A Quote by Karl Shapiro

Self-knowledge is a dangerous thing, tending to make man shallow or insane.

Karl Shapiro

Quote Topics

Dangerous Dangerous Thing Insane Knowledge Make Man Self Self-Knowledge Shallow Tending Thing

Quote Author

Karl Shapiro
American - Poet
November 10, 1913 - May 14, 2000

The saying that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing is, to my mind, a very dangerous adage. If knowledge is real and genuine, I do not believe that it is other than a very valuable posession, however infinitesimal its quantity may be. Indeed, if a little knowledge is dangerous, where is a man who has so much as to be out of danger?

Thomas Huxley

Self-knowledge is not the knowledge of a dead self, self-knowledge is the knowledge of the process of the self. It is an alive phenomenon. The self is not a thing, it is an event, it is a process. Never think in terms of things, the self is not there inside you just like a thing waiting in your room. The self is a process: changing, moving, arriving at new altitudes, moving into new planes, going deeper into new depths. Each moment much work is going on and the only way to encounter this self is to encounter it in relationship.

Rajneesh

Insane!... Ask the tyrant who is his most dangerous foe, the sane man or the insane?

Henry David Thoreau

I despise those shallow religious comics. Dennis the Menace, for instance, is the most shallow. When they show him praying - I just can't stand that sort of thing, talking to God about some cutesy thing that he'd done during the day. I don't think Hank Ketcham has any deep knowledge of things like that.

Charles M. Schulz

Let me tell you something my friend. Hope is a dangerous thing. Hope can drive a man insane.

Stephen King

When you look directly at an insane man all you see is a reflection of your own knowledge that he's insane, which is not to see him at all.

Robert M. Pirsig

A small amount of power corrupts a small man absolutely. A little knowledge is dangerous to a little man. To a great man only great knowledge is dangerous.

Leonard J. V. Compagno

Modern Man is the victim of the very instruments he values most. Every gain in power, every mastery of natural forces, every scientific addition to knowledge, has proved potentially dangerous, because it has not been accompanied by equal gains in self-understanding and self-discipline.

Lewis Mumford

If one does not make human knowledge wholly dependent upon the original self-knowledge and consequent revelation of God to man, then man will have to seek knowledge within himself as the final reference point. Then he will have to seek an exhaustive understanding of reality. He will have to hold that if he cannot attain to such an exhaustive understanding of reality he has no true knowledge of anything at all. Either man must then know everything or he knows nothing. This is the dilemma that confronts every form of non-Christian epistemology

Cornelius Van Til

A little knowledge is a dangerous thing, but a little want of knowledge is also a dangerous thing.

Samuel Butler

Were not one thing, as human beings, so any character that is written uni-dimensional, thats just a shallow character with shallow writing and shallow acting.

Kari Matchett

I wouldn't wish any specific thing for any specific person - it's none of my business. But the idea that a four-year degree is the only path to worthwhile knowledge is insane. It's insane.

Mike Rowe

First, my people must be taught the knowledge of self. Then and only then will they be able to under-stand others and that which surrounds them. Anyone who does not have a knowledge of self is considered a victim of either amnesia or unconsciousness and is not very competent. The lack of knowledge of self is a prevailing condition among my people here in America. Gaining the knowledge of self makes us unite into a great unity. Knowledge of self makes you take on the great virtue of learning.

Elijah Muhammad

The first thing the reasonable man must do is to be content with a very little knowledge and a very great deal of ignorance. The second thing he must do is to make the utmost possible use of the knowledge he has and not waste his energy crying for the moon. The third thing he must do is try and see clearly where his knowledge ends and his ignorance begins.