P.D. Ouspensky
Author: P.D. Ouspensky
Publisher: Vintage (1971)

If you remember, I said that from the point of view of this system only knowledge of the whole can be regarded as knowledge, for knowledge of a part without its relation to the whole is not knowledge but ignorance. We can have this knowledge, only we do not realize it and do not understand that in relation to everything knowledge begins with knowledge of the whole. Take, for instance, this box of matches. If I look at it through a narrow slit I shall only see a small part of it and shall never get the idea of the box of matches as a whole. It is the same with everything. Almost all we call knowledge is not really knowledge at all, because it is merely knowledge of a small part without knowing the place of this part in the whole