Useful Knowledge Quotes

Knowledge becomes wisdom only after it has been put to good use.

A little knowledge that acts is worth infinitely more than much knowledge that is idle.

Reason, if consulted with, would advise, that their children's time should be spent in acquiring what might be useful to them when they come to be men, rather than to have their heads stuff'd with a deal of trash, a great part whereof they usually never do ('tis certain they never need to) think on again as long as they live: and so much of it as does stick by them they are only the worse for.

Tolstoi explains somewhere in his writings why, in his opinion, “Science for Science's sake” is an absurd conception. We cannot know all the facts, since they are practically infinite in number. We must make a selection. Is it not better to be guided by utility, by our practical, and more especially our moral, necessities?

The life and soul of science is its practical application, and just as the great advances in mathematics have been made through the desire of discovering the solution of problems which were of a highly practical kind in mathematical science, so in physical science many of the greatest advances that have been made from the beginning of the world to the present time have been made in the earnest desire to turn the knowledge of the properties of matter to some purpose useful to mankind.

Knowledge is power only when put to use - and then only when the use made of it is constructive.

The best aid to give is intellectual aid, a gift of useful knowledge. A gift of knowledge is infinitely preferable to a gift of material things.

My fundamental philosophy is that you owe it to society to transfer to them any knowledge you have that might be useful.

… it [liberty] denotes not merely freedom from bodily restraint, but also the right of the individual to engage in any of the common occupations of life, to acquire useful knowledge, to marry, establish a home, bring up children, to worship God according to the dictates of one's own conscience and generally, to enjoy those privileges long recognized in common law as essential to the orderly pursuit of happiness by free men.

If everybody has to take biology and chemistry, they can take computer science. Computer science is a more useful skill right now than a lot of other things that people are learning at school.

Those of us who work in politics can only make ourselves useful if our heads are filled with things that we can contribute to the political space.

Whatever you learn will never go waste. It will be beneficial for me in future.

A young man passes from our public schools to the universities, ignorant almost of the elements of every branch of useful knowledge.

I did not throw out my education lightly, but what I was being taught was of no use in explaining what I saw around me. It was the Great Depression.

All knowledge is sterile which does not lead to action and end in charity.

The principal object of your reading should be for the acquisition of useful knowledge , and the strengthening, refining, and ennobling of your character.

From the first, I made my learning, what little it was, useful every way I could.

The one knowing what is profitable, and not the man knowing many things, is wise.

From my first year on the faculty, there was always so much more I wanted to impart to the students. I decided that, rather than waste the last day of class summarizing the semester, I'd spend my time talking about what I'd learned in life that was useful.

Abstract knowledge is always useful, sooner or later.

Conjecture as to things useful, is good; but conjecture as to what it would be useless to know, is very idle.

Whatever the intellectual quality of the education given our children, it is vital that it include elements of love and compassion, for nothing guarantees that knowledge alone will be truly useful to human beings.

Appreciate the signal and manifold mercies…the great degree of tranquility, union, and plenty which we enjoy, and the peaceable and rational manner in which we have been enabled to establish constitutions of government for our safety and happiness…for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed and the means we have of acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge; that we must unite in humbly offering our supplications to pardon our national and other transgressions, to enable us to perform our duties properly and punctually, to render our national government a blessing to all people by constantly being a government of wise, just and constitutional laws, discreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed.

... there are no chains so galling as the chains of ignorance--no fetters so binding as those that bind the soul, and exclude it from the vast field of useful and scientific knowledge. O, had I received the advantages of early education, my ideas would, ere now, have expanded far and wide; but, alas! I possess nothing but moral capability--no teachings but the teachings of the Holy Spirit.