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About this quote

What does it mean?
Knowledge has intrinsic value even if it produces no practical outcome.
In plain terms
Learning is valuable just for its own sake.
What can you take from it?
Value knowledge for itself, not just results.

Where it applies

  • academic study
  • personal growth
  • research

Putting it to work

  • read for curiosity
  • study without agenda
  • intellectual hobbies

Questions to consider

  • What knowledge do you pursue without expecting returns?
  • Is learning valuable without application?

Another view

Practical outcomes often justify investment in knowledge.

More from John Henry Cardinal Newman

  1. Nothing would be done at all, if a man waited till he could do it so well, that no one could find fault with it.

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  2. Knowledge is one thing, virtue is another.

    Permalink to quote #14
  3. After he had gone over the mansion, his entertainer asked him what he thought of the splendours it contained; and he in reply did full justice to the riches of…

    Permalink to quote #11

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