Quotations About Knowledge
& Information
"Damage to information is inflicted almost entirely
by human actions and rarely by equipment failures."
Paul A. Strassmann
(Knowledge Management column, February 2001, p. 12)
"Documentation is like sex: when it is good, it is very, very good; and
when it is bad, it is still better than nothing."
Dick Brandon
(Submitted by M.J.B. of Brazil)
"Everybody gets so much information all day long that they lose their
common sense."
Gertude Stein
(untitled essay, 1946)
"Exactly how did you come to the conclusion that
truth is out of style?"
MC 900 Ft.
Jesus with DJ Zero
("Truth Is Out of
Style")
"For it is the greatest truth of our age: information is not
knowledge."
Caleb Carr
(Killing Time. Random House, 2000, p. 5)
"He's like Super Librarian, y'know? Everyone
forgets, Willow, that knowledge is the ultimate weapon."
(Buffy the Vampire
Slayer episode, "Never Kill a Boy on the First Date."
Line spoken by Nicholas
Brendon as Xander Harris)
"I worry more about poor quality of information online, and students' lack
of skills for evaluating information, than I worry about frequently discussed
evils like pornography."
University of Washington Internet researcher Malcom Parks
(Quoted in
Newsweek
, 10 May 1999, p. 48)
"Indeed you are obese with accuracy."
Lance Olsen
(Freaknest. Wordcraft of Oregon, 2000, p. 215)
"Information doesn't want to be free. Information wants to be
valuable."
Larry Wall
(Quoted by Tim O'Reilly in Nature.com
article)
"It doesn't cost any more to print something true than it does
to print crap."
Melvin Burgess
(Losing It. Andersen Press, 2003, p. 254 -- as quoted in review
by Anne Fine)
"It's a beautiful exercise in the fallibility of leaky memories
and why you want to build a library to last 10,000 years."
Paul Baran
(Wired interview, March 2001, p. 144)
"Knowledge is an absolute good. The search for truth is vital. It's
central to civilization. You need knowledge even when your economy and
government are absolutely shot to hell."
Bruce Sterling
(Distraction. Bantam, 1998, p. 89)
"Knowledge without wisdom is a load of books on the back of an
ass."
Japanese proverb
("Quote of the week" seen on kmworld.com,
27 February 2001)
"Men have died trying to obtain this valuable information, you
know. But I'll give it to you for free."
Cameron Crowe
(Fast Times at Ridgemont High, 1982.
Line spoken by Robert Romanus as Mike Damone)
"My sources are unreliable, but their information is fascinating."
Ashley Brilliant
(Submitted by M.J.B. of Brazil)
"Oh, Betty, I don't think I can fit any more useless trivia into my
brain."
(Rugrats
episode. Line spoken by the character Didi Pickles)
"Remember ... information is waiting to come off the dole. It's
waiting for a nice durable rainproof roof over its head. It's waiting, in other
words, just for us ..."
Lance Olsen
(Freaknest. Wordcraft of Oregon, 2000, p. 46)
"So you shall keep knowledge in its place, where it may rest --
where it may gather its kind around it and breed."
Bram Stoker
(Dracula)
(Submitted by Trey Bunn)
"The first information survival skill we will all need is the
ability to decode propaganda and demythologize the highly
commercialized and entertainment-based U.S. culture. Psychologists
politely call it 'resistance to enculturation.' Writer Ernest
Hemingway had a less elegant term: 'crap detecting.'"
Karl Albrecht
(Training & Development article, February 2001, p. 24)
"The 'information age' has not created any free exchange of
knowledge, Gideon. All we have is a free exchange of whatever the
sexless custodians of information technology consider
acceptable."
Caleb Carr
(Killing Time. Random House, 2000, p. 62)
"There's no such thing as knowledge management; there are only
knowledgeable people. Information only becomes knowledge in the
hands of someone who knows what to do with it."
Peter Drucker
(Quoted in Industry Week article, 24 January 2000)
"We like nonfiction, and we live in fictitious times."
Michael Moore
(Acceptance speech for Academy Award, 23 March 2003)
"We must not confuse the thrill of acquiring or distributing information
quickly with the more daunting task of converting it into knowledge and
wisdom."
Principles of Technorealism
-- Principle 4
(http://www.technorealism.org/)
"What's important is that all human knowledge be made available to all
intelligent people who want to learn it."
Stephen Jay Gould
(Booklist
interview, 1 Dec. 1998, p. 632)
"Wonder rather than doubt is the root of all knowledge."
Abraham Joshua Heschel
("Quote of the week" seen on kmworld.com,
15 February 2001)
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