Theodore Roosevelt supposedly said: “In any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing, the next best thing is the wrong thing and the worst thing you can do is nothing.”
Aphorisms
Wissen ist Macht, aber Macht ist auch ohne Wissen Macht. – Knowledge is power, but power is power even without knowledge.
Wissen ist Macht? Aber Macht isst Wissen. – Knowledge is power? But power eats knowledge. (Elmar Schenkel (*1953), Anglicist, author, translator, painter)
Für die Feinde ist das Wissen Macht, für uns ist die Macht Wissen! Ohne Macht kein Wissen! – For enemies knowledge is power, for us knowledge is power! Without power there is no knowledge! (Wilhelm Liebknecht (1826 – 1900), German journalist and politician)
Wissen ist Macht. Wissen von der Macht, noch ein wenig mehr Macht. – Knowledge is power. Knowledge of the Force, a little more power. (Martin Gerhard Reisenberg, *1949), qualified librarian and author)
Wissen ist die Macht zu wissen, was man besser nicht macht. – Knowledge is the power to know what is better not to do. (Gerhard Uhlenbruck, *1929), German immunobiologist and aphorist)
Wenn Wissen Macht ist, dann macht Nichtwissen ohnmächtig. – If knowledge is power, then ignorance makes you powerless. (Robert Kroiß, *1949, German writer)
Francis Bacon on knowledge
Wikipedia – “Wissen ist Macht”, knowledge is power, is a dictum in German that goes back to the English philosopher Francis Bacon (1561-1626). In his works, Bacon laid a cornerstone of philosophy in the Age of Enlightenment and introduced Aristotelian-Christian scholasticism to the knowledge and methods of natural science.
His efforts to bring people “to a higher level of existence” were expressed in his Meditationes sacrae in 1597 in the formulation Nam et ipsa scientia potestas est (because science itself is power), often shortened to scientia potestas est. In the English language version of 1598 the sentence read: “(For) knowledge (itself) is power.”
