Ignorance

"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."

"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 can be interesting. ∞ Also fatal."

"Any wise enemy is better than an ignorant friend."

"Be ignorance thy choice, where knowledge leads to woe."

"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."

"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."

"It’s amazing how self-perpetuating ignorance is."

"Any time you combine ignorance and borrowed money, you can get some pretty interesting consequences."

"For "ignorance is the mother of devotion," as all the world knows."

"The truest characters of ignorance Are vanity, and pride, and annoyance."

"Man is arrogant in proportion to his ignorance."

"That there should one Man die ignorant who had capacity for Knowledge, this I call a tragedy."

"Ignorance, to a scientist, is an itch that begs to be pleasurably scratched. Ignorance, if you are a theologian, is something to be washed away by shamelessly making something up."

"There is nothing so dangerous as an ignorant and frightened man."

"A truly refined mind will seem to be ignorant of the existence of anything that is not perfectly proper, placid, and pleasant."

"To be conscious that you are ignorant is a great step to knowledge."

"Mr. Kremlin himself was distinguished for ignorance, for he had only one idea, and that was wrong."

"Ignorance never settles a question."

"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 s), 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."

"For your ignorance is the mother of your devotion to me."

"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."

"Ignorance gives one a large range of probabilities."

"Ignorance of one’s misfortunes is clear gain."

"It's always possible to wake someone from sleep, but no amount of noise will wake someone who is pretending to be asleep."

"Ignorance is the dominion of absurdity."

"Es ist nichts schrecklicher als eine tätige Unwissenheit."

"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."

"And his best riches, ignorance of wealth."

"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."

"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."

"If there ever comes a day when I deliberately embrace ignorance, I’ll have lived one day too long."

"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."

"Ignorance is preferable to error, and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing than he who believes what is wrong."

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."

"Bigotry is the disease of ignorance, of morbid minds; enthusiasm of the free and buoyant. Education & free discussion are the antidotes of both."

"Ignorance of the Scriptures is ignorance of Christ"

"Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing."

"Ignorance, madam, pure ignorance."

"He that voluntarily continues ignorant is guilty of all the crimes which ignorance produces."

"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."

"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."

"So long as the mother, Ignorance, lives, it is not safe for Science, the offspring, to divulge the hidden causes of things."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"Ignorance plays the chief part among men, and the multitude of words; but opportunity will prevail."

"To be ignorant of one's ignorance is the malady of the ignorant."