Jim Boyd

“All those formal systems, in mathematics and physics and the philosophy of science, which claim to give foundations for certain truth are surely mistaken. I am tempted to say that we do not look for truth, but for knowledge. But I dislike this form of words, for two reasons. First of all, we do look for truth, however we define it, it is what we find that is knowledge. And second, what we fail to find is not truth, but certainty; the nature of truth is exactly the knowledge that we do find.”
― Jacob Bronowski

“Ralph Gomory, the President of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, proposes a tripartite division of science: the known, the unknown, and the unknowable. The known is taught in the schools and universities and is exhibited in the science museums. But scientists are excited by the unknown. Parenthetically, artists go to art museums to learn; scientists do not go to science museums because those museums act as if it's all known and preordained. That may be changing; exemplars are the Exploratorium in San Francisco and the American Museum of Natural History.

Gomory's tripartite division proposes three distinct areas: the known, the unknown which may someday become known, and the unknowable, which will never be known. The unknown and the unknowable form the boundary of science. Here are examples of questions for which the answers are today unknown.”
― Joseph Traub

“Learn the words of wisdom uttered by the wise and apply them in your own life. Live them - but do not a make a show of reciting them, for he who repeats what he does not understand is no better than an ass loaded with books.”
― Kahlil Gibran

“Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it.”
― Buddha Siddhartha Guatama Shakyamuni