Warren Weaver Quotes

The more we know, the better we realize that our knowledge is a little island in the midst of an ocean of ignorance.

Our knowledge is a little island in a great ocean of nonknowledge.

Indeed, the most important product of knowledge is ignorance.

The remarkable position in which we find ourselves is that we don't actually know what we actually know.

We know accurately only when we know little, with knowledge doubt increases.

Psychology which explains everything explains nothing, and we are still in doubt.

To know anything well involves a profound sensation of ignorance.

The most solid piece of scientific truth I know of is that we are profoundly ignorant about nature.

Everything is a mystery, ourselves, and all things both simple and humble.

Science has explained nothing; the more we know the more fantastic the world becomes and the profounder the surrounding darkness.

One might be led to suspect that there were all sorts of things going on in the universe which he or she did not thoroughly understand.

We know a lot of things, but what we don't know is a lot more.

It is unwise to wish everything explained.

… a progressive discovery of our own ignorance

Nobody really knows everything, and they can only assume.

I'll never know everything. My life would be a lot worse if there was nothing I knew the answers about - and if there was nothing I didn't know the answers about.

I sometimes confuse myself with the little I know.

You know, we have little bits of understanding, glimpses, a little bit of light here and there, but there's a tremendous amount of darkness, which is a challenge. I think life would be pretty boring if we understood everything. It's better if we don't understand anything and know that we don't, that's the important part.

One of the most painful circumstances of recent advances in science is that each one makes us know less than we thought we did

We know so very little about this strange planet we live on, this haunted world where all answers lead only to more mystery.

You know nothing till you know all; which is the reason we never know any thing.

The world is not always ours to understand.

What we know is a drop, what we don't know is an ocean.

The greatest achievements in the science of this [twentieth] century are themselves the sources of more puzzlement than human beings have ever experienced. Indeed, it is likely that the twentieth century will be looked back at as the time when science provided the first close glimpse of the profundity of human ignorance. We have not reached solutions; we have only begun to discover how to ask questions.

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