Limits Of Knowledge Quotes

“There were realities the human mind was never meant to withstand, pressures it was never meant to survive. Knowledge is like the sea. Go too deep, and the crushing weight of it could kill you.”
― Seanan McGuire, Laughter at the Academy

“The sciences do not try to explain, they hardly even try to interpret, they mainly make models. By a model is meant a mathematical construct which, with the addition of certain verbal interpretations, describes observed phenomena. The justification of such a mathematical construct is solely and precisely that it is expected to work.”
― John von Neumann

“Our categories arise from the fact that we are neural beings, from the nature of our bodily capacities, from our experience interacting in the world, and from our evolved capacity for basic-level categorization - a level at which we optimally interact with the world. Evolution has not required us to be as accurate above and below the basic level as at the basic level, and so we are not.”
― George Lakoff, Philosophy in the Flesh: The Embodied Mind and its Challenge to Western Thought

“Still, the limitations of what we can know, no matter how obsessed we are, have, inevitably, become clear to me. She walks ahead of me and I don't get to see her face. Was her hair brown or pale? Was she slim? Did she get heavier as she bore her children? Or was she petite, like a bird? What did her voice sound like? Did she argue with her husband? Did she like to cook? Was she as ambitious as I think she was? Would she have approved of my writing about her? But the closer I have drawn, the more she has receded, her figure diminishing, no matter how I strain to catch up. Those shores of early America are irretrievable, as is Anne. I have tried to retrieve her here, but some of the most important things are bound to be left unknown.”
― Charlotte Gordon, Mistress Bradstreet: The Untold Life of America's First Poet

“Just as love cannot be seen or truly known, but is undeniably felt, we can experience our Lord in places our mind could never travel or comprehend. Seek out these placeless places, where the unknown resides. Reflect upon the mysteries of life, travel into spaces with no familiar ground, venture into realms where worldly compasses fail to lead you, walk into the quantum world, where laws of science seemingly fail to work, and feel the vulnerability of your ignorance.”
― A. Helwa, Secrets of Divine Love: A Spiritual Journey into the Heart of Islam

“Books will only get you so far; it’s vital to trust in what’s there outside of your comprehension, that which you can’t really know: God. Even the books about Him don’t come close.”
― A.D. Aliwat, In Limbo

“There are more things in heaven and earth… than are dreamt of in your science.”
― A.E. Samaan

“Every year fewer and fewer words, and they range of conciousness always a little smaller.”
― George Orwell, 1984