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Ignorance Quotes

Browse 4419 quotes about Ignorance.

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Ignorance Quotes

“Would-be novelists need to bring equal parts arrogance and ignorance to the task before them. The arrogance is almost self-explanatory. Walk into any bookstore or library, calculate how many lifetimes the average person would need to read all the fiction contained therein. To think that one has anything to contribute, to any genre or tradition, takes genuine hubris.”

ThinkingNeedsWritingPersonsSelfWould BeWalksFictionIgnoranceEqualTraditionTasksLifetimeLibraryAverageGenuineGenreNovelistsArroganceBookstoresAverage PersonHubris
Author:Laura Lippman
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“It is due to neither impotence nor ignorance on God’s part that evils occur in the world, but it is owing to the order of his wisdom and to the greatness of his goodness, whence come the many and divers grades of goodness in things, many of which would be lacking were he to allow no evil to exist. Thus there would be no good of patience without the evil of persecution, nor the good of the preservation of its life in a lion, without the evil of the destruction of the animals on which it lives.”

IfsWorldWould BeOrderEvilAnimalGreatnessIgnoranceGoodnessWeaknessDestructionAccountsDuesGradesLionsDiverseLackingPreservationPersecutionPreservation Of Life
Author:Thomas Aquinas
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“I don't believe there is one woman within the confines of this state who does not believe in birth control. I never met one. That is, I never met one who thought that she should be kept in ignorance of contraceptive methods. Many I have met who valued the knowledge they possessed, but thought there were certain other classes who would be better kept in ignorance. The old would protect the young. The rich would keep the poor in ignorance. The good would keep their knowledge from the bad, the strong from the weak.”

ShouldBelieveDoeStatesWould BeYoungCertainStrongPoorClassRichIgnoranceBirthMetsProtectWeakMethodDon't BelievePossessedOne WomanBirth ControlContraceptives
Book:Crystal Eastman on women and revolution
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“Science may have come a long way, but as far as religion is concerned, we are first cousins to the !Kung tribesmen of the Kalahari Desert. Except for the garments, their deep religious trances might just as well be happening at a revival meeting or in the congregation of a fundamentalist TV preacher.... As we move further from the life of ignorance and superstition in which religion has its roots, we seem to need it more and more.... Why has religion become a force just when we'd have thought it would be losing ground to secularism?”

WayNeedsFirstsWellsMayLongSeemsMightWould BeMovingForceReligiousAtheismIgnoranceTvsLosingHappeningsConcernedRootsMeetingsPositive AtheismDesertSuperstitionsPreacherCousinLong WayRevivalSecularismGarmentsFundamentalistCongregationTrance
Author:Phil Donahue
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“I am not sure that Christ would have been very satisfied to foresee that He would be looked upon principally as a redeemer and nailed forever upon the cross by human ignorance. It seems to me that He above all desired to bring men a message of truth, that He wanted to heal them of their faults by making an appeal to all their energy; He shook them as much as He could, He did not seek to spare them the trouble.”

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Book:The Very Rich Hours of Adrienne Monnier
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“... with every Asiatic country where we operate in cooperation with the existing culture, the need for intelligent understanding of that country and its ways of life will be crucial. These nations will very likely not respond to appeals with which we are familiar, and not value rewards which seem to us irresistible. The danger--and it would be fatal to world peace--is that in our ignorance of their cultural values we shall meet in head-on collision and incontinently fall back on the old pattern of imposing our own values by force.”

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Author:Ruth Benedict
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“If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him; let us worship God through Jesus if we must - if ignorance has so far prevailed that this name can still be spoken in all seriousness without being taken as a synonym for rapine and carnage. Every sensible man, every honourable man, must hold the Christian sect in horror.”

IfsMenStillsWould BeChristianReligionJesusNamesTakenAtheismIgnoranceHorrorWorshipSensibleSeriousnessSectsWorship GodSynonymCarnage
Author:Voltaire
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“There's a willful ignorance. We indulge people who are willfully misrepresenting the facts. I don't think those [anti-choice] congresspeople are as much benignly misguided as they are intentionally and willfully ignorant of the facts of reproduction. That lends itself very well to them being ideologically driven and carrying out agendas that, if they were to be really honest about the facts, would be a tougher sell.”

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Author:Willie Parker
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“If God existed (a question concerning which Jubal maintained a meticulous intellectual neutrality) and if He desired to be worshiped (a proposition which Jubal found inherently improbable but conceivably possible in the dim light of his own ignorance), then (stipulating affirmatively both the above) it nevertheless seemed wildly unlikely to Jubal to the point of reductio ad absurdum that a God potent to shape galaxies would be titillated and swayed by the whoop-te-do nonsense the Fosterites offered Him as "worship.”

IfsLightWould BeFoundIgnoranceShapesWorshipIntellectualNonsenseAdsNeverthelessPropositionsGalaxyUnlikelyImprobableNeutralityMeticulous
Author:Robert A. Heinlein
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“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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“The adult must seem to mislead the child, and the Master the dog. They misread the signs. Their ignorance and their wishes twist everything. You are so sure you know what the promise promised! And the danger is that when what He means by ‘wind’ appears you will ignore it because it is not what you thought it would be—as He Himself was rejected because He was not like the Messiah the Jews had in mind.”

KnowsMindMeanChildrenSeemsWould BeWishDogDangerIgnoranceWindMastersPromiseAdultsJewRejectedTwistsMisleadMessiah
Author:Sheldon Vanauken
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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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“For a man’s life would become intolerable, if he knew what was going to happen to him. He would be made aware of future evils, and would suffer their agonies in advance, while he would get no joy of present blessings since he would know how they would end. Ignorance is the necessary condition of human happiness, and it has to be admitted that on the whole mankind observes that condition well. We are almost entirely ignorant of ourselves; absolutely of others. In ignorance, we find our bliss; in illusions, our happiness.”

IfsKnowsMenHumansWellsMadeEndsWholeHappensWould BeJoySufferingEvilKnow HowConditionsMankindIgnoranceBlessingIllusionIgnorantBlissAgonyHuman Happiness
Author:Anatole France
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“I am convinced that it is impossible to expound the methods of induction in a sound manner, without resting them upon the theory of probability. Perfect knowledge alone can give certainty, and in nature perfect knowledge would be infinite knowledge, which is clearly beyond our capacities. We have, therefore, to content ourselves with partial knowledge - knowledge mingled with ignorance, producing doubt.”

GivingWould BeScienceSoundAbilityPerfectKnowledgeDoubtImpossibleIgnoranceTheoryCapacityInfiniteMethodConvincedCertaintyProbabilityInfinite Knowledge
Author:William Stanley Jevons
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