Quotessence
Home / Topics / Ignorance Quotes

Ignorance Quotes

Browse 4419 quotes about Ignorance.

Related topics

MenKnowsIfsPeopleIgnorantWorldThinkingKnowledgeHumansMayMindWayStupiditySelfScienceEvilBelieveCausesDoeShouldPersonsHas BeensWellsKnowingLittlesBlissChildrenLightReasonWantDarknessFactsFirstsGivingStatesIdeasInspirationalPovertyAtheismEnemyLongLawPrejudiceWiseBookTwoOpinionPoliticalNeedsRealEducationFeelsKindMadeOrderSoulSufferingUnderstandingMeanProblemStupidReligionBeliefErrorsFormMatterNaturalReligiousSaidStupidity And IgnoranceCountryDangerousUseEndsLooksSpiritualWarWritingRealitySinTryingWholeAgeStillsWisdomCertainLifeMankindSuperstitionsTodayFacesPrideActionFightingGovernmentHateHeartKnowledge And IgnoranceYearsDoubtmore

Ignorance Quotes

“To ignore [the] great social facts -- political facts, if you please -- and over-emphasize the old moral responsibility of the 'domestic' mother is a hollow mockery and betrays a hopeless ignorance of industrial and urban conditions in the Twentieth Century. ... Everything that counts in the common life is political.”

IfsFactsPoliticalLife IsMotherSocialCommonResponsibilityMoralConditionsCenturyIgnorancePleaseHopelessBetrayUrbanHollowTwentieth CenturyMockeryMoral ResponsibilityCommon Life
Author:Mary Ritter Beard
Create image

“Whosoever shall look heedfully upon those who are eminent for their riches will not think their condition such as that he should hazard his quiet, and much less his virtue, to obtain it, for all that great wealth generally gives above a moderate fortune is more room for the freaks of caprice, and more privilege for ignorance and vice, a quicker succession of flatteries, and a larger circle of voluptuousness.”

ThinkingGivingShouldLooksWealthRoomsVirtueConditionsIgnoranceQuietFortunePrivilegeVicesRichesCirclesFreakFlatteryModeratesSuccessionHazardsCaprice
Book:The Rambler: A Periodical Paper, Published in 1750, 1751, 1752
Create image

“Is there a wrong way to say "I don't know"? Yes. When we declare ignorance, it should be a) honest and b) in the spirit of opening ourselves up to hearing, to learning, to receiving. When we say "I don't know" under these conditions, the words can forge connection, healing, growth. But when we resist or disavow knowledge, when we profess ignorance as a way of donning armor and evading accountability, then we make a mockery of those words, and we rupture connections not only with others but within ourselves, within our souls.”

KnowsWayShouldSoulSpiritGrowthHealingConditionsHonestIgnoranceConnectionsHearingOpeningAccountabilityReceivingArmorMockeryWrong WayRupture
Author:Leah Hager Cohen
Create image

“The present age has witnessed an extraordinary increase of a thinking public, by the facilities afforded to the diffusion of reading; the former happy resignation to ignorance begins to make way for a state of half-enlightenment, and few persons are willing to remain in the condition in which their birth has placed then.”

ThinkingWayPersonsStatesAgeReadingHalfConditionsIgnoranceWillingBirthEnlightenmentIncreaseExtraordinaryFormerFacilityResignationDiffusion
Book:The Works of Frederick Schiller: Top Classic of German
Create image

“There can be no truly moral choice unless that choice is made in freedom; similarly, there can be no really firmly grounded and consistent defense of freedom unless that defense is rooted in moral principle. In concentrating on the ends of choice, the conservative, by neglecting the conditions of choice, loses that very morality of conduct with which he is so concerned. And the libertarian, by concentrating only on the means, or conditions, of choice and ignoring the ends, throws away an essential moral defense of his own position.”

MeanMadeEndsChoicesLosesFreedomResponsibilityLibertyMoralPrinciplesVirtueConditionsPositionIgnoranceMoralityEssentialsConcernedConservativeDefenseLibertarianConsistentNeglectRootedGroundedConcentratingMoral PrinciplesMoral Choices
Author:Murray Rothbard
Create image

“There's no way in which you can ever win a war against terror. As long as there are conditions in many parts of the world that make people desperate: poverty, disease, ignorance, etc. I hope that we will discover soon, that we can survive, only together. We can prosper only together. And I think people are beginning to realize this, that you can't have pockets of prosperity in one part of the world and huge deserts of poverty and deprivation and think you can have a stable, secure world.”

PeopleThinkingWorldWayLongWarTogetherWinningRealizingPovertyConditionsIgnoranceHugeDiseaseTerrorProsperitySecureDesertDesperateEtcPocketsStableDeprivationTogether We Can
Author:Desmond Tutu
Create image

“... overconfidence in one's own ability is the root of much evil. Vanity, egoism, is the deadliest of all characteristics. This vanity, combined with extreme ignorance of conditions the knowledge of which is the very A B C of business and of life, produces more shipwrecks and heartaches than any other part of our mental make-up.”

EvilAbilityBusinessConditionsProduceIgnoranceRootsExtremesVanityHeartacheCharacteristicsEgoismShipwreckOverconfidence
Author:Alice Foote MacDougall
Create image

“Part of the narrative which is sort of supported by the data is that Trump voters are the least educated, and they're voting for Trump out of white solidarity or out of frustration that they're, quote, unquote, "losing their country". And my concern with that is that it sort of reduces the condition of the Trump voter to one of pure ignorance. And I think it's far more complicated.”

ThinkingCountryWhiteConditionsIgnoranceTrumpPureLosingConcernComplicatedEducatedDataNarrativeVotingFrustrationVotersSolidarity
Author:Marc Lamont Hill
Create image

“I think it is time for a new pride in the intellectual life, and a new impatience with people who take pride in ignorance, or somehow use "elite" to mean "person who has taken the time to know" and then are eager to dismiss, say, striving, or the notion that improving one's self out of difficult conditions is a noble thing.”

PeopleThinkingKnowsMeanPersonsSelfUseDifficultTakenConditionsIgnorancePrideIntellectualStriveNotionNobleElitesNow And ThenImprovingImpatienceIntellectual LifeMean Person
Author:George Saunders
Create image

“Most Americans are close to total ignorance about the world. They are ignorant. That is an unhealthy condition in a country in which foreign policy has to be endorsed by the people if it is to be pursued. And it makes it much more difficult for any president to pursue an intelligent policy that does justice to the complexity of the world.”

PeopleIfsWorldDoeCountryDifficultPresidentJusticeConditionsPolicyIgnoranceIntelligentIgnorantPursueComplexityForeign PolicyPursuedUnhealthy
Author:Zbigniew Brzezinski
Create image

“For a man’s life would become intolerable, if he knew what was going to happen to him. He would be made aware of future evils, and would suffer their agonies in advance, while he would get no joy of present blessings since he would know how they would end. Ignorance is the necessary condition of human happiness, and it has to be admitted that on the whole mankind observes that condition well. We are almost entirely ignorant of ourselves; absolutely of others. In ignorance, we find our bliss; in illusions, our happiness.”

IfsKnowsMenHumansWellsMadeEndsWholeHappensWould BeJoySufferingEvilKnow HowConditionsMankindIgnoranceBlessingIllusionIgnorantBlissAgonyHuman Happiness
Author:Anatole France
Create image

“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.”

StatesWholeEarthDesireCertainNaturalKnowledgeConditionsIgnoranceUltimateAbsolutesInfiniteFoundationExtremesContraryReachingCracksTowersIncapableAbyssInclinationGroundworkCertain Knowledge
Author:Blaise Pascal
Create image

“There are three ways in which a ruler can bring misfortune on his army: By commanding the army to advance or to retreat, being ignorant of the fact that it cannot obey. This is called hobbling the army. By attempting to govern an army in the same way as he administers a kingdom, being ignorant of the conditions which obtain in an army. This causes restlessness in the soldier's minds. By employing the officers of his army without discrimination, through ignorance of the military principle of adaptation to circumstances. This shakes the confidence of the soldiers.”

WayMindArtWarFactsThreeCausesPrinciplesConditionsMilitaryIgnoranceCircumstancesArmySoldierDiscriminationKingdomsIgnorantShakesMisfortunesOfficersRulersRetreatAdaptationAttemptingArt Of WarRestlessnessStrategistEmployingStratagemThree WaysBeing Ignorant
Book:The Art of War
Create image