Quote of the Day (Samuel Johnson, on ‘Knowledge Without Integrity’)

“Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, and knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful.”— English man of letters Samuel Johnson (1709-1784), The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia (1759)

Quote of the Day (Bonnie Kristian, on How to Stay Truly Well-Informed)

“Resolve to know just a few stories and to know them well. Your time and attention are limited. You can’t do justice to every issue of the day, and maintaining a broad, shallow pattern of news consumption makes you vulnerable to manipulation and confusion. So this year, pick at most half a dozen big stories to follow carefully and in depth. Read books, not just the latest headlines. Learn key names and legislation. Find trustworthy journalists to keep you up-to-date. Then remember your finitude and ignore everything else.”—American journalist and author Bonnie Kristian quoted by Tish Harrison Warren, “Resolutions That Are Good for the Soul,” The New York Times, Jan. 4, 2023

Quote of the Day (Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr., on ‘Knowledge and Timber’)

“Knowledge and timber shouldn't be much used till they are seasoned.”— American physician, teacher, and author Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. (1809-1894), The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table (1858)

Quote of the Day (Leo Tolstoy, on ‘The Highest Degree of Human Wisdom’)

“We can know only that we know nothing. And that is the highest degree of human wisdom.”― Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910), War and Peace (1869)

Quote of the Day (L. Frank Baum, on Knowledge, ‘The Best and Safest Treasure to Acquire’)

"No thief, however skillful, can rob one of knowledge, and that is why knowledge is the best and safest treasure to acquire." —Children’s book author L. Frank Baum (1856-1919), The Lost Princess of Oz (1917)

Quote of the Day (Peter Drucker, on Why Intellectuals and Managers Need Each Other)

“Most, if not all, educated persons will practice their knowledge as members of an organization. The educated person will therefore have to prepare to live and work simultaneously in two cultures, that of the intellectual, the specialist who focuses on words and ideas, and that of the manager, who focuses on people and work. Intellectuals need their organization as a tool; it enables them to practice their techne, their specialized knowledge. Managers see knowledge as a means to the end of organizational performance. Both are right. They are poles rather than contradictions. Indeed, they need each other. The intellectual's world, unless counterbalanced by the manager, becomes one in which everybody ‘does his own thing’ but nobody does anything. The manager's world becomes bureaucratic and stultifying without the offsetting influence of the intellectual.”— Austrian-born American management consultant, educator, and author Peter F. Drucker (1909-2005) , “The Rise of the Knowledge Society,” The Wilson Quarterly, Spring 1993

Quote of the Day (Samuel Johnson, on Knowledge and Integrity)

“Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, and knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful.”— English man of letters Samuel Johnson (1709 -1784), The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia (1759)

The portrait of Dr. Johnson accompanying this post was painted by his good friend, Sir Joshua Reynolds.