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Ignorance Quotes

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Ignorance Quotes

“Mankind have a great aversion to intellectual labor; but even supposing knowledge to be easily attainable, more people would be content to be ignorant than would take even a little trouble to acquire it.”

PeopleLittlesWould BeTroubleMankindIgnoranceIntellectualLaborIgnorantAcquireAversionSupposingSupposing That
Book:Boswell's Life of Johnson: Including Boswell's Journal of a Tour of the Hebrides, and Johnson's Diary of A Journey Into North Wales
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“Our country is the best country in the world. We are swimming in prosperity and our President is the best president in the world. We have larger apples and better cotton and faster and more beautiful machines. This makes us the greatest country in the world. Unemployment is a myth. Dissatisfaction is a fable. In preparatory school America is beautiful. It is the gem of the ocean and it is too bad. It is bad because people believe it all. Because they become indifferent. Because they marry and reproduce and vote and they know nothing.”

PeopleKnowsWorldBelieveCountrySchoolAmericaBeautifulPresidentIgnoranceOceanMachinesVoteProsperityMythOur CountryFasterApplesSwimmingIndifferentUnemploymentDissatisfactionFablesCottonGemsBest Country
Book:John Cheever: Collected Stories and Other Writings
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“The world is hard and cruel. We are here none knows why, and we go none knows whither. We must be very humble. We must see the beauty of quietness. We must go through life so inconspicuously that Fate does not notice us. And let us seek the love of simple, ignorant people. Their ignorance is better than all our knowledge. Let us be silent, content in our little corner, meek and gentle like them. That is the wisdom of life.”

PeopleKnowsWorldLittlesDoeHardSimpleFateIgnoranceSilentCornersHumbleIgnorantGentleMeekQuietnessLife WisdomIgnorant People
Book:The Essential W. Somerset Maugham Collection
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“Henry's universe was modeled on the highball. It was a mixture in which half a pint of the fizziest philosophical and scientific ideas all but drowned a small jigger of immediate experience, most of it strictly sexual. Broken reeds are seldom good mixers. They're far too busy with their ideas, their sensuality and their psychosomatic complaints to be able to take an interest in other people - even their own wives and children. They live in a state of the most profound voluntary ignorance, not knowing anything about anybody, but abounding in preconceived opinions about everything.”

PeopleChildrenIdeasStatesAbleUniverseInterestHalfOpinionKnowingWifeIgnoranceBrokenPhilosophicalProfoundBusySensualityNot KnowingComplaintsMixturesToo BusyReedsPintsInterest In Others
Book:Great Short Works of Aldous Huxley
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“Sometimes, though, I feel that pushing books is a whole lot like pushing medicine. Think of books as pills. I have pills that cure ignorance and pills that cure boredom. I have pills to elevate moods and pills to open people's eyes to the awful truth: uppers and downers as they were. I sell pills to help people find themselves and pills to help them lose themselves when they require escape from the pressures and anxieties of life in a complex society.”

PeopleThinkingFeelsBookSometimesWholeHelpingEyeLosesIgnoranceAnxietyPressureSellsMedicineComplexesMoodCuresAwfulBoredomPushingPillsDowners
Book:Even Cowgirls Get the Blues
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“You have to attack the source of your enemy’s strength. In America’s case, that’s not Osama or Saddam or anyone else. The enemy is ignorance. The only way to defeat it is to build relationships with those people, to draw them into the modern world with education and business. Otherwise the fight will go on forever.”

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Book:Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace . . . One School at a Time
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“She was heartily ashamed of her ignorance - a misplaced shame. Where people wish to attach, they should always be ignorant. To come with a well−informed mind is to come with an inability of administering to the vanity of others, which a sensible person would always wish to avoid. A woman especially, if she have the misfortune of knowing anything, should conceal it as well as she can.”

PeopleIfsShouldMindWellsPersonsWishKnowingIgnoranceShameIgnorantVanityAshamedMisfortunesSensibleInabilityMisplaced
Author:Jane Austen
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“but 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.”

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Book:Something Like An Autobiography
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“The wrongs done to trees, wrongs of every sort, are done in the darkness of ignorance and unbelief, for when the light comes, the heart of the people is always right.”

PeopleHeartDoneLightDarknessTreeIgnoranceUnbelief
Book:Nature Writings: The Story of My Boyhood and Youth, My First Summer in the Sierra, the Mountains of California, Stickeen, Selected Essays
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“Intelligent people know they are intelligent. They also know that one person cannot know all, hence a person is not stupid simply because he is ignorant of one thing or another. They know that, to another intelligent person, they will not appear stupid in asking for an explanation of what they do not know, and so their ignorance on any particular issue does not become an embarrassment.”

PeopleKnowsPersonsDoeIssuesOne ThingStupidIgnoranceParticularIntelligentAskingIntelligenceIgnorantExplanationEmbarrassmentNot StupidThat One PersonIntelligent Person
Author:Lynsay Sands
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“You're afraid of making mistakes. Don't be. Mistakes can be profited by. Man, when I was young I shoved my ignorance in people's faces. They beat me with sticks. By the time I was forty my blunt instrument had been honed to a fine cutting point for me. If you hide your ignorance, no one will hit you and you'll never learn.”

PeopleIfsMenFacesYoungMistakeCuttingIgnoranceFineBeatsInstrumentsSticksMaking MistakesFortyBlunt
Book:Fahrenheit 451
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“Only ignorance! only ignorance! how can you talk about only ignorance? Don't you know that it is the worst thing in the world, next to wickedness? -- and which does the most mischief heaven only knows. If people can say, `Oh! I did not know, I did not mean any harm,' they think it is all right.”

PeopleIfsThinkingKnowsWorldMeanDoeMotivationalNextHeavenWorstIgnoranceHarmWorst ThingsWickednessMischief
Book:Black Beauty: The Autobiography of a Horse
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“I believe all suffering is caused by ignorance. People inflict pain on others in the selfish pursuit of their happiness or satisfaction. Yet true happiness comes from a sense of inner peace and contentment, which in turn must be achieved through the cultivation of altruism, of love and compassion and elimination of ignorance, selfishness and greed.”

PeopleInspirationalBelievePainSufferingTurnsI BelievePeaceCompassionIgnoranceGreedSatisfactionSelfishInner PeacePursuitSelfishnessContentmentAltruismTrue HappinessCultivationEliminationLove And CompassionCompassion For OthersSelfishness And Greed
Author:Dalai Lama
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“The only difference between a cult and a religion is the amount of real estate they own” “Stupidity has a certain charm - ignorance does not” “My best advice to anyone who wants to raise a happy, mentally healthy child is: Keep him or her as far away from a church as you can” “It would be easier to pay off the national debt overnight than to neutralize the long-range effects of our national stupidity” “Communism doesn't work because people like to own stuff.”

PeopleWantChildrenLongDoeRealWould BeCertainStuffDifferencesChurchPayAdviceEffectsIgnoranceAmountEasierHealthyRaisesDebtStupidityCommunismRangeCharmFar AwayEstatesCultBest AdviceNational DebtHealthy Children
Author:Frank Zappa
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“Garrett," said Stendahl, "do you know why I've done this to you? Because you burned Mr. Poe's books without really reading them. You took other people's advice that they needed burning. Otherwise you'd have realized what I was going to do to you when we came down here a moment ago. Ignorance is fatal, Mr. Garrett.”

PeopleKnowsSaidBookDoneMomentsReadingAdviceIgnoranceNeededBurningDo You KnowBurnedMartian Chronicles
Book:Bradbury Stories
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“Nevertheless, (Jefferson) believed that the habit of skepticism is an essential prerequisite for responsible citizenship. He argued that the cost of education is trivial compared to the cost of ignorance, of leaving government to the wolves. He taught that the country is safe only when the people rule.”

PeopleCountryGovernmentIgnoranceTaughtHabitCostSafeEssentialsResponsibleLeavingSkepticismNeverthelessCitizenshipPrerequisitesCost Of Education
Book:Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
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“Laws, it is said, are for the protection of the people. It's unfortunate that there are no statistics on the number of lives that are clobbered yearly as a result of laws: outmoded laws; laws that found their way onto the books as a result of ignorance, hysteria or political haymaking; antilife laws; biased laws; laws that pretend that reality is fixed and nature is definable; laws that deny people the right to refuse protection. A survey such as that could keep a dozen dull sociologists out of mischief for months.”

PeopleWaySaidBookRealityLawPoliticalFoundResultsNumbersIgnoranceMonthsRefuseDenyProtectionFixedDullStatisticsDozenUnfortunateMischiefSurveysHysteriaBiasedSociologists
Author:Tom Robbins
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“This is the concentration camp and crematorium at Auschwitz. This is where people were turned into numbers. Into this pond were flushed the ashes of some four million people. And that was not done by gas. It was done by arrogance. It was done by dogma. It was done by ignorance. When people believe that they have absolute knowledge, with no test in reality, this is how they behave.”

PeopleBelieveDoneRealityNumbersMillionsFourIgnoranceTestsAbsolutesBehaveArroganceGasConcentrationCampsDogmaAshesPondsAscentAuschwitzConcentration Camp
Book:The Ascent of Man
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“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
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“... informed ignorance provides the natural state of mind for research scientists at the ever-shifting frontiers of knowledge. People who believe themselves ignorant of nothing have neither looked for, nor stumbled upon, the boundary between what is known and unknown in the cosmos.”

PeopleMindBelieveStatesNaturalKnownIgnoranceResearchScientistBoundariesIgnorantCosmosState Of MindShiftingFrontiers
Book:Origins: Fourteen Billion Years of Cosmic Evolution
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“Peace requires something far more difficult than revenge or merely turning the other cheek; it requires empathizing with the fears and unmet needs that provide the impetus for people to attack each other. Being aware of these feelings and needs, people lose their desire to attack back because they can see the human ignorance leading to these attacks; instead, their goal becomes providing the empathic connection and education that will enable them to transcend their violence and engage in cooperative relationships.”

PeopleNeedsHumansFeelingsDesireDifficultGoalLosesViolenceIgnoranceConnectionsRevengeCheeksProvidingNonviolent CommunicationCooperativesImpetusTurn The Other CheekUnmet Needs
Book:Speak Peace in a World of Conflict: What You Say Next Will Change Your World
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“Almost all Christians being wretchedly enslaved to blindness and ignorance, which the priests are so far from preventing or removing, that they blacken the darkness, and promote the delusion: wisely foreseeing that the people (like cows, which never give down their milk so well as when they are gently stroked), would part with less if they knew more.”

PeopleIfsGivingWellsChristianDarknessIgnoranceDelusionPriestsMilkCowsBlindnessPreventingForeseeing
Book:In Praise of Folly
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“Words are things. You must be careful, careful about calling people out of their names, using racial pejoratives and sexual pejoratives and all that ignorance. Don’t do that. Some day we’ll be able to measure the power of words. I think they are things. They get on the walls. They get in your wallpaper. They get in your rugs, in your upholstery, and your clothes, and finally in to you.”

PeopleThinkingAbleNamesIgnoranceWallCallingClothesCarefulBe CarefulPower Of WordsUpholstery
Author:Maya Angelou
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“Each of us in our own way can try to spread compassion into people's hearts. Western civilizations these days place great importance on filling the human brain with knowledge, but no one seems to care about filling the human heart with compassion. This is what the real role of religion is.”

PeopleWayInspirationalTryingHumansHeartRealSeemsCareBrainCompassionRolesIgnoranceCivilizationImportanceWesternSpreadThese DaysHuman HeartFillingHuman BrainWestern Civilization
Author:Dalai Lama
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“As life in general constituted much pain in the form of struggles against poverty, disease, ignorance, and emotional anguish, what more civilized way for people to alleviate the same than by giving themselves to one another as brothers and sisters in deed as well as in word? A society of people hoping to become politically superior needed first to become spiritually valid.”

PeopleWayLoveLifeGivingFirstsWellsPainFormHumanityPovertyStruggleIgnoranceEmotionalBrotherNeededDiseaseDeedsSuperiorsCivilizedBrotherhoodAnguishBrothers And SistersAlleviate
Book:Journey through the Power of the Rainbow: Quotations from a Life Made Out of Poetry
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“The primary, the most urgent requirement is the promotion of education. It is inconceivable that any nation should achieve prosperity and success unless this paramount, this fundamental concern is carried forward. The principal reason for the decline and fall of peoples is ignorance. Today the mass of the people are uninformed even as to ordinary affairs, how much less do they grasp the core of the important problems and complex needs of the time.”

PeopleNeedsShouldImportantReasonProblemTodayFallNationsAchieveIgnoranceMassOrdinaryConcernFundamentalsComplexesAffairProsperityEducationalCorePrimariesDeclinePrincipalRequirementsPromotionUrgentParamountUninformedUniversal Education
Author:Abdu'l-Bahá
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“Even in Europe a change has sensibly taken place in the mind of man. Science has liberated the ideas of those who read and reflect, and the American example has kindled feelings of right in the people. An insurrection has consequently begun of science talents and courage against rank and birth, which have fallen into contempt. It has failed in its first effort, because the mobs of the cities, the instrument used for its accomplishment, debased by ignorance, poverty and vice, could not be restrained to rational action. But the world will soon recover from the panic of this first catastrophe.”

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Book:The portable Thomas Jefferson
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“People who are very aware that they have more knowledge than the average person are often very unaware that they do not have one-tenth of the knowledge of all of the average persons put together. In this situation, for the intelligentsia to impose their notions on ordinary people is essentially to impose ignorance on knowledge.”

PeoplePersonsTogetherSituationLibertyEconomicIgnoranceOrdinaryEconomicsNotionAverageOrdinary PeopleAverage PersonMore Knowledge
Author:Thomas Sowell
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