Quotes about knowledge and learning
The Master said, "The study of strange doctrines is injurious indeed!
The Master said, "Learning without thought is labour lost; thought without learning is perilous.
The Master said, "In a hamlet of ten families, there may be found one honourable and sincere as I am, but not so fond of learning.
The Master said, "If a man keeps cherishing his old knowledge, so as continually to be acquiring new, he may be a teacher of others.
O divine art of sublety and secrecy! Through you we learn to be invisible, through you inaudible; and hence we can hold the enemy’s fate in our hands.
The Master said, "The silent treasuring up of knowledge; learning without satiety; and instructing others without being wearied:—which one of these things belongs to me?
The Master said, "The superior man, extensively studying all learning, and keeping himself under the restraint of the rules of propriety, may thus likewise not overstep what is right.
Mencius said, 'In learning extensively and discussing minutely what is learned, the object of the superior man is that he may be able to go back and set forth in brief what is essential.'
Mencius, addressing the disciple Yue Zheng, said to him, 'Your coming here in the train of Zi Ao was only because of the food and the drink. I could not have thought that you, having learned the doctrine of the ancients, would have acted with a view to eating and drinking.'
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Data: Wikiquote (English) (CC BY-SA 4.0); English Wikisource (Public domain texts; transcription CC BY-SA 4.0). Retrieved 2026-10-22.