Tell how learning shoots

 Tell like a tall old oak how learning shoots

To heav'n her branches, to hell her roots.

 

-- John Denham 

Impenetrable mysteries

 

 Like buoys, that never sink into the flood,

On learning's surface we but lie and nod.

-- Alexander Pope, The Dunciad

The Italians were first in the higher learning of the Renaissance

The Italians have carried away the bell from all other nations, as may appear both by their books and works.

-- George Hakewill (1578-1649)

The way of truth is strewn with many errors, which must be censored

Wise men know, that arts and learning want expurgation; and if the course of truth be permitted to itself, it cannot escape many errours.

-- Thomas Browne

The kids are back in school, and so are the predators

In learning let a nymph delight,

The pedant gets a mistress by't.

-- Jonathan Swift

The scholar's life

 

Yet hope not Life from Grief or Danger free,

Nor think the Doom of Man revers'd for thee:

Deign on the passing World to turn thine Eyes,

And pause awhile from Learning to be wise;

There mark what Ills the Scholar's Life assail,

Toil, Envy, Want, the Garret, and the Jail.

See Nations slowly wise, and meanly just,

To buried Merit raise the tardy Bust.

-- Samuel Johnson

A Talmudic picture of heaven shares with Plato's Socrates that the debate continues in the afterlife

What Happens in Heaven? Study. Of What? Jewish Law:

But, in one particular text [Bava Metzia 86a], the Talmud presents a picture of heaven quite unlike anything in the Bible, an image that is indeed unthinkable, if not blasphemous, outside of its uniquely rabbinic context . . . :

They were arguing in the Academy of Heaven. If the blotch on the [individual’s] skin preceded the white hair, he is impure. If the white hair preceded the blotch on the skin, he is pure.

Not only does the Academy of Heaven forgo any discussion of ultimate truths, but the question being debated at this highest imaginable institution of learning centers on an issue of law—and not just any issue, but one involving some of the most obscure, picayune, and technical details that can be found in the entire rabbinic canon. 

The picture is hardly unthinkable, nor is it uniquely rabbinic.

Plato's Socrates [Apology 40f.]:

But on the other hand, if death is, as it were, a change of habitation from here to some other place, and if what we are told is true, that all the dead are there, what greater blessing could there be, judges? For if a man when he reaches the other world, after leaving behind these who claim to be judges, shall find those who are really judges who are said to sit in judgment there, Minos and Rhadamanthus, and Aeacus and Triptolemus, and all the other demigods who were just men in their lives, would the change of habitation be undesirable? Or again, what would any of you give to meet with Orpheus and Musaeus and Hesiod and Homer? I am willing to die many times over, if these things are true; for I personally should find the life there wonderful, when I met Palamedes or Ajax, the son of Telamon, or any other men of old who lost their lives through an unjust judgement, and compared my experience with theirs. I think that would not be unpleasant.

And the greatest pleasure would be to pass my time in examining and investigating the people there, as I do those here, to find out who among them is wise and who thinks he is when he is not. What price would any of you pay, judges, to examine him who led the great army against Troy, or Odysseus, or Sisyphus, or countless others, both men and women, whom I might mention? To converse and associate with them and examine them would be immeasurable happiness. At any rate, the folk there do not kill people for it; since, if what we are told is true, they are immortal for all future time, besides being happier in other respects than men are here.

Nothing hath more dulled the wits than care in making of Latin

Nothing hath more dulled the wits, or taken away the will of children from learning, than care in making of Latin.

-- Roger Ascham (1515-1568), Greek and Latin scholar, tutor to Elizabeth I, author of The scholemaster or plaine and perfite way of teachyng children, to vnderstand, write, and speake, the Latin tong but specially purposed for the priuate brynging vp of youth in ientlemen and noble mens houses, and commodious also for all such, as haue forgot the Latin tonge ...

Nietzsche's anti-intellectual response to his own gaslighting: Become what you are

"Werde, der Du bist", but tellingly minus the learning:

γένοι' οἷος ἐσσὶ μαθών -- Pindar, Pythian 2.72.

We say that learning's endless . . .

 

 

We say that learning's endless, and blame fate

For not allowing life a longer date,

He did the utmost bounds of knowledge find,

He found them not so large as was his mind.

-- Abraham Cowley (1618-1667)

The procurator Festus thought Paul's madness was caused by his great learning, whereas others might have blamed a devil as in the case of Jesus

Frontispiece, Anatomy of Melancholy, Robert Burton, 1638

And as he thus spake for himself, Festus said with a loud voice, Paul, thou art beside thyself; much learning doth make thee mad. But he said, I am not mad, most noble Festus; but speak forth the words of truth and soberness.

 -- Acts 26:24f.

There was a division therefore again among the Jews for these sayings. And many of them said, He hath a devil, and is mad; why hear ye him?

-- John 10:19f.

Does knowledge make one a "Christian", or obedience?

Michael Williams here:

The simple definition of the term Christian is a person who believes in the teachings of Jesus Christ. ... [H]ow can someone be like Christ if they do not know even the simplest things that the Bible teaches about Him? ... The point to be made is that teaching and learning about Christ is a central element to someone being a Christian.

Were the disciples knowledgeable about the teachings of Jesus when they left all and followed him? If not, how can it be said that they were his disciples even though they were not at all like him? The point to be made is that they were his followers not because they knew anything but because they obeyed him.