Knowledge Quote by Alberto Manguel
““Sartre, in his memoirs, confessed to much the same experience. "Like Plato, I passed from knowledge to its subject. I found more reality in the idea than in the thing because it was given to me first and because it was given for a thing. It was in books that I encountered the universe: digested, classified, labelled, mediated, still formidable.””
About This Quote
Source Book: The Book of Imaginary Beings, 1998
The author reflects on how ideas can feel more real than physical objects because they are first encountered through thought and literature.
In simple terms: Ideas can seem more real than things.
Key Takeaway
Value the power of ideas.
Themes
philosophy
perception
knowledge
literature
Mood
contemplative
introspective
Type
philosophical
literary
When to use this quote
- reading
- academic study
- creative writing
Key Concepts
Platonism
subjectivity
mediation
Questions to Reflect On
- How do ideas shape your reality?
- Can a concept be more true than a thing?
A Different Perspective
Ideas may lack tangible evidence.
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![“[W]hat we also see in sex is a kind of submissiveness. But not a kind of submissiveness which is simply 'do what you like, I'm just here for you', but it...is, or can be, very manipulative. It is a way of getting the other person to exercise all his or her efforts towards pleasing you, and in that…” quote by Robert C. Solomon](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/571/robert-c-solomon-13743_existentialism_w-hat-we-also-see-in-sex-is-a-kind-of-su_155420.jpg)
![“I never knew any man who had once tasted the sweetness of experimental knowledge, that ever afterward fasted after ye Vapour garlick and onions of phantasmatical seeming philosophy." [William Petty]” quote by Carl Zimmer](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/e5a/carl-zimmer-16331_knowledge_i-never-knew-any-man-who-had-once-tasted_1770.jpg)
