Superficial Knowledge Quotes

I do not approve the maxim which desires a man to know a little of everything. Superficial knowledge, knowledge without principles, is almost always useless and sometimes harmful knowledge.

Ignorance is not lack of intelligence, nor knowledge a proof of genius.

He who speaks a bit of a foreign language has more delight in it than he who speaks it well; pleasure goes along with superficial knowledge.

Quality, service, cleanliness, and value.

Superficial knowledge ... is hurtful to those who possess true genius; for it necessarily draws them away from their main object, wastes their industry over details and subjects foreign to their needs and natural talent, and lastly does not serve, as they flatter themselves, to prove the breadth of their mind. In all ages there have been men of very moderate intelligence who knew much, and so on the contrary, men of the highest intelligence who knew very little. Ignorance is not lack of intelligence, nor knowledge a proof of genius.

Give yourself to prayer, to reading and meditation on divine truths: strive to penetrate to the bottom of them and never be content with a superficial knowledge.

I have a true aversion to teaching. The perennial business of a professor of mathematics is only to teach the ABC of his science; most of the few pupils who go a step further, and usually to keep the metaphor, remain in the process of gathering information, become only Halbwisser [one who has superficial knowledge of the subject], for the rarer talents do not want to have themselves educated by lecture courses, but train themselves. And with this thankless work the professor loses his precious time.

Fortunately or otherwise we live at a time when the average individual has to know several times as much in order to keep informed as he did only thirty or forty years ago. Being "educated" today requires not only more than a superficial knowledge of the arts and sciences, but a sense of inter-relationship such as is taught in few schools. Finally, being "educated" today, in terms of the larger needs, means preparation for world citizenship; in short, education for survival.

Superficial knowledge breeds arrogance; true knowledge induces humility.

A mere index hunter, who held the eel of science by the tail. Index-hunter is a term used mockingly, meaning one who acquires superficial knowledge merely by consulting indexes. The '[holding] the eel of science by the tail' allusion was used in 1728 by Alexander Pope (q.v.).

Index-learning turns no student pale, Yet holds the eel of Science by the tail. Index-learning is a term used to mock pretenders who acquire superficial knowledge merely by consulting indexes.