Jeremy Collier Quotes

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.

In formulating any philosophy the first consideration must always be: What can we know? That is, what can we be sure we know, or sure that we know we knew it, if indeed it is at all knowable. Or have we simply forgotten it and are too embarrassed to say anything? Descartes hinted at the problem when he wrote, 'My mind can never know my body, although it has become quite friendly with my legs.

there is only one thing we do know and that is that we do not know anything.

But teleological considerations can lead no further than to a belief and a hope. They do not give certainty.

No human being will ever know the Truth, for even if they happen to say it by chance, they would not even known they had done so.

I know nothing, except the fact of my ignorance.

A very great deal more truth can become known than can be proved.

We will never have 100 percent certainty except in hindsight.

There is only one thing about which I am certain, and that is that there is very little about which one can be certain.

Some like to understand what they believe in. Others like to believe in what they understand.

The more we learn the more we realize how little we know.

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.

The goal is to know how not-to-know.

I am not omniscient, but I know a lot.

Understanding that rests in what it does not understand is the finest.

The more man learned, the more he realized he did not know.

Is there any knowledge in the world which is so certain that no reasonable man could doubt it?

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

There are two threats to reason, the opinion that one knows the truth about the most important things and the opinion that there is no truth about them. Both of these opinions are fatal to philosophy; the first asserts that the quest for truth is unnecessary, while the second asserts that it is impossible. The Socratic knowledge of ignorance, which I take to be the beginning point of all philosophy, defines the sensible middle ground between two extremes.

We need wisdom the most when we believe in it the least.

It's good to slowly come to the realization that you understand nothing.

That knowledge which stops at what it does not know, is the highest knowledge.

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

... no bell in us tolls to let us know for certain when truth is in our grasp.

To take what you know for what you know, and what you do not know for what you do not know, that is knowledge indeed.