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Ignorance Quotes

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Ignorance Quotes

“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.”

Source: History of Greece

“Roger_Bacon" title="Roger Bacon">Roger Bacon expressed a feeling which afterwards moved many minds, when he said that if he had the power he would burn all the works of the Stagirite, since the study of them was not simply loss of time, but multiplication of ignorance. Yet in spite of this outbreak every page is studded with citations from Aristotle, of whom he everywhere speaks in the highest admiration.”

Ifs Mind Said Feelings Speak Loss Study Ignorance Highest Pages Moved Spite Admiration Roger Multiplication Outbreaks Citations

Author:George Henry Lewes

“You don't have to be Dave Halberstam to see that the American role in both conflicts [the Iraq war and the Vietnam conflict] is characterized by arrogance, ignorance and self-delusion at the highest levels of government.”

War Self Government Levels Roles Ignorance Conflict Highest Iraq Arrogance Delusion Vietnam Iraq War Dave Self Delusion

Author:Jonathan Yardley

“It is sufficiently humiliating to our nature to reflect that our knowledge is but as she rivulet, our ignorance as the sea. On points of the highest interest, the moment we quit the light of revelation we shall find that Platonism itself is intimately connected with Pyrrhonism, and the deepest inquiry with the darkest doubt.”

Moments Light Faith Interest Doubt Sea Ignorance Highest Connected Quitting Revelations Inquiry Humiliating

Author:Charles Caleb Colton

“It is with nations as with individuals, those who know the least of others think the highest of themselves; for the whole family of pride and ignorance are incestuous, and mutually beget each other.”

Thinking Knows Whole Individual Nations Ignorance Pride Highest Begets Whole Family

Book:Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think

Source: Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think

“Without knowledge there can be no sure progress. Vice and barbarism are the inseparable companions of ignorance. Nor is it too much to say that, except in rare instances, the highest virtue is attained only through intelligence.”

Virtue Too Much Progress Ignorance Highest Vices Instance Companion Inseparable Barbarism

Book:The Law of Human Progress: An Oration Before the Phi Beta Kappa Society of Union College, Schenectady. July 25th, 1848

Source: The Law of Human Progress: An Oration Before the Phi Beta Kappa Society of Union College, Schenectady. July 25th, 1848

“Superficial knowledge ... is hurtful to those who possess true genius; for it necessarily draws them away from their main object, wastes their industry over details and subjects foreign to their needs and natural talent, and lastly does not serve, as they flatter themselves, to prove the breadth of their mind. In all ages there have been men of very moderate intelligence who knew much, and so on the contrary, men of the highest intelligence who knew very little. Ignorance is not lack of intelligence, nor knowledge a proof of genius.”

“The snapshot has no pretense or ambition. Innocence is the quintessence of the snapshot. I wish to distinguish between innocence and ignorance. Innocence is one of the highest forms of being and ignorance is one of the lowest.”

Form Wish Ignorance Ambition Highest Innocence Lowest Pretense Snapshots Quintessence

Author:Lisette Model

“To admit ignorance is the highest knowledge. It is the necessary condition for all learning.”

Conditions Ignorance Highest

Book:In the City of Shy Hunters

Source: In the City of Shy Hunters

“Ignorance is the first requisite of the historian - ignorance, which simplifies and clarifies, which selects and omits, with a placid perfection unattainable by the highest art.”

Firsts Art Ignorance Highest Perfection Historian Simplify Unattainable Placid

Author:Lytton Strachey