··· Tags pointing to: knowledge ···

Science encourages legitimate human curiosity to know the universe and to admire and contemplate its beauty and goodness. In this way we enter into communion with God himself, who looked upon what He had created and saw that it was very good.

— Pope John Paul II, “Discourse to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences”, 26 Sep 1986  <link>

In Order To…

In order to arrive at having pleasure in everything,
Desire to have pleasure in nothing.
In order to arrive at possessing everything,
Desire to possess nothing.
In order to arrive at being everything,
Desire to be nothing.
In order to arrive at knowing everything,
Desire to know nothing.

In order to arrive at that point where you take no pleasure,
you must go by a way that gives no pleasure.
In order to arrive at that point where you know nothing,
you must go by a way you do not know.
In order to arrive at that point where you are free of possessing,
you must go by a way you do not possess.
In order to arrive at that point at which you are nothing,
you must go through that which you are not.

— St. John of the Cross, Ascent of Mount Carmel, bk I, ch 13, sect 11  <link>

He who wishes to learn must believe.

— Aristotle  <link>

Antilibrary

The writer Umberto Eco belongs to that small class of scholars who are encyclopedic, insightful, and nondull. He is the owner of a large personal library (containing thirty thousand books), and separates visitors into two categories: those who react with ‘Wow! Signore professore dottore Eco, what a library you have! How many of these books have you read?’ and others—a very small minority—who get the point that a private library is not an ego boosting appendage but a research tool. Read books are far less valuable than unread ones. The library should contain as much of what you do not know as your financial means, mortgage rates, and the currently tight real estate market allow you to put there. You will accumulate more knowledge and more books as you grow older, and the growing number of unread books on the shelves will look at you menacingly. Indeed, the more you know, the larger the rows of unread books. Let us call the collection of unread books an antilibrary.

— Nassim Nicholas Taleb, The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable  <link>

My sense is that God likes artful coincidences since they bolster the faith of those already with faith without compelling or forcing it on those who don’t. (Then it wouldn’t be faith, after all, but knowledge.)

— TS (via)  <link>

Ideas create idols; only wonder leads to knowing.

— St. Gregory of Nyssa (via)  <link>

Mystery isn’t something that is gradually evaporating. It grows along with knowledge.

— Flannery O’Connor (via)  <link>

A hard heart is no infallible protection against a soft head.

— C.S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man  <link>

The science of the scientist can understand everything in the Cosmos but the self of the scientist.

— Walker Percy, Lost in the Cosmos  <link>