific men have constructed. In philosophy they have much more to learn than to teach.

I know nothing, except the fact of my ignorance.

To decide to become a philosopher seemed as foolish to me as to decide to become a poet.

My reading of philosophy and history is desultory; I know so much and yet so little.

No man who worships education has got the best out of education... Without a gentle contempt for education no man's education is complete.

Only Socrates knew, after a lifetime of unceasing labor, that he was ignorant. Now every high-school student knows that. How did it become so easy?

To know yet to think that one does not know is best; Not to know yet to think that one knows will lead to difficulty.

The learned man knows that he is ignorant.

No man should escape our universities without knowing how little he knows.

Only as an individual can man become a philosopher.

I was a philosophy major as an undergraduate, and I'm just an arrogant little thing. It's hard for me to admit that I can't understand something, let alone not be in charge of it.

Doubt is the origin of wisdom.

We need the self-confidence to admit that at best we possess only a partial understanding of the truth, which can be enlarged by refining our views in light of new arguments, new circumstances and new insights. But this requires us to listen to others, to weigh their arguments with care, and maybe even to learn from them.

A certain degree of intellectual humility is a good thing.

I built a career out of knowing what I don't know.

The only thing more dangerous than ignorance is arrogance.

I learned that I'm not young enough to think I know everything. Honestly. I think you hit a certain point in life where you expect that you have so much to learn, and you may think that you've arrived, but you have kind of just begun.

I am wiser than this man, for neither of us appears to know anything great and good; but he fancies he knows something, although he knows nothing; whereas I, as I do not know anything, so I do not fancy I do. In this trifling particular, then, I appear to be wiser than he, because I do not fancy I know what I do not know.

I see I have made my self a slave to Philosophy.

The Man That Knowz Something Knowz That He Knowz Nothing At All.

A man never reaches that dizzy height of wisdom when he can no longer be led by the nose.

Discourses on humility are a source of pride in the vain and of humility in the humble. So those on scepticism cause believers to affirm. Few men speak humbly of humility, chastely of chastity, few doubtingly of scepticism.

Only one who has learned much can fully appreciate his ignorance.

The man who thinks he knows something does not yet know as he ought to know.

It is precisely in knowing its limits that philosophy consists.