Quotes About Ignorance

We have heard of a Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge. It is said that knowledge is power, and the like. Methinks there is equal need of a Society for the Diffusion of Useful Ignorance, what we will call Beautiful Knowledge, a knowledge useful in a higher sense: for what is most of our boasted so-called knowledge but a conceit that we know something, which robs us of the advantage of our actual ignorance? What we call knowledge is often our positive ignorance; ignorance our negative knowledge.

There is a lot of ignorance, and I don't mean intellectual ignorance. I mean people think that if you get something, it will take away from what I have. It's just ignorance.

Ignorance per se is not nearly as dangerous as ignorance of ignorance.

There is natural ignorance and there is artificial ignorance. I should say at the present moment the artificial ignorance is about eighty-five per cent.

It is thus that the generality of mankind, whose lot is ignorance, attributes to the Divinity, not only the unusual effects which strike them, but moreover the most simple events, of which the causes are the most simple to understand by whomever is able to study them. In a word, man has always respected unknown causes, surprising effects that his ignorance kept him from unraveling. It was on this debris of nature that man raised the imaginary colossus of the Divinity.

Nothing limits intelligence more than ignorance; nothing fosters ignorance more than one's own opinions; nothing strengthens opinions more than refusing to look at reality.

Ever since the beginning of modern science, the best minds have recognized that "the range of acknowledged ignorance will grow with the advance of science." Unfortunately, the popular effect of this scientific advance has been a belief, seemingly shared by many scientists, that the range of our ignorance is steadily diminishing and that we can therefore aim at more comprehensive and deliberate control of all human activities. It is for this reason that those intoxicated by the advance of knowledge so often become the enemies of freedom.

The first reason for people's slavery is our ignorance, and above all, our ignorance of ourselves.

Credentialed ignorance is still ignorance.

God has bestowed two gifts on man: hope and ignorance. Ignorance is the better of the two.

Scientists rightly resist invoking the supernatural in scientific explanations for fear of committing a god-of-the-gaps fallacy (the fallacy of using God as a stop-gap for ignorance). Yet without some restriction on the use of chance, scientists are in danger of committing a logically equivalent fallacy-one we may call the “chance-of-the-gaps fallacy.” Chance, like God, can become a stop-gap for ignorance.

Society is composed of men, and every man is a FREE agent. Since man is free, he can choose; since he can choose, he can err; since he can err, he can suffer. I go further: He must err and he must suffer; for his starting point is ignorance, and in his ignorance he sees before him an infinite number of unknown roads, all of which save one lead to error.

I maintain that there is no common language or medium of understanding between people of education and without it - between those who judge of things from books or from their senses. Ignorance has so far the advantage over learning; for it can make an appeal to you from what you know; but you cannot re-act upon it through that which it is a perfect stranger to. Ignorance is, therefore, power.

Men are mistaken in thinking themselves free; their opinion is made up of consciousness of their own actions, and ignorance of the causes by which they are determined.

So many people shy away from using color in their homes for fear of getting it wrong...But ignorance and fear are no reason to live in a bland box.

If ignorance is bliss, why aren't there more happy people in the world?

Ignorance makes most men go into a political party, and shame keeps them from getting out of it.

In my experience, the most staunchly held views are based on ignorance or accepted dogma, not carefully considered accumulations of facts. The more you expose the intricacies and realtities of the situation, the less clear-cut things become.

If not bliss, ignorance can at least be fun.

Intelligent people know they are intelligent. They also know that one person cannot know all, hence a person is not stupid simply because he is ignorant of one thing or another. They know that, to another intelligent person, they will not appear stupid in asking for an explanation of what they do not know, and so their ignorance on any particular issue does not become an embarrassment.

The scientist who yields anything to theology, however slight, is yielding to ignorance and false pretenses, and as certainly as if he granted that a horse-hair put into a bottle of water will turn into a snake.

But if we keep denying that there are problems with some male immigrants, then we will just drive the people into the arms of the right-wing populists. Without the ignorance or the trivialization on the part of all the political parties, there would be no Pegida or Alternative for Germany.

In the spiritual realm, the opposite of ignorance is not knowledge, it's obedience.

If we work for social change - and it is good to do such things - let us always do it with an awakened heart big enough for all. There is no enemy; there is only ignorance. There is no one to hate, only many to love.

I do not believe in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance.

Education, introspection, self-love and excellence are the only ways to overcome the wrath of ignorance

A true teacher does not terrorize ignorant students, because a true teacher knows that it is his job to cure ignorance.

It may not be in the constitution, but every American has a god-given right to provinciality and ignorance.

If a wicked man seems to have peace at death, it is not from the knowledge of his happiness, but from the ignorance of his danger.

There are two main reasons why we may not be bringing forth the fruit we should. It may be because of ignorance, because we may never have been taught the meaning of the work of Christ for our present lives.

Ignorance may be bliss, but it certainly is not freedom, except in the minds of those who prefer darkness to light and chains to liberty. The more true information we can acquire, the better for our enfranchisement.

Ignorance and error are necessary to life, like bread and water.

We are destined to be a barrier against the return of ignorance and barbarism. Old Europe will have to lean on our shoulders, and to hobble along by our side, under the monkish trammels of priests and kings, as she can. What a colossus shall we be when the southern continent comes up to our mark! What a stand will it seem as a ralliance for the reason and freedom of the globe!

The dictum that human nature cannot be changed is one of those tiresome platitudes that conceal from the ignorant the depths of their own ignorance.

Arrogance, ignorance, and incompetence. Not a pretty cocktail of personality traits in the best of situations. No sirree. Not a pretty cocktail in an office-mate and not a pretty cocktail in a head of state. In fact, in a leader, it's a lethal cocktail.

In no other field of scientific endeavor do otherwise intelligent people feel free to make public claims based on prejudice and ignorance. Yet in relation to psychic phenomena, committed materialists feel free to disregard the evidence and behave irrationally and unscientifically, while claiming to speak in the name of science and reason. They abuse the authority of science and bring rationalism into disrepute.

If ignorance goes to forty dollars a barrel, I want drilling rights to George Bush's head.

As far as ignorance is concerned, not just Buddhism, every religion recognizes it as the source of suffering.

Reason obeys itself; and ignorance submits to whatever is dictated to it.

Listening a cultivated person of today that jokes and almost boasts about his scientific ignorance, is as sad as listening a scientist that boasts about not having read any poem.

I believe that very much of current Arminianism is simply ignorance of gospel doctrine; and if people began to study their Bibles, and to take the Word of God as they find it, they must inevitably, if believers, rise up to rejoice in the doctrines of grace.

Acquire knowledge before you become leaders and pride prevents you from learning and you live in ignorance.

What a refreshing mind you have, young man. There really is nothing quite like total ignorance, is there?

Luckily for me, most of my work is through a brand or client who approaches my agent. Before I began modeling, I never realized how many barriers there were for people with disabilities within the industry. I didn't realize how much prejudice and ignorance existed. That made me even more determined to break down the barriers and to wake up the industry to the fact that beauty shows up in all different shapes, sizes and abilities.

Whenever any one informs us that he has found a man who knows all the arts, and all things else that anybody knows, and every single thing with a higher degree of accuracy than any other man - whoever tells us this, I think that we can only imagine him to be a simple creature who is likely to have been deceived by some wizard or actor whom he met, and whom he thought all-knowing, because he himself was unable to analyse the nature of knowledge and ignorance and imitation.

Some writers, rejecting the idea which science had reached, that reefs of rocks could be due in any way to "animalcules," have talked of electrical forces, the first and last appeal of ignorance.

When you're fighting for social justice, one of my biggest pet peeves is speaking out of ignorance.

It's a phony issue. To pretend the death penalty is going to end crime in the United States is to fool people, to promote public ignorance.