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Ignorance Quotes

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Ignorance Quotes

“The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.”

“Following Him is walking in the light and not in darkness. Man on account of sin is in moral and spiritual darkness. Believing on Christ and following Him delivers from both. In His fellowship the believer is delivered from the power of darkness, from the power of sin and from ignorance as to spiritual things.”

Men Believe Light Christian Spiritual Christ Sin Moral Darkness Ignorance Walking Accounts Following Believer Fellowship Spiritual Darkness

Author:Arno C. Gaebelein

“The greatest slave is not he who is ruled by a despot, great though that evil be, but he who is in the thrall of his own moral ignorance, selfishness, and vice.”

Evil Moral Ignorance Slave Vices Selfishness Despots

Book:Self-help; with Illustrations of Character, Conduct, and Perseverance

Source: Self-help; with Illustrations of Character, Conduct, and Perseverance

“The most perfect philosophy of the natural kind only staves off our ignorance a little longer: as perhaps the most perfect philosophy of the moral or metaphysical kind serves only to discover larger portions of it. Thus the observation of human blindness and weakness is the result of all philosophy, and meets us at every turn, in spite of our endeavours to elude or avoid it.”

Humans Kind Littles Philosophy Turns Natural Perfect Results Moral Ignorance Weakness Observation Spite Portions Blindness Metaphysical Endeavour Elude

Book:Essays and Treatises on Several Subjects

Source: Essays and Treatises on Several Subjects

“Like language, a code of manners can be used with more or less skill, for laudable or for evil purposes, to express a great variety of ideas and emotions. In itself, it carries no moral value, but ignorance in use of this tool is not a sign of virtue.”

Ideas Use Used Purpose Values Evil Language Emotion Moral Virtue Ignorance Skills Tools Variety Manners Code Carrie Moral Values

Book:Common courtesy: in which Miss Manners solves the problem that baffled Mr. Jefferson

Source: Common courtesy: in which Miss Manners solves the problem that baffled Mr. Jefferson

“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.”

“Where LGBT and mental health issues collide is over stigma. And stigma is society's problem not the problem of the LGBT or mental health community. What we have to deal with is the ignorance, fear and prejudice that blight the lives of those who have nothing wrong with them in any moral or transgressive sense. It is society that is ill.”

Problem Community Deals Moral Issues Ignorance Prejudice Mental Health Ill Lgbt Stigma Collide Blight Health Issues

Author:Stephen Fry

“It seems to me that if one had kept silence up to now regarding religion, people would still be submerged in the most grotesque and dangerous superstition ... regarding government, we would still be groaning under the bonds of feudal government ... regarding morals, we would still be having to learn what is virtue and what is vice. To forbid all these discussions, the only ones worthy of occupying a good mind, is to perpetuate the reign of ignorance and barbarism.”

“So long as the mental and moral instruction of man is left solely in the hands of hired servants of the public--let them be teachers of religion, professors of colleges, authors of books, or editors of journals or periodical publications, dependent upon their literary incomes for their daily bread, so long shall we hear but half the truth; and well if we hear so much. Our teachers, political, scientific, moral, or religious; our writers, grave or gay, are compelled to administer to our prejudices and to perpetuate our ignorance.”

“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.”

People Stills Moral Christianity Ignorance Civilization Errors Vices Genuine Rooted Mock Depravity Happy People

Book:Narrative, of a Five Years' Expedition, Against the Revolted Negroes of Surinam, in Guiana, on the Wild Coast of South America; from the Year 1772, to 1777:: Elucidating the History of that Country, and Describing Its Productions, ... with an Account of the Indians of Guiana, & Negroes of Guinea

Source: Narrative, of a Five Years' Expedition, Against the Revolted Negroes of Surinam, in Guiana, on the Wild Coast of South America; from the Year 1772, to 1777:: Elucidating the History of that Country, and Describing Its Productions, ... with an Account of the Indians of Guiana, & Negroes of Guinea

“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.”

“... there are no chains so galling as the chains of ignorance--no fetters so binding as those that bind the soul, and exclude it from the vast field of useful and scientific knowledge. O, had I received the advantages of early education, my ideas would, ere now, have expanded far and wide; but, alas! I possess nothing but moral capability--no teachings but the teachings of the Holy Spirit.”

Ideas Soul Spirit Education Moral Teaching Fields Ignorance Holy Advantage Wide Chains Holy Spirit Capability Alas Binding Fetters Scientific Knowledge Early Education

Author:Maria W. Stewart

“We are born with a potential for good character - and for the dispositions and habits that make up bad or weak character. Because we are born in ignorance of moral ideals, however, we must be instructed or trained if we are to achieve a good second nature.”

Ifs Character Born Moral Achieve Ignorance Habit Ideals Weak Disposition Good Character Weak Character

Book:Character and Cops: Ethics in Policing

Source: Character and Cops: Ethics in Policing

“We rather confess our moral errors, faults, and crimes than our ignorance.”

Moral Crime Ignorance Errors Faults

Author:Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“The costs of an ignorance of science are nor just practical ones like misbegotten policies, forgone cures, and a unilateral disarmament in national competitiveness. There is a moral cost as well. It is an astonishing fact about our species that we understand so much about the history of the universe. the forces that make it tick, the stuff it's made of; the origin of living things, and the machinery of life. A failure to nurture this knowledge shows a philistine indifference to the magnificent achievements humanity is capable of; like allowing a great work of art to molder in a warehouse.”

“The ethical rule is from Samuel Johnson who believed that maintenance of easily removable ignorance by a responsible office holder was treacherous malfeasance in meeting moral obligation. The prudential rule is that underlying the old Warner & Swasey advertisement for machine tools: "The man who needs a new machine tool, and hasn't bought it, is already paying for it". The Warner & Swasey rule also applies, I believe, to thinking tools. If you don't have the right thinking tools, you, and the people you seek to help, are already suffering from your easily removable ignorance.”

“Book CoverTo have people who are well informed but not constrained by conscience is conceivably, the most dangerous outcome of education possible. Indeed it could be argued that ignorance is better than unguided intelligence, for the most dangerous people are those who have knowledge without a moral framework.”

People Wells Book Moral Dangerous Ignorance Conscience Outcomes Framework

Author:Ernest L. Boyer

“Compassion is the basis of morality.”

Compassion Moral Wise Ignorance Morality Forgiveness Ethics Bases Caring Pessimism

Author:Arthur Schopenhauer

“...human beings are a species splendid in their array of moral equipment, tragic in their propensity to misuse it, and pathetic in their ignorance of the misuse.”

Humans Human Beings Moral Ignorance Species Tragic Equipment Splendid Pathetic Misuse Propensity

Book:The Moral Animal: Why We Are, the Way We Are: The New Science of Evolutionary Psychology

Source: The Moral Animal: Why We Are, the Way We Are: The New Science of Evolutionary Psychology

“When moral superiority combines with billowing ignorance, they fill up a hot-air balloon that's awfully hard not to poke.”

Hard Moral Air Ignorance Hot Superiority Balloons Poke Hot Air Moral Superiority Air Balloons Hot Air Balloons

Book:Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: Our Year of Seasonal Eating

Source: Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: Our Year of Seasonal Eating

“For nearly a century, the moral relativism of science has given faith-based religion--that great engine of ignorance and bigotry--a nearly uncontested claim to being the only universal framework for moral wisdom. As a result, the most powerful societies on early spend their time debating issues like gay marriage when they should be focused on problems like nuclear proliferation, genocide, energy security, climate change, poverty, and failing schools.”

“Cultural speciation had been crippling to human moral and spiritual growth. It had hindered freedom of thought, limited our thinking, imprisoned us in the cultures into which we had been born. . . . These cultural mind prisons. . . . Cultural speciation was clearly a barrier to world peace. So long as we continued to attach more importance to our own narrow group membership than to the ‘global village’ we would propagate prejudice and ignorance.”

“To attempt social reform, educational reform, industrial expansion, the moral improvement of the race without aiming, first and foremost, at political freedom is the very height of ignorance and futility.”

Firsts Political Culture Social Justice Race Moral Ignorance Diversity Social Justice Educational Improvement Reform Height Expansion Futility Social Reform Political Freedom Educational Reform

Book:Annual

Source: Annual

“It is not till it is discovered that high individual incomes will not purchase the mass of mankind immunity from cholera, typhus, and ignorance, still less secure them the positive advantages of educational opportunity and economic security, that slowly and reluctantly, amid prophecies of moral degeneration and economic disaster, society begins to make collective provision for needs which no ordinary individual, even if he works overtime all his life, can provide himself.”