Owen Feltham, in his Resolves (Curiosity in Knowledge) remarks:—
Our knowledge doth but show us our ignorance. Our most studious scrutiny is but a discovery of what we cannot know.
Voltaire, in the Histoire d’un bon Bramin says:—
Le Bramin me dit un jour: Je voudrais n’être jamais né. Je lui demandai pourquoi. Il me répondit: J’étudie depuis quarante ans; ce sont quarante années de perdues; j’enseigne les autres, et j’ignore tout.
These lines will remind the reader of the opening soliloquy of Faust in Goethe’s immortal tragedy. Bayard Taylor’s translation commences as follows:—
I’ve studied now Philosophy
And Jurisprudence, Medicine,—
And even, alas! Theology,—
From end to end, with labor keen;
And here, poor fool! with all my lore