Best 3803 quotes in «ignorance quotes» category

Enlightenment is not about becoming divine. Instead it's about becoming more fully human. . . . It is the end of ignorance.

Entire ignorance is not so terrible or extreme an evil, and is far from being the greatest of all.

Envy comes from people's ignorance of, or lack of belief in, their own gifts.

Error is worse than ignorance.

Even as a youngster, though, I could not bring myself to believe that if knowledge presented danger, the solution was ignorance. To me, it always seemed that the solution had to be wisdom. You did not refuse to look at danger, rather you learned how to handle it safely.

Even if they're functioning out of ignorance, they are still participating and must be suppressed. In China, even one million people can be considered a small sum.

Even in an advanced stage of civilization, there is always a tendency to prefer those parts of literature which favor ancient prejudices, rather than those which oppose them; and in cases where this tendency is very strong, the only effect of great learning will be to supply the materials which may corroborate old errors and confirm old superstitions. In our time such instances are not uncommon; and we frequently meet with men whose erudition ministers to their ignorance, and who, the more they read the less they know.

Even in Europe a change has sensibly taken place in the mind of man. Science has liberated the ideas of those who read and reflect, and the American example has kindled feelings of right in the people. An insurrection has consequently begun of science talents and courage against rank and birth, which have fallen into contempt. It has failed in its first effort, because the mobs of the cities, the instrument used for its accomplishment, debased by ignorance, poverty and vice, could not be restrained to rational action. But the world will soon recover from the panic of this first catastrophe.

Even the best-natured people, if uninstructed, are always blind and uncertain. We must take pains to instruct ourselves so that ignorance makes us neither too timid nor too bold.

Even knowledge has to be in the fashion, and where it is not, it is wise to affect ignorance.

Even those who have desired to work out a completely positive philosophy have been philosophers only to the extent that, at the same time, they have refused the right to install themselves in absolute knowledge. They taught not this knowledge, but its becoming in us, not the absolute but, at most, our absolute relation to it, as Kierkegaard said. What makes a philosopher is the movement which leads back without ceasing from knowledge to ignorance, from ignorance to knowledge, and a kind of rest in this movement.

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.

Everybody gets told to write about what they know. The trouble with many of us is that at the earlier stages of life we think we know everything- or to put it more usefully, we are often unaware of the scope and structure of our ignorance.

Every climate scientist has his or her own views on some issues that differ from the mainstream in detail. But the broad findings of the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) have general support amongst scientists with relevant specialist expertise. The broad wisdom of the IPCC is strongly contested by a small number, and a small minority, of reputed climate scientists. It is not contested by the large majority of specialists, and by the leaders of the relevant learned academies in the countries of great scientific accomplishment.

Every kind of ignorance in the world all results from not realizing that our perceptions are gambles. We believe what we see and then we believe our interpretation of it, we don’t even know we are making an interpretation most of the time. We think this is reality.

Every intellectual revolution which has ever stirred humanity into greatness has been a passionate protest against inert ideas. Then, alas, with pathetic ignorance of human psychology, it has proceeded by some educational scheme to bind humanity afresh with inert ideas of its own fashioning.

Every intervention of man in the environment around him incurs some risk as to both favorable and unfavorable consequences. Every intervention is taken in the face of partial ignorance as to what its effects will be and involves uncertainty as to the ultimate outcome.

Every mind was made for growth, for knowledge, and its nature is sinned against when it is doomed to ignorance.

Every man must be taken to be cognizant of the law, otherwise there is no saying to what extent the excuse of ignorance may not be Law carried. It would be urged in almost every case.

Every mob, in its ignorance and blindness and bewilderment, is a League of Frightened Men that seeks reassurance in collective action.

Every now and then you meet a man whose ignorance is encyclopedic.

Everyone has a responsibility to not only tolerate another person's point of view, but also to accept it eagerly as a challenge to your own understanding. And express those challenges in terms of serving other people.

Everyone is afraid of enlightenment, knowledge, completion. People are afraid of being exposed.

Everyone wants a happy life without difficulties or suffering. We create many of the problems we face. No one intentionally creates problems, but we tend to be slaves to powerful emotions like anger, hatred and attachment that are based on misconceived projections about people and things. We need to find ways of reducing these emotions by eliminating the ignorance that underlies them and applying opposing forces.

Everything is perception. A hallucination is a perception of a certain reality. It is a perception of a certain state of mind.

Every optimist moves along with progress and hastens it, while every pessimist would keep the worlds at a standstill. The consequence of pessimism in the life of a nation is the same as in the life of the individual. Pessimism kills the instinct that urges men to struggle against poverty, ignorance and crime, and dries up all the fountains of joy in the world.

Every principle is a judgment, every judgment the outcome of experience, and experience is only acquired by the exercise of the senses; whence it follows that religious principles bear upon nothing whatever and are not in the slightest innate. Ignorance and fear, you will repeat to them, ignorance and fear - those are the twin bases of every religion.

Everything goes through the cycle of birth, growth, maturation, decay and death. But all of this is an illusion. Everything we see is an illusion.

Every time a person allows an act of ignorance to happen (one word, thought or action), they delay our progress towards building a beautiful global garden for our children. Every person, molecule, and THING matters. All of our separate actions are a reflection of the actions of the whole.

Every time that a people which has long crouched in slavery and ignorance is moved to its lowest depths there appear monsters and heroes, prodigies of crime and prodigies of virtue.

Evil (ignorance) is like a shadow-- it has no real substance of its own, it is simply a lack of light. You cannot cause a shadow to disappear by trying to fight it, stamp on it, by railing against it, or any other form of emotional or physical resistance. In order to cause a shadow to disappear, you must shine light on it

Every wicked man is in ignorance as to what he ought to do, and from what to abstain, and it is because of error such as this that men become unjust and, in a word, wicked.

Except for half a dozen in each town the citizens are proud of that achievement of ignorance which is so easy to come by. To be 'intellectual' or 'artistic' or, in their own word, to be 'highbrow,' is to be priggish and of dubious virtue.

Evolution is a fact, as securely established as any in science, and he who denies it betrays woeful ignorance and lack of education, which likely extends to other fields as well.

Faith consists not in ignorance, but in knowledge - knowledge not of God merely...but when we recognize God as a propitious Father through the reconciliation made by Christ, and Christ as given to us for righteousness, sanctification, and life.

Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds

Faith consists, not in ignorance, but in knowledge, and that, not only of God, but also of the divine will.

Extremes are for us as though they were not, and we are not within their notice. They escape us, or we them. This is our true state; this is what makes us incapable of certain knowledge and of absolute ignorance... This is our natural condition, and yet most contrary to our inclination; we burn with desire to find solid ground and an ultimate sure foundation whereon to build a tower reaching to the Infinite. But our whole groundwork cracks, and the earth opens to abysses.

Failure is instructive. The person who really thinks learns quite as much from his failures as from his successes. Genuine ignorance is profitable because it is likely to be accompanied by humility, curiosity, and open-mindedness; whereas ability to repeat catch-phrases, can't terms, familiar propositions, gives the conceit of learning and coats the mind with varnish waterproof to new ideas.

Faith is that which, knowing the Lord's will, goes and does it; or, not knowing it, stands and waits, content in ignorance as in knowledge, because God wills - neither pressing into the hidden future, nor careless of the knowledge which opens the path of action

Far and away, the greatest threat to the ocean, and thus to ourselves, is ignorance. But we can do something about that.

Faith is a term that makes ignorance sound like a virtue

Fear paints pictures of ghosts and hangs them in the gallery of ignorance.

Fear and ignorance are the key roots to racism.

Fear is born from ignorance. We think that the other person is trying to take away something from us. But if we look deeply, we see that the desire of the other person is exactly our own desire - to have peace, to be able to have a chance to live.

Few things are more irritating than when someone who is wrong is also very effective in making his point.

Few people think more than two or three times a year; I have made an international reputation for myself by thinking once or twice a week.

Few economic problems, if any, are difficult of solution. The difficulty, all but invariably, is in confronting them. We know what needs to be done; for reasons of inertia, pecuniary interest, passion or ignorance, we do not wish to say so.

Fifty per cent of the public doesn't know what 'fifty per cent' means.

Fight death all your days, and die knowing you know nothing.