Quotes about Knowledge

Here's the next section of quotes from my book 1000 Great Quotations for Business, Management & Training.


An updated version of the book is newly available as part of my Almost Free Kindle titles both in the UK and in the USA.

To be conscious that you are ignorant is a great step to knowledge.

Benjamin Disraeli, British Prime Minister (1804-1881)

What you don’t know will always hurt you.

We don’t know a millionth of one percent of anything.

Thomas Alva Edison, US inventor (1847-1931)

An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.

Benjamin Franklin, US statesman, author, scientist (1706-1790)

Throughout history, the craftsman who had learned a trade after five or seven years of apprenticeship had learned, by age eighteen or nineteen, everything he would ever need to use during his lifetime. In the society of organisations, however, it is safe to assume that anyone with any knowledge will have to acquire new knowledge every four or five years or become obsolete.

Peter Drucker, US management author (1909-2005)

No amount of sophistication is going to allay the fact that all your knowledge is about the past and all your decisions are about the future.

Ian E Wilson, Canadian cultural administrator (b. 1943)

We are trying to sell more and more intellect, and less and less materials.

George Hegg, strategic planner, 3M

The factory worker no longer manipulates the sheet of steel; he manipulates the data about the steel.

William Bridges, US engineer, researcher, educator (b. 1934)

The secret of business is to know something that nobody else knows.

Aristotle Onassis, Greek businessman (1906-1975)

The most important part of turnover is the loss of intellectual capital.

Ted Kastelic, US business executive, Intel

If money is your hope for independence, you will never have it. The only real security that a man will have in this world is a reserve of knowledge, experience, and ability.

Henry Ford, US automobile manufacturer, engineer (1863-1947)

You never have to know all the answers because you won’t be asked all the questions.

Herbert Prochnow, US banker, author (1897-1998)

The more a man knows, the more willing he is to learn. The less a man knows, the more positive he is that he knows everything.

Robert Ingersoll, US lawyer, orator (1833-1899)

To know, is to know that you know nothing. That is the meaning of true knowledge.

Confucius, Chinese philosopher, teacher (551-479 BC)

An expert is one who knows more and more about less and less.

Nicholas Butler, US educator, Nobel Peace Prize winner (1862-1947)