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Ignorance Quotes

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Ignorance Quotes

“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.”

PeopleStillsMoralChristianityIgnoranceCivilizationErrorsVicesGenuineRootedMockDepravityHappy 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
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“The adjuration to be "normal" seems shockingly repellent to me; I see neither hope nor comfort in sinking to that low level. I think it is ignorance that makes people think of abnormality only with horror and allows them to remain undismayed at the proximity of "normal" to average and mediocre. For surely anyone who achieves anything is, essentially, abnormal.”

PeopleThinkingSeemsLevelsAchieveIgnoranceComfortHorrorNormalLowsAverageMediocreSinkingAbnormalProximityLow LevelAbnormality
Book:the Human Mind
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“Everyone wants a happy life without difficulties or suffering. We create many of the problems we face. No one intentionally creates problems, but we tend to be slaves to powerful emotions like anger, hatred and attachment that are based on misconceived projections about people and things. We need to find ways of reducing these emotions by eliminating the ignorance that underlies them and applying opposing forces.”

PeopleWayWantNeedsProblemFacesSufferingForcePowerfulEmotionIgnoranceHatredDifficultySlaveAttachmentPeace Of MindHappy LifeSpiritual WisdomBeing HappyProjectionReducingOpposingEliminatingBe A SlaveEmotional EnergyPowerful Emotions
Author:Dalai Lama
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“In no other field of scientific endeavor do otherwise intelligent people feel free to make public claims based on prejudice and ignorance. Yet in relation to psychic phenomena, committed materialists feel free to disregard the evidence and behave irrationally and unscientifically, while claiming to speak in the name of science and reason. They abuse the authority of science and bring rationalism into disrepute.”

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Book:Science Set Free: 10 Paths to New Discovery
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“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
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“Science is being daily more and more personified and anthromorphized into a god. By and by they will say that science took our nature upon him, and sent down his only begotten son, Charles Darwin, or Huxley, into the world so that those who believe in him, &c.; and they will burn people for saying that science, after all, is only an expression for our ignorance of our own ignorance.”

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Book:The note-books of Samuel Butler
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“Missionaries in the developing world waste a lot of time and money (not to mention the goodwill of non-Christians) proselytizing to the needy. . . . While missionaries do many noble things at great risk to themselves, their dogmatism still spreads ignorance and death. By contrast, volunteers for secular organizations . . . do not waste . . . time telling people about the virgin birth of Jesus. Nor do they tell people in sub-Saharan Africa - where nearly four million people die from AIDS every year - that condom use is sinful.”

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Author:Sam Harris
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“To get the bad customs of a country changed and new ones, though better, introduced, it is necessary first to remove the prejudices of the people, enlighten their ignorance, and convince them that their interests will be promoted by the proposed changes; and this is not the work of a day.”

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Book:Memoirs of the life and writings of Benjamin Franklin ...
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“I never had that feeling that I had to carry the weight of somebody's ignorance around with me. And that was true for racists who wanted to use the 'n' word when talking about me or about my people, or the stupidity of people who really wanted to belittle other folks because they weren't pretty or they weren't rich or they weren't clever.”

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Author:Maya Angelou
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“What is intelligence, anyway It is only a word that people use to name those unknown processes with which our brains solve problems we call hard. But whenever you learn a skill yourself, you're less impressed or mystified when other people do the same. This is why the meaning of 'intelligence' seems so elusive: It describes not some definite thing but only the momentary horizon of our ignorance about how minds might work.”

PeopleMindHardUseProblemSeemsMightNamesProcessBrainIgnoranceSkillsSolveHorizonImpressedDefiniteElusiveMomentaryKilling Yourself
Author:Marvin Minsky
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“It is chiefly, I regret to say, through journalism that such people find expression. I regret it because there is much to be said in favour of modern journalism. By giving us the opinions of the uneducated, it keeps us in touch with the ignorance of the community.”

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Book:The Collected Works of Oscar Wilde
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“America is supposed to pride itself on freedom of religion, race, and class. It's something that is carried on from ignorance and territorialism. I don't know if it's a transcendental pre-colonial mentality but I don't see too many other races of people trippin' about who is coming in and coming out. I think it's primarily racism disguised as class wars.”

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Author:Myka 9
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“There is within the hearts of people a deep desire for peace on earth, and they would speak for peace if they were not bound by apathy, by ignorance, by fear. It is the job of the peacemakers to inspire them from their apathy, to dispel their ignorance with truth, to allay their fear with faith that God's laws work - and work for good.”

PeopleIfsHeartEarthJobsLawDesireSpeakIgnoranceInspireBoundsApathyPeace On EarthPeacemakerDeep Desire
Book:Peace Pilgrim: Her Life and Work in Her Own Words
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“Wherever there is a religious regime, over there there is ignorance, misery and absurdity! No religious state can ever elevate its own people! Sooner or later, the primitiveness of the religious administrations and the irrationality of the religious rules will cause a great collapse of those countries! The downfall is inevitable!”

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Author:Mehmet Murat Ildan
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“Often a non-Christian knows something about the earth, the heavens, and the other parts of the world, about the motions and orbits of the stars and even their sizes and distances... and this knowledge he holds with certainty from reason and experience. It is thus offensive and disgraceful for an unbeliever to hear a Christian talk nonsense about such things, claiming that what he is saying is based in Scripture. We should do all that we can to avoid such an embarrassing situation, which people see as ignorance in the Christian and laugh to scorn.”

PeopleKnowsWorldShouldReasonEarthChristianHeavenStarsSituationLaughingIgnoranceDistanceSizeScriptureCertaintyNonsenseOffensiveEmbarrassingScornOrbitUnbelieversDisgraceful
Author:Saint Augustine
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“People who know nothing about advertising, nothing about pharmaceuticals, and nothing about economics have been loudly proclaiming that the drug companies spend too much on advertising - and demanding that the government pass laws based on their ignorance.”

PeopleKnowsHas BeensGovernmentLawCompanyToo MuchIgnoranceDrugEconomicsAdvertisingProclaimingDrug Companies
Book:Ever Wonder Why?: and Other Controversial Essays
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“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.”

PeopleIfsThinkingMenNeedsBelieveHelpingSufferingI BelieveMoralIgnoranceHe ManOfficeToolsMachinesResponsibleMeetingsObligationEthicalJohnsonMaintenanceAdvertisementsTreacherousMoral ObligationMalfeasance
Author:Charlie Munger
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“Not only in peasant homes, but also in city skyscrapers, there lives alongside the twentieth century, the thirteenth. A hundred million people use electricity and still believe in the magic powers of signs and exorcisms . . . movie stars to mediums. Aviators who pilot miraculous mechanisms created by man's genius wear amulets on their sweaters. What inexhaustible reserves they possess of darkness, ignorance and savagery!”

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Author:Leon Trotsky
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“There are over a million types of fish in the sea as there are flowers in all of the world's gardens. There are at least a million different types of rocks/minerals as there are species of birds or monkeys. To believe we are the only "intelligent beings" on this earth and beyond is ignorance. The possible configurations of lifeforms that could be created from a single atom are infinite. There are at least a billion people on this earth, and no two faces look the same. It is very arrogant to assume that we have seen all of God's miracles.”

PeopleWorldBelieveLooksTwoDifferentEarthFacesMillionsSeaRocksIgnoranceFlowerTypeBirdGardenMiracleIntelligentInfiniteAssumingSpeciesFishesBillionsAtomsArrogantMonkeysMineralsConfigurationFish In The Sea
Author:Suzy Kassem
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“Regarding fiction, our concern shouldn't be the author's origin (and of course I am forgetting the sales people right here), because that is actually merely a simplified, almost insulting judgment of the book by its cover - or rather by the name and origin of its author - an act of discrimination if we want to say it in a more provoking way, but at the least an act of ignorance and false empathy.”

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Author:Sasa Stanisic
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“There are petty-minded people who cannot endure to be reminded of their ignorance because, since they are usually quite blind to all things, quite foolish, and quite ignorant, they never question anything, and are persuaded that they see clearly what in fact they never see at all, save through the darkness of their own dispositions.”

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Author:Madeleine de Souvre, marquise de Sable
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“The people who see the population explosion in the Malthusian way - as a geometric progression - forget that population growth is not a biological issue. People are not increasing in numbers out of stupidity and ignorance. Population growth is an ecological phenomenon linked very intimately to other issues, such as the usurpation of the resources which allow people to live.”

PeopleWayGrowthForgetNumbersIssuesIgnoranceResourcesPopulationStupidityPhenomenonLinkedExplosionsProgressionEcologicalPopulation GrowthGeometricStupidity And IgnoranceUsurpationPopulation Explosion
Author:Vandana Shiva
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