Maimonides Quotes on Knowledge
Moses ben Maimon, known to the Latin West as Maimonides and to Jewish tradition by the acronym Rambam, was a medieval Sephardic Jewish philosopher, physician, and Torah scholar of the 12th century. This page collects quotes attributed to Maimonides on the topic of knowledge, drawn from across the philosopher's works.
Quotes
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Attributed to Maimonides:
“Truth does not become more true by virtue of the fact that the entire world agrees with it, nor less so even if the whole world disagrees with it.”
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Attributed to Maimonides:
“Astrology is a disease, not a science.”
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Attributed to Maimonides:
“Teach thy tongue to say I do not know, and thou shalt progress.”
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“Foreword to The Eight Chapters Of Maimonides On Ethics , translated by Joseph I. Gorfinkle, Ph.D. Columbia University Press, New York (1912). Page 35-36 .”
[…] one should accept the truth from whatever source it proceeds. -
“There is one [disease] which is widespread, and from which men rarely escape. This disease varies in degree in different men … I refer to this: that every person thinks his mind … more clever and more learned than it is … I have found that this disease has attacked many an intelligent person … They … express themselves [not only] upon the science with which they are familiar, but upon other sciences about which they know nothing … If met with applause … so does the disease itself become aggravated.”
Aphorisms . Quoted in Bulletin of the History of Medicine , Vol. 3 (1935), p. 555 | Chambers Dictionary of Quotations (1997), p. 640 -
“Chambers Dictionary of Quotations (1997), p. 640”
There is one [disease] which is widespread, and from which men rarely escape. This disease varies in degree in different men … I refer to this: that every person thinks his mind … more clever and more learned than it is … I have found that this disease has attacked many an intelligent person … They … express themselves [not only] upon the science with which they are familiar, but upon other scienc -
“We are obligated to be more scrupulous in fulfilling the commandment of charity than any other positive commandment because charity is the sign of a righteous man.”
As quoted in A Maimonides Reader (1972) by Isadore Twersky, p. 135. A footnote on this page states : tzedekah is translated as both " righteousness " and " charity ".