A Quote by Jean-Jacques Rousseau

The world is the book of women. Whatever knowledge they may possess is more commonly acquired by observation than by reading.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Quote Topics

Acquired Book Commonly Knowledge May More Observation Possess Reading Than Whatever Women World

Quote Author

Jean-Jacques Rousseau
French - Philosopher
June 28, 1712 - July 2, 1778

Learning is acquired by reading books, but the much more necessary learning, the knowledge of the world, is only to be acquired by reading men, and studying all the various facets of them.

Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield

Learning is acquired by reading books; much more necessary learning, the knowledge of the world, is only to be acquired by reading men, and studying all the various editions of them.

Lord Chesterfield

I got more true knowledge from reading the Book of God in one month, than I could ever have acquired from all the writings of men.

George Whitefield

The Socratic maxim that the recognition of our ignorance is the beginning of wisdom has profound significance for our understanding of society. Most of the advantages of social life, especially in the more advanced forms that we call "civilization" rest on the fact that the individual benefits from more knowledge than he is aware of. It might be said that civilization begins when the individual in the pursuit of his ends can make use of more knowledge than he has himself acquired and when he can transcend the boundaries of his ignorance by profiting from knowledge he does not himself possess.

Friedrich August von Hayek

Soviet rocket troops possess enough equipment to be able, if need be, to sweep any aggressor from the face of the earth at whatever point of the globe he may be and whatever military power, territory, or economy he may possess.

Sergey Biryuzov

Enthusiasm is the dynamics of your personality. Without it, whatever abilities you may possess lie dormant; and it is safe to say that nearly every man has more latent power than he ever learns to use. You may have knowledge, sound judgment, good reasoning faculties; but no one-not even yourself-will know it until you discover how to put your heart into thought and action.

Dale Carnegie

Women speak an average 18,000 more words a day than men do. And there may be a genetic reason, it may be neurologically. Not that there's anything wrong with it. See, this is the thing. When you make the observation that women talk 18,000 more words a day than men, it's immediately taken as a criticism because it implies inequality. It implies that there's something wrong with women.

Rush Limbaugh

A good book deserves an active reading. The activity of reading does not stop with the work of understanding what a book says. It must be completed by the work of criticism, the work of judging. The undemanding reader fails to satisfy this requirement, probably even more than he fails to analyze and interpret. He not only makes no effort to understand; he also dismisses a book simply by putting it aside and forgetting it. Worse than faintly praising it, he damns it by giving it no critical consideration whatever.

Mortimer Adler

Some people may contend that there is no image more charming that a child holding a puppy or kitten. But for me that's a distant second. When I see a child clutching a book... to his or her tiny bosom, I'm moved. Children can possess a book in a way they can never possess a video game, a TV show, or a Darth Vader doll. A book comes alive when they read it. They give it life themselves by understanding it.

Chris Van Allsburg

When I was a teenager, reading for me was as normal, as unremarkable as eating or breathing. Reading gave flight to my imagination and strengthened my understanding of the world, the society I lived in, and myself. More importantly, reading was fun, a way to live more than one life as I immersed myself in each good book I read.

Malorie Blackman

That observation which is called knowledge of the world will be found much more frequently to make men cunning than good.

Samuel Johnson

Sylvie's knowledge, like Izzie's, was random yet far-ranging, 'The sign that one has acquired one's learning from reading novels rather than an education.

Kate Atkinson

The individual in the ordinary circumstances of living may feel more unreal than real; in a literal sense, more dead than alive; precariously differentiated from the rest of the world, so that his identity and autonomy are always in question.... He may not possess an over-riding sense of personal consistency or cohesiveness. He may feel more insubstantial than substantial, and unable to assume that the stuff he is made of is genuine, good, valuable. And he may feel his self as partially divorced from his body.

R. D. Laing

It's tempting to say the Ph.D. didn't have an effect, but it's not so. I think whatever resonance I may be able to achieve is in part simply from the amount of reading and learning that I acquired along the way.