quotations about ignorance
It is a common sentence that Knowledge is power; but who hath duly considered or set forth the power of Ignorance? Knowledge slowly builds up what Ignorance in an hour pulls down. Knowledge, through patient and frugal centuries, enlarges discovery and makes record of it; Ignorance, wanting its day's dinner, lights a fire with the record, and gives a flavour to its one roast with the burnt souls of many generations.
GEORGE ELIOT
Daniel Deronda
The man of ignorance is always positive that he is right, regardless of the subject. He is a mental cheat and therefore suspicious of everybody. He can comprehend people as being only of the same frame of mind as himself. If he knew enough to appreciate an honest difference of opinion he wouldn't be ignorant. He is always proud of his ability to interrupt and figures that every interruption counts a point as though he were playing a game of mental slapjack. Lastly, he knows that he can always say "I don't believe it" at the end of a discussion and from his long experience with other men who tried to argue with him, he is quite sure he can exasperate you and make you show your temper before the discussion is finished.
WILLIAM HENRY MCMASTERS
"On the Impenetrability of Ignorance", Originality and Other Essays
On entering this world our starting-point is ignorance. None, however, but idiots remain there.
HORACE MANN
Thoughts
Losing our ignorance can be dangerous because our ignorance is a shield.
DAN SIMMONS
The Fall of Hyperion
Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science.
CHARLES DARWIN
The Descent of Man
I would far rather be ignorant than knowledgeable of evil.
AESCHYLUS
The Suppliants
All you've got to do is own up to your ignorance honestly, and you'll find people who are eager to fill your head with information.
WALT DISNEY
attributed, Power Marketing for Wedding and Portrait Photographers
Be not ashamed to own thy ignorance of some things.
EDWARD COUNSEL
Maxims
I would rather have my ignorance than another man's knowledge, because I have got so much more of it.
MARK TWAIN
letter to William Dean Howells, Feb. 10, 1875
Nothing is so good for an ignorant man as silence; and if he was sensible of this he would not be ignorant.
SAADI
attributed, Day's Collacon
Bits of ignorance are like viruses that are copied and spread by interaction.
SETH LLOYD
Programming the Universe
The more ignorant a man is the more he thinks he ought to govern someone else.
LEWIS F. KORNS
Thoughts
I do not approve of anything that tampers with natural ignorance. Ignorance is like a delicate exotic fruit; touch it and the bloom is gone.
OSCAR WILDE
The Importance of Being Earnest
There is not anything that can so suddenly flood the mind with shame as the conviction of ignorance, yet we are all ignorant of nearly everything there is to be known. Is it not wonderful, then, that we should be so sensitive upon the discovery of a fault which must of necessity be common to all, and that in its highest degree?
HILAIRE BELLOC
"On Ignorance", On Nothing & Kindred Subjects
Simple ignorance has in its time been complimented by the names of most of the vices, and of all the virtues.
ARTHUR HELPS
Thoughts in the Cloister and the Crowd
Yes, ignorance has rightly been named the parent of impudence, and wherever you see consummate impudence, not far off ignorance will be found in full bloom. In middle age we wonder at the ignorance and impudence of our boyhood and youth, and blush to think of it. The youth of 18 or 19 summers often thinks he knows better than the man of 45 or 50, for the most part because he is ignorant and wants experience, and exercise mentally as well as physically, to give magnifying powers to his mental conception, likewise to his physical, which would enable him to measure himself and other people, to be able to put himself in the scales with other persons, and see which is heaviest. Let a man in the lower walks of life with but little education be lifted up to a position of a little power, and in nine cases out of ten if his impudence, ignorance, and conceit does not make you blush, there can be little modesty left in you. Let a woman of humble origin be lifted from her station by marriage, and if her husband does not happen to be a wonderfully sensible, far-seeing, and thinking man, in a few months she will often make such a fool of herself, in manners, speech and dress, that she will be the laughing-stock of her male acquaintances, and the horror of all the women who know her. So, however high your position, however much you think you know, be unassuming, be modest, and your worth and knowledge will shine with a brighter light.
T. AUGUSTUS FORBES LEITH
"On Ignorance", Short Essays
If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.
THOMAS JEFFERSON
letter to Colonel Charles Yancey, January 6, 1816
If ignorance were enough to make things not exist, the world would be more like a lot of people think it is. But it's not. And it's not.
WILLIAM GIBSON
Twitter post, Jun. 30, 2012
The great pleasure of ignorance is, after all, the pleasure of asking questions. The man who has lost this pleasure or exchanged it for the pleasure of dogma, which is the pleasure of answering, is already beginning to stiffen.
ROBERT WILSON LYND
The Pleasure of Ignorance
It doesn't matter if your ignorant so long as you can find people to know stuff for you.
K. J. PARKER
Evil for Evil