| The Columbia World of Quotations. 1996. |
| |
| |
| NUMBER: | 9871 |
| QUOTATION: | Sorrow is knowledge: they who know the most
Must mourn the deepest o’er the fatal truth,
The Tree of Knowledge is not that of Life. |
| ATTRIBUTION: | George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824), British poet. Manfred, in Manfred, act 1, sc. 1 (1817).
Manfred’s opening speech. According to Michael Foot’s biography, The Politics of Paradise: A Vindication of Byron, ch. 5 (1988), this speech was considered by Nietzsche to be “immortal,” for stating the terrible fact that a man might bleed to death through the truth that he recognizes. |
| BIOGRAPHY: | Columbia Encyclopedia. |
| WORKS: | Byron Collection. |
| |
| | | The Columbia World of Quotations. Copyright © 1996 Columbia University Press. |
|
|
