A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. So is a lot.

 

A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. So is a lot.
--
Attributed to Einstein in various recent sources, such as Marvin Minsky's The Emotion Machine (2006), p. 176, and at the start of the 2006 pilot episode of the television series Eureka. The oldest published source located attributing this to Einstein is the 2004 book Strategic Investment: Real Options and Games by Han T. J. Smit and Lenos Trigeorgis, p. 429, and before that it was attributed to him on the internet, the earliest example found being this post from 19 May 1995. But long before that, the same quote appears in an advertisement for Encyclopaedia Britannica that ran in The Atlantic Monthy: Volume 216 from 1965, p. 139. The ad mentioned Einstein but did not directly attribute the quote to him: "Encyclopaedia Britannica says: A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. So is a lot. The more you know, the more you need to know — as Albert Einstein, for one, might have told you. Great knowledge has a way of bringing with it great responsibility. The people who put the Encyclopaedia Britannica together feel the same way. After all, if most of the world had come to count on you as the best single source of complete, accurate, up-to-date information on everything, you'd want to be pretty sure you knew what you were talking about."

 

Albert Einstein

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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 possession, however infinitesimal its quantity may be. Indeed, if a little knowledge is dangerous, where is the man who has so much as to be out of danger?

 

Thomas Henry Huxley

 

Since there is no such thing as complete knowledge of a subject, one is always working to improve one's reading, writing, etc., of a subject. As Thomas Henry Huxley said, "If a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, is there anyone who knows so much as to be out of danger?" .... The problems of learning to read or write are inexhaustible.

 

Neil Postman

 

A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. I regret that this isn't fatal.

 

Erik Naggum

 

Consider in how many ways His knowledge is distinguished from ours according to all the teaching of every revealed religion. First, His knowledge is one, and yet embraces many different kinds of objects. Secondly, it is applied to things not in existence. Thirdly, it comprehends the infinite. Fourthly, it remains unchanged, though it comprises the knowledge of changeable things; whilst it seems that the knowledge of a thing that is to come into existence is different from the knowledge of the thing when it has come into existence; because there is the additional knowledge of its transition from a state of potentiality into that of reality. Fifthly, according to the teaching of our Law, God's knowledge of one of two eventualities does not determine it, however certain that knowledge may be concerning the future occurrence of the one eventuality.

 

Maimonides

 

They say that, 'Why are you telling us that this Knowledge has to be taken from me?' But I don't say that this Knowledge has to be taken from me. I want that you should take this Knowledge, that's only I want to tell you. I don't say take from, from me. Take it. If you want to take it from me, go ahead. I'll give you. You can get it from someone else, go to someone he will give you. But the problem is you have to take it. That is the main thing. That doesn't mean you take from me. Go around the world, search for the spiritual master. If you cannot get this Knowledge, and you cannot receive this true Knowledge, then please come to me and I will give you this Knowledge.

 

Maharaji (Prem Rawat)