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Ignorance Quotes

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Ignorance Quotes

“No revolution can ever succeed as a factor of liberation unless the MEANS used to further it be identical in spirit and tendency with the PURPOSES to be achieved. Revolution is the negation of the existing, a violent protest against man's inhumanity to man with all the thousand and one slaveries it involves. It is the destroyer of dominant values upon which a complex system of injustice, oppression, and wrong has been built up by ignorance and brutality. It is the herald of NEW VALUES, ushering in a transformation of the basic relations of man to man, and of man to society.”

“A person is not a democrat thanks to his ignorance of literature and the arts, nor an elitist because he or she has cultivated them. The possession of knowledge makes for unjust power over others only if used for that very purpose: a physician or lawyer or clergyman can exploit or humiliate others, or he can be a humanitarian and a benefactor. In any case, it is absurd to conjure up behind anybody who exploits his educated status the existence of an "elite" scheming to oppress the rest of us.”

“Anyone who has read Yeats's wonderful Autobiography will remember his Sligo shabby, shadowed, half country and half sea, full of confused romance, superstition, poverty, eccentricity, unrecognized anachronism, passion and ignorance and the little boy's misery. Yeats was treated well but was bitterly unhappy; he prayed that he would die, and used often to say to himself: "When you are grown up, never talk as grown-up people do of the happiness of childhood.”

“And in these four things, opinion of ghosts , ignorance of second causes, devotion towards what men fear , and taking of things casual for prognostics , consisteth the natural seed of religion ; which by reason of the different fancies, judgments and passions of several men, has grown up into ceremonies so different, that those which are used by one man, are for the most part ridiculous to another.”

Men Different Reason Used Passion Causes Natural Opinion Four Ignorance Judgment Seeds Ridiculous Ghost Devotion Fancy One Man Ceremony Casual

Book:Leviathan

Source: Leviathan

“In the spiritual search doubt is beneficial, a closed mind is not. Doubt used wisely assists enlightenment; a closed mind assists ignorance.”

Mind Spiritual Used Doubt Ignorance Enlightenment Beneficial Closed Mind

Author:Ian Gardner

“Racists have often used pseudoscience to justify their socially damaging views; watch these films to see how science, by replacing ignorance with knowledge, can undo that damage.”

Film Used Views Watches Ignorance Damage Justify Racist Pseudoscience

Author:James D. Watson

“To sacrifice the principles of manners, which require compassion and respect, and bat people over the head with their ignorance of etiquette rules they cannot be expected to know is both bad manners and poor etiquette. That social climbers and twits have misused etiquette throughout history should not be used as an argument for doing away with it.”

Source: Miss Manners Rescues Civilization: From Sexual Harassment, Frivolous Lawsuits, Dissing, and Other Lapses in Civility

“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

“Nothing has shown more fully the prodigious ignorance of human ideas and their littleness, than the discovery of [Sir William] Herschell, that what used to be called the Milky Way is a portion of perhaps an infinite multitude of worlds!”

World Way Humans Ideas Used Ignorance Discovery Infinite Used To Be Portions Multitudes Milky Way Prodigious

Author:Horace Walpole

“I used to think I knew everything, but older you get the more you see other areas. If you could read everything about both sides, you'll pretty much be in the middle again, which is the state you had when you were totally ignorant. So my theory is if you maintain total ignorance - which isn't easy, but I try - you'll be just as far ahead as if you'd spent days and days reading about the whole issue. And you have that much extra time to play Pac-man.”

Ifs Thinking Men Trying States Play Whole Used Reading Easy Sides Issues Middle Ignorance Theory Areas Ignorant Extras Both Sides Pacs Extra Time

Author:Emo Philips

“Maybe the same instruments and tools that have been used to keep people in slavery and ignorance could potentially be used to liberate and awaken them.”

People Has Beens Used Ignorance Tools Slavery Instruments

Author:Daniel Pinchbeck

“[Terrorism] is formed of certain fundamental problems, [including] ignorance, poverty, and fear of others. Some people take advantage of the young and foolish. They are manipulated, abused, and even drugged to such an extent that they can be used as murderers on the pretext of some crazy ideals or goals.”

People Problem Young Used Certain Goal Poverty Crazy Ignorance Advantage Ideals Fundamentals Including Terrorism Foolish Murderer Pretext

Author:Fethullah Gulen

“...Writings can be stolen, or changed, or used for evil purposes. But isn't the risk worth taking? The more people who share knowledge, the greater safeguard for it. Isn't there more danger in ignorance than knowledge?”

People Writing Used Purpose Evil Greater Risk Share Danger Changed Ignorance Stolen Sharing Knowledge

Author:Lloyd Alexander

“You can use reading as a food for the ego. It is very subtle. You can become knowledgeable; then it is dangerous and harmful. Then you are poisoning yourself, because knowledge is not knowing, knowledge is not wisdom. Wisdom has nothing to do with knowledge. Wisdom can exist in total ignorance also. If you use reading just as a food for the mind, to increase your memory, then you are in a wrong direction. But reading can be used in a different way; then reading is as beautiful as anything else in life”

Ifs Way Mind Different Use Beautiful Used Reading Memories Knowing Dangerous Ignorance Ego Increase Different Ways Subtle Not Knowing Knowledgeable Poisoning Knowledge Wisdom Wrong Direction

Author:Rajneesh

“The pre-history of our species is hag-ridden with episodes of nightmarish ignorance and calamity, for which religion used to identify, not just the wrong explanation, but the wrong culprit. Human sacrifices were made preeminently in times of epidemics, useless prayers were uttered, bogus miracles attested to, and scapegoats - such as Jews or heretics or witches - hunted down and burned.”

Source: The Portable Atheist: Essential Readings for the Nonbeliever

“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.”

Source: The portable Thomas Jefferson