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Ignorance

  • ... ignorance, if not bliss, often saves a good deal of time ...

  • It is as useless to fight against the interpretations of ignorance as to whip the fog.

  • Knowledge slowly builds up what Ignorance in an hour pulls down.

  • ... ignorance gives one a large range of probabilities.

  • ... the bliss that comes from ignorance should seldom be encouraged for it is likely to do one out of a more satisfying bliss.

  • Now, there are two ways to approach a subject that frightens you and makes you feel stupid: you can embrace it with humility and an open mind, or you can ridicule it mercilessly.

  • ... human honesty has its varieties; so does human ignorance.

  • ... ignorance is not bliss. Ignorance is impotence; it is fear; it is cruelty; it is all the things that make for unhappiness.

    • Winifred Holtby,
    • "The Right Side of Thirty" (1930), Pavements at Anderby ()
  • Brass shines as fair to the ignorant as gold to the goldsmith.

    • Elizabeth I,
    • 1581, in G.B. Harrison, The Letters of Queen Elizabeth I ()
  • Those who know nothing must believe everything.

  • 'Twas doing nothing was his curse; — / Is there a vice can plague us worse? / The wretch who digs the mine for bread, / Or ploughs, that others may be fed, / Feels less fatigue than that decreed / To him who cannot think or read.

  • ... the most violent element in society is ignorance ...

  • Our biggest problem as human beings is not knowing that we don't know.

  • ... it is a disgraceful thing to be ignorant ...

    • Madame de Sévigné,
    • 1689, Letters of Madame de Sévigné to Her Daughter and Her Friends, vol. 8 ()
  • She knows nothing of business, and is made to pay for everything through the nose.

  • ... I didn't know what she was talking about, so I said 'I know that. Who doesn't know that?'

  • Ignorance might be bliss, but it's irresponsible and dangerous too.

  • Ignorance is a self-generating state of mind; one of its characteristics is that it doesn't recognize itself as ignorance.

  • ... there is nothing more powerful than ignorance, not even intelligence ...

  • ... ignorance is the mother of presumption.

  • Ignorance is not innocence.

    • Queen Christina,
    • "Maxims" (1680), in Henry Woodhead, ed., Memoirs of Christina, Queen of Sweden, vol. 2 ()
  • Easy for them to keep their youth who will never learn a lesson ...

  • People are generally opposed to things they know nothing about.

  • She had a mean and petty mind. She disliked everything she didn't understand, and she understood practically nothing.

  • ... it is always difficult to impress the ignorant.

  • You can tell by looking at most people that the world remains a stone to them and a closed door.

  • Everybody is ignorant, only on different subjects.

  • There is at present in the United States a powerful activist movement that is anti-intellectual, anti-science, and anti-technology. If we are to have faith that mankind will survive and thrive on the face of the Earth, we must depend on the continued revolutions brought about by science.

    • Rosalyn Yalow,
    • in Sharon Bertsch McGrayne, Nobel Prize Women in Science ()
  • Fish are not the best authority on water.

  • To him all that was indefinite was evil; all that was unfamiliar was horrible. It is the error of ignorance at all times.

  • If you choose to turn your back, you don't really have a say in what goes on behind it.

  • Ignorance is temporary. Stupidity, unfortunately, is permanent.

  • So long as we think dugout canoes are the only possibility — all that is real or can be real — we will never see the ship, we will never feel the free wind blow.

  • 'Tis the ignorant who boast.

    • Carmen Sylva,
    • in Carmen Sylva and Alma Strettell, Legends From River and Mountain ()
  • Ignorance is no excuse — it's the real thing.

    • Irene Peter,
    • in Laurence J. Peter, Peter's Quotations ()
  • Fifty per cent of the public doesn't know what 'fifty per cent' means.

  • Only ignorance! only ignorance! how can you talk about only ignorance? Don't you know that it is the worst thing in the world, next to wickedness? And which does the most mischief Heaven only knows. If people can say, 'Oh! I did not know, I did not mean any harm,' they think it is all right.

  • Some minds remain open long enough for the truth not only to enter but to pass on through by way of a ready exit without pausing anywhere along the route.

  • To give an answer in advance of a question was futile, and to propound a question in order to supply the answer was also futile. There were difficulties that could best be met by unawareness of their existence.

  • There's evidence that the more misinformed we are, the more strongly we insist that we're correct.

    • Brooks Jackson,
    • in Brooks Jackson and Kathleen Hall Jamieson, UnSpun: Finding Facts in a World of Disinformation ()
  • A person who buries his head in the sand offers an engaging target.

  • Ignorance gives her confidence, and she is fearless from want of understanding.

  • I could understand ignorance, but I could not accept its glorification, still less its right to rule.