quotations about ignorance
The unprepared will eventually be destroyed; ignorance is no hiding place.
TONY BALLANTYNE
Recursion
When an intelligent man enters into a discussion with a man of total ignorance, he is at a disadvantage because he has to do the thinking for both sides. He is at another disadvantage because he has to express his thoughts in language that the ignorant man will understand. He is at another disadvantage because he has to treat the ignorant man as an equal and in order to do that he has consciously to lower himself. He can't lift the ignorant man up and in order to be equals in the discussion the intelligent man must put himself on a plane beneath him.
WILLIAM HENRY MCMASTERS
"On the Impenetrability of Ignorance", Originality and Other Essays
Ignorance is a plague that has been unleashed on the masses
Deadly in its design biased when it comes to the different classes
It seems everybody is suffering from this tyrant's overbearing rule
I say we should get together and assassinate this fool
ZACHARIAH M. WELLS
Ignorance Is Not Bliss: Seek Knowledge from the Cradle to the Grave
Education is a system of imposed ignorance.
NOAM CHOMSKY
Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media
To be ignorant of one's ignorance is the malady of the ignorant.
AMOS BRONSON ALCOTT
Table Talk
Better to be ignorant of a matter than half know it.
PUBLILIUS SYRUS
Maxims
Ignorance lies at the bottom of all human knowledge, and the deeper we penetrate, the nearer we arrive unto it.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON
Lacon
All our knowledge brings us nearer to our ignorance.
T. S. ELIOT
The Rock
All the hundreds of millions of people who, in their time, believed the Earth was flat never succeeded in unrounding it by an inch.
ISAAC ASIMOV
The Planet that Wasn't
The ignorant are not better judges of knowledge, than cowards of bravery or the blind of colors.
K. L. IMMERMANN
attributed, Day's Collacon
Thing is, while I know better, I like sounding ignorant. Talk like this and people figure you're about as dumb as a fencepost, which suits me fine. Makes it all that much easier to take advantage of 'em.
CHARLES DE LINT
The Onion Girl
It has long been the policy of the devil to keep the masses of the world in ignorance.
SIMPSON
attributed, Day's Collacon
The common curse of mankind -- folly and ignorance.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Troilus and Cressida
The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the light into the peace and safety of a new dark age.
H. P. LOVECRAFT
"The Call of Cthulhu"
It is an essential part of the scientific enterprise to admit ignorance, even to exult in ignorance as a challenge to future conquests.
RICHARD DAWKINS
The God Delusion
Ignorance is blinding. We fall in love with what we believe, and become resistant to change, to seeing a different viewpoint, to the point of not even acknowledging that there may even be another valid viewpoint. When that happens, we're blind -- blind to ourselves, to others, to what matters.
JEANNETTE ANGELL
"A talk with author Jeannette Angell: From college lecturer to callgirl and back", Souixland, Oct. 8, Souixland, Oct. 8, 2004
Ignorance is never known to be ignorance till it be matched with knowledge.
ANONYMOUS
Politeuphuia, Wits common-wealth
Where ignorance is not bliss, get wise!
GEORGE ADE
"The Fable of the Hard-Up Yeoman", Hand-Made Fables
To be conscious that you are ignorant is a great step to knowledge.
BENJAMIN DISRAELI
Sybil: Or, The Two Nations
It would be difficult to dispel ignorance unless there is freedom to pursue the truth unfettered by fear.
AUNG SAN SUU KYI
Freedom from Fear