Daniel H. Wilson Quotes

We used to think that if we knew one, we knew two, because one and one are two. We are finding that we must learn a great deal more about 'and'.

Every fact is related on one side to sensation, and, on the other, to morals. The game of thought is, on the appearance of one of these two sides, to find the other: given the upper, to find the under side.

There is a truth in Schopenhauer’s view that philosophy is an organism, and that a book on philosophy, with a beginning and end, is a sort of contradiction. ... In philosophy matters are not simple enough for us to say ‘Let’s get a rough idea’, for we do not know the country except by knowing the connections between the roads.

Education is understanding relationships.

My trademark at CNN was really asking insightful questions and making sure people are understanding the connections in humanity, and I think that is the core of education.

To understand is to perceive patterns.

Women study things in order to figure out how they're connected to other things. I don't know if it's controversial to say that, but that's what I've seen from doing science for a couple of decades.

One thing I've learned: you can know anything, it's all there, you just have to find it.

Everything you learn becomes a shortcut for understanding something else.

All things are filled full of signs, and it is a wise man who can learn about one thing from another.

You should know the ins and outs [of the marriage]. So it was nice to see a little bit of background.

Knowledge is not a loose leaf notebook of facts.

To teach details is to bring confusion; to establish the relationship between things is to bring knowledge.

If you understand something in only one way, then you don't really understand it at all. The secret of what anything means to us depends on how we've connected it to all other things we know. Well-connected representations let you turn ideas around in your mind, to envision things from many perspectives until you find one that works for you. And that's what we mean by thinking!

Finding patterns is the essence of wisdom

The way to eliminate ignorance is through steady, focused discrimination between the observer and the world.

The old adage which says that it is ‘whom you know that counts’ is far off the mark. It is what you know about whom you know that truly makes difference.

In the same way, the world is not the sum of all the things that are in it. It is the infinitely complex network of connections among them. As in the meanings of words, things take on meaning only in relationship to each other.

I realized then that I didn't understand anything. I read all the books I could.

Content if hence th' unlearn'd their wants may view, The learn'd reflect on what before they knew.

Phenomena intersect; to see but one is to see nothing.

Theory is continually the precursor of truth; we must pass through the twilight and its shade, to arrive at the full and perfect day.

To understand the whole it is necessary to understand the parts. To understand the parts, it is necessary to understand the whole. Such is the circle of understanding.

One who knows nothing can understand nothing.

Understanding is, after all, what science is all about — and science is a great deal more than mindless computation.