The More I Learn The Less I Know

The More I Learn The Less I Know

Tony Bennett Quote

The more I learn the less I know; Tony Bennett reflecting on the fountain of knowledge that feeds an ocean of answers that are served by the droplet and limited by our mortal lifespan

Knowledge is an amazing thing though, every time you learn something new it creates more questions in your head than the answers you have just assimilated.

It seems like learning one subject is akin to peeling a proverbial knowledge onion with unlimited layers, each layer learned reveals a new set of layers with more convoluted questions to be answered, it becomes a question of complexity dependent on how far you want to delve into it.

Learning brings an awareness of the vastness of knowledge and it is only from here that you understand why you cannot learn everything.

It would be hard to imagine how much there is to learn, I think we as humans are better off just chipping away at the niche of knowledge that interests us the most and just skimming the surface of other subjects of intrigue.

The Fountain Of Knowledge


Imagine that an answer is a droplet of water and an ocean contains the answers that are being eternally fed by a fountain of knowledge that dispenses each droplet to us throughout our limited mortal lifespan.

The fountain of knowledge stretches past our imaginations and can only be compared to the vastness of the universe as each and every one of the newly discovered star systems opens a never ending new set of questions.

Maybe this is why so many learned people have been quoted with variants of "the more I learn the less I know".

Going back to ancient time Socrates version was "The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing".

Fast forward to the twentieth century and Albert Einstein was quoted as saying "The more I learn, the more I realize how much I don't know" and we all know the amazing new discoveries he was successful in finding.

One of my favourites was by the English romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley when he uttered "The more we study the more we discover our ignorance".

Shelley did not need the wisdom of age to discover the connection between learned knowledge and the realisation of how much you do not know as he drowned in a seafaring incident when his boat sank during a storm off the coast of Sardinia in 1822, he was only 29 years of age.

When Tony Bennett was quoted as saying "the more I learn the less I know" he was being reflective after completing his 1998 autobiography called 'The Good Life: The Autobiography Of Tony Bennett'.

It is often in moments of reminiscence that you appreciate the way things worked out and Tony Bennett acknowledged this and stated the other thing he learned was that he could not ask for any more out of life than what he has been dealt.

Learning Something New


Every day when I wake up I always think to myself I want to learn something new today, I care not where I learn it from either, it could be from a toilet cleaner I have exchanged pleasantries with or a CEO of a large company, they all have a story to tell and they will all know something that I do not.

I try to treat everybody the same no matter their so called societal status and in conversations I have always found when I listen I can learn a lot more than when I'm talking. Now that's knowing.


Michael Joseph Farrelly Article By:



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Random Knowing Quote

"A wise girl knows her limits, a smart girl knows that she has none" - Marilyn Monroe