Weekend Quote #3

“To learn is not to know. There are the learners and the learned. Memory makes one, philosophy, the other.”

This is the quote I choose for this weekend. It is taken from The Count of Monte Cristo by Dumas. (I believe by the end of the month I will have Dumas dominate my tags).

The words above are spoken by Abbe Faria, and Italian gentleman who was imprisoned in Cateau d'If, just like our Edmond Dantes. He was a learned man, old and experienced. He made Dantes' imprisonment become rather a good fortune than misfortune.

Socrates and Plato

Personally I like the words because I think it is right. Firstly, “to learn is not to know”. Somebody may learn something for years without even knowing what it is he's learning. (Personal experience, I may say). But knowing means understanding the subject thoroughly, being able to see it as a whole, and see the linkage of everything on the subject.

For example, a doctor must know human body as a whole. He can see which part of the body connects to which part, what the meaning of some symptoms, etc. It would be different, of course, from something that a high-school student learn. He knows which part is which and what the functions of it, but he would find difficulty to see the connection of every part of the body and how it affects the body as a whole.

And so is knowledge. The learned has philosophy – a kind of wisdom gained by deep thinking, by meditation – while it only needs memory to learn.

That is my weekend quote for this week. What are yours? Feel free to share it in the linky below. (For more information, please see this post)