Quotes About Ignorance

Faults of ignorance are excusable only where the ignorance itself is so

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.

In a democracy, we have always had to worry about the ignorance of the uneducated. Today we have to worry about the ignorance of people with college degrees.

The snapshot has no pretense or ambition. Innocence is the quintessence of the snapshot. I wish to distinguish between innocence and ignorance. Innocence is one of the highest forms of being and ignorance is one of the lowest.

An ignorance of means may minister to greatness, but an ignorance of aims make it impossible to be great at all.

Most ignorance is vincible ignorance. We don't know because we don't want to know.

There is simple ignorance, which is the source of lighter offenses, and double ignorance, which is accompanied by a conceit of wisdom.

Men remain in ignorance as long as they hate, and they hate unjustly as long as they remain in ignorance.

Just as full sunlight completely dispels all darkness but even a few rays provide a measure of light, so, if we complete the practice of training the mind, we will totally dispel the darkness of our ignorance, but if we engage in only some parts of the practice, this will still help to reduce our ignorance and self-cherishing .

Gross ignorance is 144 times worse than ordinary ignorance.

Is there a wrong way to say "I don't know"? Yes. When we declare ignorance, it should be a) honest and b) in the spirit of opening ourselves up to hearing, to learning, to receiving. When we say "I don't know" under these conditions, the words can forge connection, healing, growth. But when we resist or disavow knowledge, when we profess ignorance as a way of donning armor and evading accountability, then we make a mockery of those words, and we rupture connections not only with others but within ourselves, within our souls.

Ignorance is not bliss — it is oblivion. Determined ignorance is the hastiest kind of oblivion.

Unfortunately, we live at a moment in which ignorance appears to be one of the defining features of American political and cultural life. Ignorance has become a form of weaponized refusal to acknowledge the violence of the past, and revels in a culture of media spectacles in which public concerns are translated into private obsessions, consumerism and fatuous entertainment.

For a man’s life would become intolerable, if he knew what was going to happen to him. He would be made aware of future evils, and would suffer their agonies in advance, while he would get no joy of present blessings since he would know how they would end. Ignorance is the necessary condition of human happiness, and it has to be admitted that on the whole mankind observes that condition well. We are almost entirely ignorant of ourselves; absolutely of others. In ignorance, we find our bliss; in illusions, our happiness.

Ignorance is the source of hatred, and the way to get rid of ignorance is realization.

They are Man's and they cling to me, appealing from their fathers. This boy is Ignorance and this girl is Want. Beware them both, and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the writing be erased.

What we are told of the inhabitants of Brazil, that they never die but of old age, is attributed to the tranquility and serenity of their climate; I rather attribute it to the tranquility and serenity of their souls, which are free from all passion, thought, or any absorbing and unpleasant labors. Those people spend their lives in an admirable simplicity and ignorance, without letters, without law, without king, without any manner of religion.

As a poet I hold the most archaic values on earth . . . the fertility of the soil, the magic of animals, the power-vision in solitude, the terrifying initiation and rebirth, the love and ecstasy of the dance, the common work of the tribe. I try to hold both history and the wilderness in mind, that my poems may approach the true measure of things and stand against the unbalance and ignorance of our times.

There is no mountain anywhere everyman ignorance is his own mountain

Bits of ignorance are like viruses that are copied and spread by interaction.

To rail and rant against tyranny is to manifest inferiority, for there is no tyranny but ignorance; to be conscious of one's powers is to lose consciousness of tyranny. Self government is not a remote aim. It is an intimate and inescapable fact. To govern oneself is a natural imperative, and all tyranny is the miscarriage of self government. The first requisite of freedom is to accept responsibility for the lack of it.

As men are not able to fight against death, misery, ignorance, they have taken it into their heads, in order to be happy, not to think of them at all.

Here's what the right-wing has in, there's no shortage of the natural resources of ignorance, apathy, hate, fear. As long as those things are in the collective conscious and unconscious, the Republicans will have some votes.

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 is the greatest source of happiness.

The charm of Ronald Reagan is not just that he kept telling us screwy things, it was that he believed them all. No wonder we trusted him, he never lied to us. ... His stubbornness, even defiance, in the face of facts ('stupid things,' he once called them in a memorable slip) was nothing short of splendid. ... This is the man who proved that ignorance is no handicap to the presidency.

Respectfully, 'Awkward Black Girl' was never meant to be politically correct. We poke fun at ignorance.

My ignorance is not charming.

A lot of my reputation is a product of exaggeration and ignorance.

Rise above the deceptions and temptations of the mind. This is your duty. You are born for this only; all other duties are self-created and self-imposed owing to ignorance.

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.

America faces an enemy who believes in enforced ignorance. And all that we stand for is the open mind, the generous spirit, the ideal of tolerance, freedom, education, opportunity.

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

Nothing in education is so astonishing as the amount of ignorance it accumulates in the form of inert facts.

Together, we will reclaim America's schools, before ignorance and apathy claim more young lives.

Is it ignorance or apathy? Hey, I don't know and I don't care.

A fool who recognises his own ignorance is thereby in fact a wise man, but a fool who considers himself wise - that is what one really calls a fool.

You have to start with the truth. The truth is the only way that we can get anywhere. Because any decision-making that is based upon lies or ignorance can't lead to a good conclusion.

Ignorance and a narrow education lay the foundation of vice, and imitation and custom rear it up.

Without [hope and] confidence in a cause, there is no action. Ignorance may be enlightened, superstition wiped out; intolerance may become tolerant, and hate be changed into love; ideas may be quickened, intelligence widened, and men's hearts may be ennobled; but from pessimism which can see nothing but gloomy visions nothing is to be expected.

You'll see that it'll take more than five and a half months to wipe away peel;scrape away the blanket of ignorance that has been plastered and replastered over those brains in the past three hundred years. You'll see.

The terrors of the child are quite reasonable, and add to his loveliness; for his utter ignorance and weakness, and his enchanting indignation on such a small basis of capital compel every bystander to take his part.

According to our social science, we can be or become wise in all matters of secondary importance, but we have to be resigned to utter ignorance in the most important respect: we cannot have any knowledge regarding the ultimate principles of our choices, i.e. regarding their soundness or unsoundness... We are then in the position of beings who are sane and sober when engaged in trivial business and who gamble like madmen when confronted with serious issues.

The greatest of all the accomplishments of 20th century science has been the discovery of human ignorance

It is the illusion of knowledge, not ignorance, that keeps one from growing.

Responsibility is a unique concept. It can only reside and inhere in a single individual. You may share it with others, but your portion is not diminished. You may delegate it, but it is still with you. You may disclaim it, but you cannot divest yourself of it. If responsibility is rightfully yours, no evasion, or ignorance or passing the blame can shift the burden to someone else. Unless you can point your finger at the man who is responsible when something goes wrong, then you have never had anyone really responsible.

Humanity is our common lot. All men are made of the same clay. There is no difference, at least here on Earth, in the fate assigned to us. We come of the same void, inhabit the same flesh, are dissolved in the same ashes. But ignorance infecting the human substance turns it black, and that incurable blackness, gaining possession of the soul, becomes Evil.