There Is No Investment That Is As Important As Knowledge
You can give your children material things, but the best investment you can make for them is something completely different. There is no investment that is as important as knowledge, because it is the one that helps children get through life.
It is just as Benjamin Franklin once said: “An investment in knowledge has the best interest rate”. It is an investment in yourself and others and it is the most valuable thing you could ever have.
Santiago Ramón y Cajal was a Spanish scientist who received the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1906 for his research on the nervous system. He said that the human brain is like a coin factory. If you use impure metals to make the coins, you will only get junk, but if you use gold, you will get fine gold coins.
This analogy shows why it is important to give the brain the right “raw materials”. The best you can give the brain are books and knowledge that will help it learn more about the world.
Our knowledge of the world is limited, but our ignorance is infinite. The basic idea here is that we do not know much, while at the same time it is amazing how much we know. It is even more amazing that knowledge can lead to so much power.
Ever since the days of Socrates, it has been clear that knowledge can free you from ignorance, but in the days of antiquity, only wise men had access to knowledge. Nowadays, anyone can create and disseminate information via the internet. We have created a network of knowledge without borders.
Nowadays, we have removed all physical, geographical, economic and social barriers in order to be able to educate oneself. The only thing required nowadays is the will.
But why are there fewer and fewer people reading? And why is less and less invested in culture? It seems that we have removed all barriers except the most important: the realization that only knowledge will really set us free.
Socrates did not see himself as a wise man because he knew more than the people around him. He saw himself as wise because he was aware of his own ignorance. He therefore always made sure first before making a decision or saying anything.
He was so convinced that knowledge can set us free that he said that people would always choose the path of goodness and justice if they really understood what it meant.
Socrates believed that no one had chosen the path of evil, and if they did, it was only because of ignorance. You can also see it this way: if a baker does not bake good bread, this is because the baker does not know how to do it, and not because he does not want to bake good bread.
“Knowledge is your beacon.” This is a quote from Robert Fisher, author of The Knight in Rusty Armor . It is a quote that testifies to the author’s positive view of humanity’s potential. One could have said that knowledge is a way of finding one’s own abilities and limitations. It also means trying to overcome such limitations.
Knowledge is your beacon, because no property is as important as knowledge. This means that the more you know, the more light you will have within you. Nature has given us the seed of knowledge, and not the knowledge itself.
