A Quote by Thomas Aquinas

Wonder is the desire for knowledge.

Thomas Aquinas

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Knowledge Desire Desire For Knowledge Wonder

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Thomas Aquinas
Italian - Theologian
1225 - 1274

Wonder was the motive that led people to philosophy ... wonder is a kind of desire in knowledge. It is the cause of delight because it carries with it the hope of discovery.

Thomas Aquinas

Wonder is the desire of knowledge.

Thomas Aquinas

Wonder [admiratio astonishment, marvel] is a kind of desire for knowledge. The situation arises when one sees an effect and does not know its cause, or when the cause of the particular effect is one that exceeds his power of understanding. Hence, wonder is a cause of pleasure insofar as there is annexed the hope of attaining understanding of that which one wants to know. ... For desire is especially aroused by the awareness of ignorance, and consequently a man takes the greatest pleasure in those things which he discovers for himself or learns from the ground up.

Thomas Aquinas

Wonder, connected with a principle of rational curiosity, is the source of all knowledge and discover, and it is a principle even of piety; but wonder which ends in wonder, and is satisfied with wonder, is the quality of an idiot.

Samuel Horsley

Wonder is defined by Thomas [Aquinas] in the Summa Theologiae [I-II, Q. 32, a. 8], as the desiderium sciendi, the desire for knowledge, active longing to know.

Josef Pieper

My desire for knowledge is intermittent; but my desire to bathe my head in atmospheres unknown to my feet is perennial and constant. The highest that we can attain to is not Knowledge, but Sympathy with Intelligence. I do not know that this higher knowledge amounts to anything more definite than a novel and grand surprise on a sudden revelation of the insufficiency of all that we called Knowledge before,—a discovery that there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in our philosophy.

Henry David Thoreau

This desire of knowledge and the wonder which it hopes to satisfy are the driving power behind all the changes that we, with careless, question-begging inference, call progress.

Nicholas Murray Butler

And if there be any addition to knowledge, it is rather a new knowledge than a greater knowledge; rather a singularity in a desire of proposing something that was not knownat all beforethananimproving, anadvancing, a multiplying of former inceptions; and by that means, no knowledge comes to be perfect.

John Donne

To reach satisfaction in all desire its possession in nothing, To come to the knowledge of all desire the knowledge of nothing. To come to possess all desire the possession of nothing. To arrive at being all desire to be nothing.

John of the Cross

Restrain an inordinate desire for knowledge, in which is found much anxiety and deception. Learned men always wish to appear so, and desire recognition of their wisdom. But there are many matters, knowledge of which brings little or no advantage to the soul.

Thomas a Kempis

Mystery creates wonder and wonder is the basis of man's desire to understand.

Neil Armstrong

Surely knowledge of the natural world, knowledge of the human condition, knowledge of the nature and dynamics of society, knowledge of the past so that one may use it in experiencing the present and aspiring to the future--all of these, it would seem reasonable to suppose, are essential to an educated man. To these must be added another--knowledge of the products of our artistic heritage that mark the history of our esthetic wonder and delight.

Jerome Bruner

Knowledge is the understanding of what, how and why we need to do something. Skill is applying that knowledge in a practical situation. Attitude is the desire to transform our knowledge into skills and ultimately into habits.

Bill Capodagli

Without the suitable conditions life could not exist. But both life and its conditions set forth the operations of inscrutable Power. We know not its origin; we know not its end. And the presumption, if not the degradation, rests with those who place upon the throne of the universe a magnified image of themselves, and make its doings a mere colossal imitation of their own. Wonder was the motive that led people to philosophy ... wonder is a kind of desire in knowledge. It is the cause of delight because it carries with it the hope of discovery.

Thomas Aquinas

The comprehensibility of the world seems to me a wonder or eternal secret. Here lies the sense of wonder which increases even more with the development of our knowledge.

Albert Einstein

Now I wonder what our knowledge has in common with God's knowledge according to those who treat God's knowledge... Is there anything else common to both besides the mere name? ...there is an essential distinction between His knowledge and ours, like the distinction between the substance of the heavens and that of the earth.

Maimonides

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