IGNORANCE QUOTES IV

quotations about ignorance

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


To be ignorant of one's ignorance is the malady of the ignorant.

AMOS BRONSON ALCOTT

Table Talk


The unprepared will eventually be destroyed; ignorance is no hiding place.

TONY BALLANTYNE

Recursion


Education is a system of imposed ignorance.

NOAM CHOMSKY

Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media

Tags: Noam Chomsky


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


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


Better to be ignorant of a matter than half know it.

PUBLILIUS SYRUS

Maxims


The ignorant are not better judges of knowledge, than cowards of bravery or the blind of colors.

K. L. IMMERMANN

attributed, Day's Collacon


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

Tags: William Shakespeare


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

Tags: Benjamin Disraeli


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