Best 3803 quotes in «ignorance quotes» category

A brain you can convince, a simpleton you have to persuade.

Absolute certainty is a privilege of uneducated minds and fanatics. - It is, for scientific folk, an unattainable ideal.

According to a charming law of nature which is evident even in the most sophisticated societies, we live in complete ignorance of whatever we love.

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.

Absurd, irreducible; nothing — not even a profound and secret delirium of nature — could explain it. Obviously I did not know everything, I had not seen the seeds sprout, or the tree grow. But faced with this great wrinkled paw, neither ignorance nor knowledge was important: the world of explanations and reasons is not the world of existence. A circle is not absurd, it is clearly explained by the rotation of a straight segment around one of its extremities. But neither does a circle exist. This root, on the other hand, existed in such a way that I could not explain it.

Accumulation of wealth at one pole is at the same time accumulation of misery, agony of toil, slavery, ignorance, brutality, mental degradation, at the opposite pole

According to the Buddha, the failure to recognize the illusion of the self is the source of all ignorance and unhappiness. It is only by renouncing the self, that is, by dropping his ego defences and committing metaphorical suicide, that a person can open up to different modes of being and relating and thereby transform himself into a pure essence of humanity. In so doing, he becomes free to recast himself as a much more joyful and productive person, and attains the only species of transcendence and immortality that is open to man.

A child with an intense capacity for feeling can suffer to a degree that is beyond any degree of adult suffering, because imagination, ignorance, and the conviction of utter helplessness are untempered either by reason or by experience.

A coxcomb is ugly all over with the effectation of a fine gentleman.

A coxcomb is one whom simpletons believe to be a man of merit.

Abstract: Careful review of a vast array of relevant evidence clearly leads to the conclusion that some unidentified flying objects are intelligently controlled vehicles whose origin is outside our solar system. All the arguments against the extraterrestrial origin seem to be based upon false reasoning, misrepresentation of evidence, neglect of relevant information, ignorance of relevant technology, or pseudo sophisticated assumptions about alien appearance, motivation, or government secrecy...

A burning itch to know is higher than a solemn vow to pursue truth. To feel the burning itch of curiosity requires both that you be ignorant, and that you desire to relinquish your ignorance.

A cold-blooded, calculation, unprincipled, usurper, without a virtue, no statesman, knowing nothing of commerce, political economy, or civil government, and supplying ignorance by bold presumption.

A common error of ignorance is to maintain that what one does not know does not exist.

Admiration is the basis of ignorance.

A cure by regression is homeopathic, like healing the damage done by ministers and ignorance with stupidity and Jesuits.

Actions have consequences. Ignorance about the nature of those actions does not free a person from responsibility for the consequences. (28)

Admitting one's ignorance is the first step in acquiring knowledge.

A fool has more ideas than a wise man can foresee.

A few drops of science will often disinfect an entire barrel full of ignorance and prejudice.

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.

A friend of mine says that in the world of religion we often have ignorance on fire and intelligence on ice. The thing I love about The Beatitudes Society is they represent faith and intelligence on fire and there's enthusiasm and passion and a realization that a more open and progressive approach to faith is something to celebrate.

A French woman is a perfect architect in dress: she never, with Gothic ignorance, mixes the orders; she never tricks out a snobby Doric shape with Corinthian finery; or, to speak without metaphor, she conforms to general fashion only when it happens not to be repugnant to private beauty.

After readinf some essay on the nature of human fallibility, I was very aware that we are the recipients of a huge amount of discovery over the last century. Medicine exemplifies this. And that has transitioned us from a world in which people's lives were mostly governed by ignorance to one that's constrained by ineptitude. A century ago, we didn't know, for instance, what diseases afflicted us, what their nature really was, or what to do about them. And that has changed.

After an inferior man has been taught a doctrine of superiority he will remain as inferior as he was before his lesson. He will merely assume himself to be superior, and attempt to employ his recently-learned tactics against his own kind, whom he will then consider his inferiors. With each inferior man enjoying what he considers his unique role, the entire bunch will be reduced to a pack of strutting, foppish, self-centered monkeys gamboling about on an island of ignorance. There they will play their games under the supervision of their keeper, who was and always will be a superior man.

After you've seen behind the facade of a stage set you can't take the play seriously any more. In other words, you can't go backwards and regain your ignorance, you have to move forward.

A happy people I call them still, whose peace and genuine morals have not been contaminated with European vices; and whose errorsare only the errors of ignorance, and not the rooted depravity of a pretended civilization, and a spurious and mock Christianity.

Ah! destructive Ignorance, what shall be done to chase thee out of the World!

A judicious man looks at Statistics, not to "get knowledge, but to save himself from having ignorance foisted 'on him".

A jury is composed of twelve men of average ignorance.

After long experience of politics, I have never found that there is any inhibition caused by ignorance as regards criticism.

Against a stupidity that is in fashion, no wisdom compensates.

Again, in our enterprises we present the singular spectacle of daring and deliberation, each carried to its highest point, and both united in the same persons; although usually decision is the fruit of ignorance, hesitation of reflection. But the palm of courage will surely be adjudged most justly to those, who best know the difference between hardship and pleasure and yet are never tempted to shrink from danger. In generosity we are equally singular, acquiring our friends by conferring, not by receiving, favours.

Against stupidity the very gods themselves contend in vain.

A great idea is usually original to more than one discoverer. Great ideas come when the world needs them. Great ideas surround the world's ignorance and press for admission.

A hierarchical society is only possible on the basis of poverty and ignorance, this new version is the past and no different past can ever have existed. In principle the war effort is always planned to keep society on the brink of starvation. The war is waged by the ruling group against its own subjects and its object is not the victory over either Eurasia or East Asia but to keep the very structure of society intact.

A knowledge of history as detailed as possible is essential if we are to comprehend the present and be prepared for the future. Fate...is not the blind superstition or helplessness that waits stupidly for what may happen. Fate is unalterable only in the sense that given a cause, a certain result must follow, but no cause is inevitable in itself, and man can shape his world if he does not resign himself to ignorance.

A learned parson, rusting in his cell at Oxford or Cambridge, will reason admirably well upon the nature of man; will profoundly analyze the head, the heart, the reason, the will, the passions, the senses, the sentiments, and all those subdivisions of we know not what ; and yet, unfortunately, he knows nothing of man... He views man as he does colours in Sir Isaac Newton's prism, where only the capital ones are seen; but an experienced dyer knows all their various shades and gradations, together with the result of their several mixtures.

A learned person among ignorant people, is like a live person among the dead.

A learned man is not learned in all things; but a sufficient man is sufficient throughout, even to ignorance itself.

A life in Christ is a life of restfulness. There may be no ecstasy of feeling, but there should be an abiding peaceful trust. Your hope is not in yourself; it is in Christ. Your weakness is united to His strength, your ignorance to His wisdom, your frailty to His enduring might....Let the mind dwell upon His love, upon the beauty, the perfection of His character.

All around me insisted that my doubts proved only my own ignorance and sinfulness; that they knew by experience they would soon give place to true knowledge, and an advance in religion; and I felt something like indecision.

A little learning is a dangerous thing but none at all is fatal.

A little learning is a dangerous thing, but a little patronage more so.

All forms of tampering with human beings, getting at them, shaping them against their will to your own pattern, all thought control and conditioning is, therefore, a denial of that in men which makes them men and their values ultimate.

All ignorance is the lack of love.

All beings want to be happy, yet so very few know how. It is out of ignorance that any of us cause suffering, for ourselves or for others

All comparisons between America's current place in the world and anything legitimately called an empire in the past reveal ignorance and confusion about any reasonable meaning of the concept empire, especially the comparison with the Roman Empire.

All I know is just what I read in the papers, and that's an alibi for my ignorance.

All of us must cross the line between ignorance and insight many times before we truly understand.