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About this quote

What does it mean?
Knowledge shapes perception; what we understand determines what we notice.
In plain terms
What you know influences what you see.
What can you take from it?
Expand your knowledge to broaden your awareness.

Where it applies

  • learning a new language
  • studying a science

Putting it to work

  • read widely
  • practice active observation

Questions to consider

  • How does your expertise limit your view?
  • Can you notice something you don’t know?

Another view

Even with knowledge, blind spots can remain.

More from Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  1. We lay aside letters never to read them again, and at last we destroy them out of discretion, and so disappears the most beautiful, the most immediate breath o…

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  2. When a man stops to ponder his physical or moral condition, he generally finds he is ill.

    Permalink to quote #150
  3. We do not have to visit a madhouse to find disordered minds; our planet is the mental institution of the universe.

    Permalink to quote #147

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