Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes

The more one gardens, the more one learns; And the more one learns, the more one realizes how little one knows.

Everybody gets told to write about what they know. The trouble with many of us is that at the earlier stages of life we think we know everything- or to put it more usefully, we are often unaware of the scope and structure of our ignorance.

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

If one does not reflect, one thinks oneself master of everything; but when one does reflect, one realizes that one is master of nothing.

There are few things reason can discover with so much certainty and ease as its own insufficiency.

I don't know anything and neither do you.

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.

Of all that writ, he was the wisest bard, who spoke this mighty truth- He that knew all that ever learning writ, Knew only this-that he knew nothing yet.

Wise men learn more from fools than fools from the wise.

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

Someone has said,"Education is going from an unconscious to conscious awareness of one's ignorance."..No one has a corner on wisdom. All the name-dropping in the world does not heighten the significance of our character. If anything, it reduces it. Our acute need is to cultivate a willingness to learn and to remain teachable.

Someone once said that the most important knowledge is knowledge of our own ignorance. Our schools are depriving millions of students of that kind of knowledge by promoting "self-esteem" and encouraging them to have opinions on things of which they are grossly ignorant, if not misinformed.

We learn nothing by being right.

Science increases our power in proportion as it lowers our pride.

Grown people know that they do not always know the way of things, and even if they think they know, they do not know where and how they got the proof.

The teacher is one who makes two ideas grow where only one grew before.

The wise man is one who knows what he does not know.

Close beside my knowledge lies my black ignorance.

When you get out of college, you think, "I've learned all I need to learn."

I am enormously wise and abysmally ignorant.

Knowledge always desires increase, it is like fire, which must first be kindled by some external agent, but which will afterwards propagate itself.

At the simplest level, only people who know they do not know everything will be curious enough to find things out.

Our passion for learning ... is our tool for survival.

Admission of ignorance is often the first step in our education.

In order to acquire learning, we must first shake ourselves free of it.