Charles Kingsley Quotes

Of course, mankind has made giant steps forward. However, what we know is really very, very little compared to what we still have to know.

To the wisest man, wide as is his vision. Nature remains of quite infinite depth, of quite infinite expansion and all experience thereof limits itself to some few computed centuries and measured square miles.

To explain all nature is too difficult a task for any one man or even for any one age. 'Tis much better to do a little with certainty & leave the rest for others that come after you.

The utmost extent of man's knowledge, is to know that he knows nothing.

He that knew all that learning ever writ, Knew only this - that he knew nothing yet.

One becomes great when he comes to the realization that what he knows is very little.

Notwithstanding all that has been discovered since Newton's time, his saying that we are little children picking up pretty pebbles on the beach while the whole ocean lies before us unexplored remains substantially as true as ever, and will do so though we shovel up the pebbles by steam shovels and carry them off in carloads.

Humility is knowing that you can get an answer from anybody: be it a child, another person, or nature.

The first and wisest of them all professed To know this only, that he nothing knew.

Knowing what you don't know is more useful than being brilliant.

Nature is earlier than man, but man is earlier than natural science.

The more he became truly wise, the more he distrusted everything he knew.

Be very slow to believe that you are wiser than all others; it is a fatal but common error. Where one has been saved by a true estimation of another's weakness, thousands have been destroyed by a false appreciation of their own strength.

He who thinks he knows, doesn't know. He who knows that he doesn't know, knows.

Our human knowledge is a candle burnt On a dim altar to a sun-vast Truth.

If thou hast wit and learning, add to it wisdom and modesty.

I am the wisest man alive, for I know one thing, and that is that I know nothing.

And any man who knows a thing, knows he knows not a damn, damn thing at all.

Be very slow to believe that you are wiser than all others; it is a fatal but common error.

When a wise man does not understand, he says: "I do not understand." The fool and the uncultured are ashamed of their ignorance. They remain silent when a question could bring them wisdom.

Your modest savant smiles as he says to his admirers: What have I done? Nothing. Man does not invent a force, he directs it.

The hardest lesson I've had to learn in my life is that my intelligence is inversely correlated to my humility. The more I thought I knew, the less I actually knew.

Our Christian destiny is, in fact, a great one: but we cannot achieve greatness unless we lose all interest in being great. For our own idea of greatness is illusory, and if we pay too much attention to it we will be lured out of the peace and stability of the being God gave us, and seek to live in a myth we have created for ourselves. And when we are truly ourselves we lose most of the futile self-consciousness that keeps us constantly comparing ourselves with others in order to see how big we are.

Stupidity consists in wanting to reach conclusions. We are a thread, and we want to know the whole cloth.

I know enough now to know I know nothing.