# Ignorance

Ignorance is the condition of being uninformed or uneducated; i.e., lacking knowledge or information.
Arranged alphabetically by author or source: A · B · C · D · E · F · G · H · I · J · K · L · M · N · O · P · Q · R · S · T · U · V · W · X · Y · Z · Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations · See also · External links

## A

* To be ignorant of one's ignorance is the malady of the ignorant.
** Amos Bronson Alcott, Table Talk "Conversation" (1877), as quoted in The New Yale Book of Quotations, p. 12.
* Our No. 1 enemy is ignorance. And I believe that is the No. 1 enemy for everyone — it's not understanding what actually is going on in the world.
** Julian Assange, quoted in Facebook Nation: Total Information Awareness by Newton Lee, (2014)
* 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.
** Julian Assange, quoted in "Julian Assange, monk of the online age who thrives on intellectual battle". The Guardian. 2010-08-01. Retrieved on 2010-08-01.

## B

* Ignorance can be interesting. ∞ Also fatal.
** Iain M. Banks, The Hydrogen Sonata (2013), ISBN 978-0-316-21236-6, Chapter 16, p. 303
* Any wise enemy is better than an ignorant friend.
** Traditional Arabic proverb
** Quoted in Carol Bardenstein, Translation and Transformation in Modern Arabic Literature: The Indigenous Assertions of Muḥammad 'Uthmān Jalāl, Otto Harrassowitz Verlag, 2005, p. 66.
* Be ignorance thy choice, where knowledge leads to woe.
** James Beattie, The Minstrel (1771), Book II, Stanza 30.
* It is not my place to tell you whether there is indefeasible ignorance of ultimate reality. I am ignorant of whether there is or is not. But you should think of these things because there are no things more important, though there are no questions more difficult or less answerable. But one's whole life may be changed if one changes his mind about these questions.
** Lewis White Beck " Praise of Ignorance" in Kant's Legacy: Essays in Honor of Lewis White Beck. (Predrag Cicovacki, 2001), Introduction p. XXV from the Kearse Distinguished Lecture, Rochester Institute of Technology, May 2, 1983
* A large segment of the American public is sadly deficient in its knowledge of basic business and economic facts of life. The media, which many people say are their primary sources of their business and economic info, do not appear to be making any significant impact on this ignorance.
** Frank Bennack, Jr., CEO of Hearst Corporation in 1984 (source: No Comment!. p. 59. ISBN 0275928209. ).
* It’s amazing how self-perpetuating ignorance is.
** Algis Budrys, Hard Landing (1993), p. 61
* Any time you combine ignorance and borrowed money, you can get some pretty interesting consequences.
** Warren Buffett, (June 20, 2018)"1994 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting Warren Buffett Charlie Munger Bill Ackman FULL Q&A". IDP, YouTube. (quote at 4:26 of 3:20:11)
* For "ignorance is the mother of devotion," as all the world knows.
** Robert Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy (1621), Part III, Section IV. Memb. 1. Subsect. 2. Phrase used by Dr. Cole, Disputation with the Papists at Westminster, March 31, 1559. Quoted from Cole by Bishop Jewel, Works, Volume III, Part II, p. 1202. Quoted as a "Popish maxim" by Thomas Vincent, Explicatory Catechism, Epistle to the Reader (c. 1622). Said by Jeremy Taylor, To a person newly converted to the Church of England (1657). Same found in New Custome. I. I. A Morality printed 1573. (True devotion).
* The truest characters of ignorance Are vanity, and pride, and annoyance.
** Samuel Butler, Hudibras (1663-1664).
* Man is arrogant in proportion to his ignorance.
** Edward Bulwer-Lytton, Zanoni (1842), Book IV, Ch. 4

## C

* That there should one Man die ignorant who had capacity for Knowledge, this I call a tragedy.
** Thomas Carlyle, Sartor Resartus, Bk. III, ch. 4.

## D

* There is nothing so dangerous as an ignorant and frightened man.
** L. Sprague de Camp, The Great Fetish (1978), Chapter 11
* A truly refined mind will seem to be ignorant of the existence of anything that is not perfectly proper, placid, and pleasant.
** Charles Dickens, Little Dorrit, Ch. 5 - Something Wrong Somewhere (1855-1857).
* To be conscious that you are ignorant is a great step to knowledge.
** Benjamin Disraeli, Sybil: Or, The Two Nations (1845), p. 36.
* Mr. Kremlin himself was distinguished for ignorance, for he had only one idea, and that was wrong.
** Benjamin Disraeli, Sybil: Or, The Two Nations (1845), Book IV, Chapter V.
* Ignorance never settles a question.
** Benjamin Disraeli, speech, House of Commons (May 14, 1866).
* In Western society... [t]here are no more continents... little left to discover. I am, in part, an ant biologist... and I knew that much of the world of insects remains unknown. ...How ignorant are we? The question of what we know and do not know clung to me. ...In looking into the stories of biological discovery, I... began to find... a collection of scientists, often obsessive, usually brilliant, occasionally half-mad... Those individuals very often see the same things that other scientists see, but they pay more attention... and they focus on them to the point of exhaustion, and at the risk of the ridicule of their peers. ...[W]e are, before these discoveries, always more ignorant than we imagine ourselves to be. ...[W]e are repeatedly willing to imagine we have found most of what is left to discover. Before microbes were discovered, scientists were confident that insects were the smallest organisms. Before life was discovered at the bottom of the ocean, many scientists were confident that nothing lived deeper than three hundred fathoms. Once we made a tree of life that included four kingdoms (animals, plants, fungi, and prokaryotes), we were confident that there would be no more major branches to reveal. ...We are again at a stage when we believe we have found most of what might be found, but we are wrong. ...[W]hole realms of life remain to be found. ...And even before a new realm or kind of life is found, we still have to explore the realms we have already discovered. Most species on Earth are not yet named. Most named species have not yet been studied. When we lived in small communities, hunting and gathering, we knew only the animals and plants around us, particularly those... useful or dangerous. Living on the thin green surface of our small planet in a universe full of stars, we are not so different today. The wild leaps up and more often than not we do not event know its name.
** Robert Dunn, Every Living Thing: Man's Obsessive Quest to Catalogue Life, from Nanobacteria to New Monkeys (2009) Introduction.
* For your ignorance is the mother of your devotion to me.
** John Dryden, The Maiden Queen (1667), Act I, scene 2.

## E

* If I had to name the single most frightening and dangerous threat to the health of the oceans, the one that stands alone yet is at the base of all the others is ignorance: lack of understanding, a failure to relate our destiny to that of the sea, or to make the connection between the health of coral reefs and our own health, between the fate of the great whales and the future of humankind. There is much to learn before it is possible to intelligently create a harmonious, viable place for ourselves on the planet. The best place to begin is by recognizing the magnitude of our ignorance, and not destroy species and natural systems that we cannot re-create nor effectively restore once they are gone.
** Sylvia Earle Sea Change: A Message of the Oceans (1995)
* Ignorance gives one a large range of probabilities.
** George Eliot, Daniel Deronda (1876), Ch. XIII (1876).
* Ignorance of one’s misfortunes is clear gain.
** Euripides, Antiope, Frag. 204.

## F

* It's always possible to wake someone from sleep, but no amount of noise will wake someone who is pretending to be asleep.
** Jonathan Safran Foer, Eating Animals (2009)
* Ignorance is the dominion of absurdity.
** James Anthony Froude, Short Studies on Great Subjects (1867–82), Party Politics.

## G

* Es ist nichts schrecklicher als eine tätige Unwissenheit.
** Nothing is worse than active ignorance.
** Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Frederick Ungar, ed., Goethe's World View Presented in His Reflections and Maxims (1963), p. 58–59.
* There are, however, some potentates I would kill by any and all means at my disposal. They are Ignorance, Superstition, and Bigotry — the most sinister and tyrannical rulers on earth.
** Emma Goldman, responding to audience questions during a speech in Detroit (1898); as recounted in Living My Life (1931), p. 207; quoted by Annie Laurie Gaylor in Women Without Superstition, p. 382.
* And his best riches, ignorance of wealth.
** Oliver Goldsmith, The Deserted Village (1770), line 61.
* To each his suff’rings; all are men, Condemn’d alike to groan,— The tender for another’s pain, Th’ unfeeling for his own. Yet ah! why should they know their fate, Since sorrow never comes too late, And happiness too swiftly flies? Thought would destroy their paradise. No more; where ignorance is bliss, ’T is folly to be wise.
** Thomas Gray, repr. In Poetical Works, ed. J. Rogers (1953). Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College, stanza 10 (written 1742, published 1747).

## H

* The Socratic maxim that the recognition of our ignorance is the beginning of wisdom has profound significance for our understanding of society. The first requisite for this is that we become aware of men’s necessary ignorance of much that helps him to achieve his aims.
** Friedrich Hayek, The Constitution of Liberty (1960), Chap. 2 : The Creative Powers of a Free Civilization
* If there ever comes a day when I deliberately embrace ignorance, I’ll have lived one day too long.
** Jim C. Hines, Revisionary (2016), Chapter 7
* The wise preach to the ignorant when the latter ask them to do so. Through this the ignorant may attain sudden enlightenment, and their mind thereby becomes illuminated. Then they are no longer different from the wise men.
** Huineng, Platform Sutra, Chapter 2

## J

* Ignorance is preferable to error, and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing than he who believes what is wrong.
** Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia (1781-1785), Query 6.
* If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.
** Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Colonel Charles Yancey (6 January 1816) ME 14:384.
* Bigotry is the disease of ignorance, of morbid minds; enthusiasm of the free and buoyant. Education & free discussion are the antidotes of both.
** Thomas Jefferson, letter to John Adams (August 1, 1816).
* Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.
** Jesus Luke 23:34
* Ignorance, madam, pure ignorance.
** Samuel Johnson, in reply to the lady who asked why "pastern" was defined in the dictionary as "the knee of the horse". Boswell's Life of Johnson, (1755).
* He that voluntarily continues ignorant is guilty of all the crimes which ignorance produces.
** Samuel Johnson, reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 336.
* There appears to be a discrepancy between the importance/self-relevance of social issues and people’s willingness to engage with and learn about them... Ignorance — as a function of the system justifying tendencies it may activate—may, ironically, breed more ignorance.
** Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, On the Perpetuation of Ignorance: System Dependence, System Justification, and the Motivated Avoidance of Sociopolitical Information, by Steven Shepherd and Aaron C. Kay, (February 2012)
* It has become clear that people turn to their external systems to regulate a number of relational, existential, and epistemic threats... We leveraged this past research to develop a novel explanation for how people’s tendency to trust in their social systems, and outsource their worries and fears to these systems, can lead to the propagation of ignorance in the context of important social issues.
** Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, On the Perpetuation of Ignorance: System Dependence, System Justification, and the Motivated Avoidance of Sociopolitical Information, by Steven Shepherd and Aaron C. Kay, (February 2012)

## K

* So long as the mother, Ignorance, lives, it is not safe for Science, the offspring, to divulge the hidden causes of things.
** Johannes Kepler, Somnium (The Dream) (1620-1630).
* We recognize that his hate grows out of fear, pride, ignorance, prejudice, and misunderstanding, but in spite of this, we know God's image is ineffably etched in being.
** Martin Luther King, Jr., Loving Your Enemies (November 17, 1957)
* Softmindedness often invades religion. … Softminded persons have revised the Beautitudes to read "Blessed are the pure in ignorance: for they shall see God." This has led to a widespread belief that there is a conflict between science and religion. But this is not true. There may be a conflict between softminded religionists and toughminded scientists, but not between science and religion. … Science investigates; religion interprets. Science gives man knowledge which is power; religion gives man wisdom which is control. Science deals mainly with facts; religion deals mainly with values. The two are not rivals. They are complementary.
** Martin Luther King, Jr., in Strength to Love (1963), Ch. 1 : A tough mind and a tender heart
* There is little hope for us until we become toughminded enough to break loose from the shackles of prejudice, half-truths, and downright ignorance. The shape of the world today does not permit us the luxury of softmindedness.
** Martin Luther King, Jr., in Strength to Love (1963), Ch. 1 : A tough mind and a tender heart
* Ignorance is a kind of insanity in the human animal. People who delight in torturing defenseless children or tiny creatures are in reality insane. The terrible thing is that people who are madmen in private may wear a totally bland and innocent expression in public.
** Akira Kurosawa 'Something Like an Autobiography (1981)

## L

* Unfortunately, the habit of praising or blaming without knowledge of the subject is becoming increasingly common to men of all parties today. This is not due to the failure of this or that doctrine, but to the crisis through which our whole civilisation is passing. At the same time this regrettable tendency adds greatly to the confusion in which all the sociological disputes of our day are taking place.
** Lucien Laurat, Marxism and Democracy, 1940, published by the Left Book Club, Victor Gollancz Ltd, London; translated by Edward Fitzgerald. Text online at the Marxists Internet Archive.
* Ignorance plays the chief part among men, and the multitude of words; but opportunity will prevail.
** Diogenes Laërtius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers, "Cleobulus", iv.
* He said that there was one only good, namely, knowledge; and one only evil, namely, ignorance.
** Diogenes Laërtius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers, "Socrates", xiv
** Variant: The only good is knowledge and the only evil is ignorance.
* He declared that he knew nothing, except the fact of his ignorance.
** Diogenes Laërtius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers, "Socrates", xvi.
* Strange, that ignorance should be our best happiness in this life, and yet be the one we are ever striving to destroy!
** Letitia Elizabeth Landon, Heath's Book of Beauty, 1833, "The Enchantress"
* Ignorance, far more than idleness, is the mother of all the vices; and how recent has been the admission, that knowledge should be the portion of all? The destinies of the future lie in judicious education; an education that must be universal, to be beneficial.
** Letitia Elizabeth Landon, Ethel Churchill, Vol. 2, Chapter 31, 1837.
* Never was there a greater need for the diffusion of knowledge, for in the present ignorance of men there is a very real and imminent danger. We have in the immediate future the possibility of serious struggle; we have all the elements of a possible social upheaval, and we have no religion with sufficient hold upon the people to check what may develop into a wild and dangerous movement. As yet philosophy is the study of the very few only, and the science which has done so much for us, and has achieved so many triumphs, cannot stay the danger which threatens us. The only thing that can prevent it is the diffusion of knowledge, so that men shall understand what is really best for them and shall realize that nothing can ever be good for one which is against the interests of the whole. p. 333
** Charles Webster Leadbeater, Some Glimpses of Occultism: Ancient and Modern (1903)
* The denser the ignorance, the more enlightened it thinks itself to be.
** Henri de Lubac, Paradoxes of Faith (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1987), p. 107.

## M

* Bring your ignorance to the Holy Spirit, the great teacher, who by His precious truth will lead you into all truth.
** William Paton Mackay, reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 337.
* There are three degrees of comparison: stupido, stupidissimo, and tenore.
** Pietro Mascagni, in Scott Beach, Musicdotes, (Berkeley, CA: Ten Speed Press, 1977), p. 94.
* To be ignorant of one's own ignorance is to be in an unprogressive, uninspired state of existence.
** David O. McKay, Pathways To Happiness, (1957), pp. 351-352.
* It's innocence when it charms us, ignorance when it doesn't.
** Mignon McLaughlin, The Second Neurotic's Notebook, 1966, Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill
* Ignorance is the parent of fear.
** Herman Melville, Moby-Dick, Ch. 3 (1851).
* Are you of the stiff, the dry, Cursing the not understood;
** George Meredith The Woods of Westermain, st. 4 (1883).
* Not to know me argues yourselves unknown, The lowest of your throng.
** John Milton, Paradise Lost (1667; 1674), Book IV, line 830.
* The living man who does not learn, is dark, dark, like one walking in the night.
** Ming-hsin pao-chien ("Precious Mirror for Enlightening the Heart") (compiled c. 1393 by Fan Li-pen). Translation for Chinese Repository by Dr. William Milne.
* All wisdom is folly that does not accommodate itself to the common ignorance.
** Michel de Montaigne, Essais, Ch. III (1571-1592).
* Knowledge and truth may be in us without judgment, and judgment also without them; but the confession of ignorance is one of the finest and surest testimonies of judgment that I know.
** Michel de Montaigne, Essais, Ch. X (1571-1592).
* You can see how even the morals of a nation change. Hence, ignorance reacts to the pressure of the atmosphere. One must observe that ignorance clearly affirms the foundations of darkness. One can imagine how easily the undeveloped brain deteriorates when the heart is silent. The morals of the peoples droop like a withered apple tree.
** Morya, Fiery World Book 1, Agni Yoga (1933)

## N

* Not to know is bad; not to strive to know is worse.
** Andre Norton, Dragon Magic (1972), Chapter 3

## O

* Ignorance always carries a price tag.
** Chad Oliver, Field Expedient in Astounding Science Fiction, January 1955, p. 91
* IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH
** George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four, Ch. 1, slogan of the Party (1949).

## P

* People who don't know any better will always be in the dark because the power lies in the hands of men who take good care that ordinary folk don't understand, in the hands, that is, of the government, of the clerical party, of the capitalists.
** Cesare Pavese, The moon and the bonfire, chapter XXVI, p. 149.
* In our infinite ignorance we are all equal.
** Karl Popper, Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge (1963) Introduction "On The Sources of Knowledge and of Ignorance" Section XVII, p. 30. Also as quoted by John Horgan, The Popper Paradox (August 4, 2023).
* From ignorance our comfort flows. The only wretched are the wise.
** Matthew Prior, To the Hon. Charles Montague (1692).
* We live in a golden age of ignorance, and Trump and Brexit are part of that.
** Robert N. Proctor, as quoted in "The problem with facts", by Tim Harford, in Financial Times Magazine (9 March 2017)
* Scientia non habet inimicum nisi ignorantem
** Knowledge has no enemy except an ignorant man
** George Puttenham, The Arte of English Poesie (1589), excerpted and translated in Wayne A. Rebhorn, ed., Renaissance Debates on Rhetoric.

## Q

* Ignorance is death. A closed mind is a catafalque.
** Anna Quindlen, How Reading Changed My Life, (New York: Ballantine Books, 1998), p. 69.

## R

* If ignorance is bliss, then knock the smile off my face.
** Zack de la Rocha, "Settle for Nothing", Rage Against the Machine (album), 1992.
* The words of Lord Buddha that "ignorance is the greatest crime because it brings all miseries to humanity" should be, by now, assimilated by the consciousness of people. Until the leaders of the countries possess brilliant intellects and especially a spiritual synthesis, which helps to embrace all the planes of existence, there will be no real progress.
** Helena Roerich, Letters of Helena Roerich I, (21 October 1931)
* Everybody is ignorant only on different subjects.
** Will Rogers, Paula McSpadden Love, The Will Rogers Book (1972), p. 119. The author was a niece of Will Rogers, and curator of the Will Rogers Memorial in Claremore, Oklahoma.
* Ignorance cannot lead to evil, misconceptions lead to evil. It is not what people do know, it’s what they pretend they do.
** Rousseau, as paraphrased by Tolstoy in A Calendar of Wisdom, P. Sekirin, trans. (1997).
* Men are born ignorant, not stupid; they are made stupid by education.
** Bertrand Russell, A History of Western Philosophy (1945), Book Three, Part II, Chapter XXI: Currents of Thought in the Nineteenth Century, p. 722.

## S

* So oft in theologic wars, The disputants, I ween, Rail on in utter ignorance Of what each other mean, And prate about an Elephant Not one of them has seen!
** John Godfrey Saxe, "The Blind Men and the Elephant," moral, The Poetical Works of John Godfrey Saxe (1887), p. 112. While Saxe said this was a Hindu fable, the story may be found in The Udna, or The Solemn Utterances of the Buddha, chapter 6, section 4, trans. Dawsonne M. Strong, p. 93–96 (1902).
* It is my own peculiarity that I cannot bear ignorance, nor the ignorance of ignoramuses, and even less the ignorance of the informed. Therefore, I decided long ago to converse with the reader on this matter, and to construct before his very eyes—and in his face, if necessary—a different, new reader, one constructed according to my own ideas.
** Friedrich Schlegel, “On Incomprehensibility” (1800), J. Schulte-Sasse, trans., Theory as Practice (1997), p. 146.
* Ignorance is degrading only when found in company with riches. The poor man is restrained by poverty and need: labour occupies his thoughts, and takes the place of knowledge. But rich men who are ignorant live for their lusts only, and are like the beasts of the field, as may be seen every day; and they can also be reproached for not having used wealth and leisure for that which gives them their greatest value.
** Schopenhauer, “On books and reading,” Religion: a dialogue, and other essays, T.B. Saunders, trans. (1910).
* O thou monster, Ignorance, how deformed dost thou look!
** William Shakespeare, Love's Labour's Lost (c. 1595-6), Act IV, scene 2, line 21.
* The common curse of mankind,—folly and ignorance.
** William Shakespeare, Troilus and Cressida, Act ii. Sc. 3. (1602).
* One who intends to understand grasps even the slightest hint, but the one who has no intention to understand never comprehends, no matter how loudly you shout.
** Sanu Sharma, Lockdown
* "Man," I cried, "how ignorant art thou in thy pride of wisdom!"
** Mary Shelley, Frankenstein, Ch. 23 (1818).
* Madam, thou errest: I say, there is no darkness, but ignorance; in which thou art more puzzled, than the Egyptians in their fog.
** William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night (c. 1601-02), Act IV, scene 2, line 44.
* [G]ame theory has already established itself as an essential tool in the behavioral sciences, where it is widely regarded as a unifying language for investigating human behavior. Game theory's prominence in evolutionary biology builds a natural bridge between the life sciences and the behavioral sciences. And connections have been established between game theory and the two most prominent pillars of physics: statistical mechanics and quantum theory. ...[M]any physicists, neuroscientists, and social scientists... are... pursuing the dream of a quantitative science of human behavior. Game theory is showing signs of... an increasing important role in that endeavor. It's a story of exploration along the shoreline separating the continent of knowledge from an ocean of ignorance... a story worth telling.
** Tom Siegfried, A Beautiful Math: John Nash, Game Theory, and the Modern Quest for a Code of Nature (2006) Preface
* If one neglects the laws of learning, a sentence is imposed that he is forever chained to his ignorance.
** Sterling W. Sill, The Power of Believing, (1968), p. 29.
* Ignorant men Don't know what good they hold in their hands until They've flung it away.
** Sophocles, "Ajax", trans. John Moore, in David Grene and Richmond Lattimore, eds., The Complete Greek Tragedies (1959), vol. 2, p. 250. There have been numerous translations of this play by Sophocles, with varying translations of these words, spoken by the character Tecmessa. The translation by George Young, The Dramas of Sophocles, p. 102 (1888) reads, "Men of perverse opinion do not know / The excellence of what is in their hands,/ Till some one dash it from them".
* Ignorantia non est argumentum.
** Translation: Ignorance is no argument.
** Baruch Spinoza, Ethica ordine geometrico demonstrata et in quinque parses distincta, Part 1, Addendum; Amsterdam, 1677.
** Originally used to oppose traditional theological views that everything exists and is determined by divine intervention because no other plausible reason or explanation is seen.
* There's nothing as safe as ignorance — or as dangerous.
** Rex Stout, "The Squirt and the Monkey" (1951), character of Nero Wolfe.
* Ignoramuses are numerous in the palace.
** Sumerian proverb, Collection VIII at The Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature, 3rd millennium BCE.

## T

* Ignorance is the mother of devotion.
** Jeremy Taylor, To a Person Newly Converted (1657).
* Blind and naked Ignorance Delivers brawling judgments, unashamed, On all things all day long.
** Alfred Tennyson, Idylls of the King, Merlin and Vivien. Line 662. (1859-1885).
* We struggle onward, ignorant and blind,
    For a result unknown and undesign’d;
    Avoiding seeming ills, misunderstood,
    Embracing evil as a seeming good.
   * Theognis of Megara , Elegies Lines 137-139, as translated by J. Banks, The Works of Hesiod, Callimachus, and Theognis (1856), p. 464
* How can he remember well his ignorance—which his growth requires—who has so often to use his knowledge?
** Henry David Thoreau, Walden (1854).
* The days of deadly ignorance will end, and they will end soon.
** Donald Trump, speech after the 2016 Orlando nightclub shooting (transcript)

## W

* Ignorance served no useful purpose; it changed no fact, it offered no shelter.
** Michelle West, Echoes in Assassin Fantastic (ed. Martin H. Greenberg and Alexander Potter, 2001), p. 267
* I do not approve of anything that tampers with natural ignorance. Ignorance is like a delicate exotic fruit; touch it and the bloom is gone. The whole theory of modern education is radically unsound. Fortunately in England, at any rate, education produces no effect whatsoever. If it did, it would prove a serious danger to the upper classes, and probably lead to acts of violence in Grosvenor Square.
** Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest, Act I, spoken by Lady Bracknell (1895).

## X

* Ignorance of each other is what has made unity impossible in the past. Therefore we need enlightenment. We need more light about each other. Light creates understanding, understanding creates love, love creates patience, and patience creates unity. Once we have more knowledge (light) about each other, we will stop condemning each other and a United front will be brought about.
** Malcolm X: The Man and his Times, edited by John Henrik Clarke, Africa World Press (1990)
* Don't be in such a hurry to condemn a person because he doesn't do what you do, or think as you think or as fast. There was a time when you didn't know what you know today.
** Malcolm X quoted in James L. Conyers, Andrew P. Smallwood, Malcolm X: A Historical Reader, Carolina Academic Press, (2008)

## Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations

    Quotes reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 385-86.
* Causarum ignoratio in re nova mirationem facit.
** In extraordinary events ignorance of their causes produces astonishment.
** Cicero, De Divinatione, II. 22.
* Ignoratione rerum bonarum et malarum maxime hominum vita vexatur.
** Through ignorance of what is good and what is bad, the life of men is greatly perplexed.
** Cicero, De Finibus Bonorum et Malorum, I. 13.
* Non me pudet fateri nescire quod nesciam.
** I am not ashamed to confess that I am ignorant of what I do not know.
** Cicero, Tusc. Quæst. I. 25. 60.
* Ignorance seldom vaults into knowledge, but passes into it through an intermediate state of obscurity, even as night into day through twilight.
** Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Essay XVI.
* Ignorance gives one a large range of probabilities.
** George Eliot, Daniel Deronda (1876), Book II, Chapter XIII.
* Often the cock-loft is empty, in those whom nature hath built many stories high.
** Thomas Fuller, Andronicus, Section VI. Par. 18. 1.
* Es ist nichts schrecklicher als eine thätige Unwissenheit.
** There is nothing more frightful than an active ignorance.
** Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Sprüche in Prosa, III.
* Who ne'er knew salt, or heard the billows roar.
** Homer, The Odyssey, Book XI, line 153. Pope's translation.
* It was a childish ignorance, But now 'tis little joy To know I'm further off from heaven Than when I was a boy.
** Thomas Hood, I Remember, I Remember.
* Rien n'est si dangereux qu'un ignorant ami: Mieux vaudrait un sage ennemi.
** Nothing is so dangerous as an ignorant friend; a wise enemy is worth more.
** Jean de La Fontaine, Fables, VIII. 10.
* A man may live long, and die at last in ignorance of many truths, which his mind was capable of knowing, and that with certainty.
** John Locke, Human Understanding, Book I, Chapter II.
* 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 (1926)
* But let a man know that there are things to be known, of which he is ignorant, and it is so much carved out of his domain of universal knowledge.
** Horace Mann, Lectures on Education, Lecture VI.
* Quod latet ignotum est; ignoti nulla cupido.
** What is hid is unknown: for what is unknown there is no desire.
** Ovid, Ars Amatoria, III. 397.
* It is better to be unborn than untaught: for ignorance is the root of misfortune.
** Plato.
* Etiam illud quod scies nesciveris; Ne videris quod videris.
** Know not what you know, and see not what you see.
** Plautus, Miles Gloriosus, II. 6. 89.
* Illi mors gravis incubat qui notus nimis omnibus ignotus moritur sibi.
** Death presses heavily on that man, who, being but too well known to others, dies in ignorance of himself.
** Seneca the Younger, Thyestes, CCCCI.
* The more we study, we the more discover our ignorance.
** Percy Bysshe Shelley, Scenes from the Magico Prodigioso of Calderon, scene 1.
* Omne ignotum pro magnifico est.
** Everything unknown is magnified.
** Tacitus, Agricola, XXX. Quoting Galgacus, the British leader, to his subjects before the battle of the Grampian Hills. Ritter says the sentence may be a "marginal gloss" and brackets it. Anticipated by Thucydides, Speech of Nicias, VI. 11. 4.
* Homine imperito nunquam quidquid injustius, Qui nisi quod ipse facit nihil rectum putat.
** Nothing can be more unjust than the ignorant man, who thinks that nothing is well done by himself.
** Terence, Adelphi, I. 2. 18.
* Ita me dii ament, ast ubi sim nescio.
** As God loves me, I know not where I am.
** Terence, Heauton timoroumenos, II. 3. 67.
* Namque inscitia est, Adversum stimulum calces.
** It is consummate ignorance to kick against the pricks.
** Terence, Phormio, I. 2. 27.
* Credulity and confidence are the constant companions of ignorance.
** Bartholomew Parr (1750-1810) "Quacks and Quack Medicines," The London Medical Dictionary (1809)

## See also

* Ageless Wisdom teachings
* Education
* Knowledge
* Reality
* Truth
* Wisdom
* World view
* Vices

## External links

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