A Quote by J. C. Ryle

The devil has more knowledge than any of us, and yet is no better for it. — © J. C. Ryle
The devil has more knowledge than any of us, and yet is no better for it.
The devil is a better theologian than any of us and is a devil still.
If you find yourself loving any pleasure more than your prayers, any book better than the Bible, any house better than the house of the Lord, any table better than the Lord's table, any persons better than Christ, or any indulgence better than the hope of heaven – be alarmed.
That there is a Devil is a thing doubted by none but such as are under the influence of the Devil. For any to deny the being of a Devil must be from ignorance or profaneness worse than diabolical.
Rather than finding the devil "out there," we battle the devil within us. The revolution starts inside each of us.
Suppose that we are wise enough to learn and know - and yet not wise enough to control our learning and knowledge, so that we use it to destroy ourselves? Even if that is so, knowledge remains better than ignorance. It is better to know - even if the knowledge endures only for the moment that comes before destruction - than to gain eternal life at the price of a dull and swinish lack of comprehension of a universe that swirls unseen before us in all its wonder. That was the choice of Achilles, and it is mine, too.
Well, Page, I do wish the Devil had old Cooke, for I am sure I never was so tired of an old dull scoundrel in my life ... But the old-fellows say we must read to gain knowledge; and gain knowledge to make us happy and be admired. Mere jargon! Is there any such thing as happiness in this world? No.
Mathematics is a more powerful instrument of knowledge than any other that has been bequeathed to us by human agency.
Being lean doesn't make you any more worthy, any more beautiful or any more valuable. It doesn't make you a more fit person, it doesn't mean you've worked harder in the gym, people who are leaner than you aren't better than you.
God loves us; the devil hates us. God wants us to have a fulness of joy as He has. The devil wants us to be miserable as he is. God gives us commandments to bless us. The devil would have us break these commandments to curse us.
I believe that order is better than chaos, creation better than destruction. I prefer gentleness to violence, forgiveness to vendetta. On the whole I think knowledge is preferable to ignorance, and I am sure human sympathy is more valuable than ideology.
All false practices and affections of knowledge are more odious to God, and deserve to be so to men, than any want or defect of knowledge can be.
I remember confuting one of Westminster's favourite maxims, "better the devil you know than the devil you don't". In the annals of popular wisdom, this is one of the most cretinous sayings I have come across.
Human beings are not comparable. You can't compare us any more than you can compare roses and oranges, or mountains and the sea. You might prefer living by the sea to living in the mountains. You certainly like some people better than you like others. Preferences are perfectly valid...they're just your style asserting itself again. But you'd feel pretty silly saying 'The sea is better than the mountains.' It's every bit as silly to go around saying 'I'm better than Mary, but Joe is better than me.'
You're looking at me as though I'm weird. My god! Are you so out of touch with most of America, most of which believes in the devil? I mean, Jesus Christ believed in the devil! It's in the Gospels! You travel in circles that are so, so removed from mainstream America that you are appalled that anybody would believe in the devil! Most of mankind has believed in the devil, for all of history. Many more intelligent people than you or me have believed in the devil.
The difference between you, if you consider yourself not enlightened, and an enlightened master is not that the enlightened master has more knowledge. University professors have knowledge, and many enlightened masters have very little knowledge. Jesus probably had less knowledge than any university professor alive today in terms of raw information. Even a relatively uneducated person has more information than Jesus or Buddha ever had about things, such as political things and so on.
Any piece of knowledge I acquire today has a value at this moment exactly proportional to my skill to deal with it. Tomorrow, when I know more, I recall that piece of knowledge and use it better.
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