“Someone once said that the most important knowledge is knowledge of our own ignorance. Our schools are depriving millions of students of that kind of knowledge by promoting "self-esteem" and encouraging them to have opinions on things of which they are grossly ignorant, if not misinformed.” IfsKindSaidImportantSelfSchoolEducationOpinionMillionsSelf EsteemStudentsIgnoranceIgnorantEsteemPromotingDepriving Author:Thomas Sowell
“Absurd, irreducible; nothing — not even a profound and secret delirium of nature — could explain it. Obviously I did not know everything, I had not seen the seeds sprout, or the tree grow. But faced with this great wrinkled paw, neither ignorance nor knowledge was important: the world of explanations and reasons is not the world of existence. A circle is not absurd, it is clearly explained by the rotation of a straight segment around one of its extremities. But neither does a circle exist. This root, on the other hand, existed in such a way that I could not explain it.” KnowsWorldWayDoeImportantReasonHandsGrowsSecretExistenceTreeIgnoranceRootsProfoundSeedsCirclesAbsurdExplanationPawsDeliriumSproutsExtremityNauseaRotation Author:Jean-Paul Sartre
“None of this exists. All important decisions in the universe occur someplace else.” ImportantUniverseDecisionIgnoranceNothingnessImportant Decisions Author:Frederick Lenz
“There are two threats to reason, the opinion that one knows the truth about the most important things and the opinion that there is no truth about them. Both of these opinions are fatal to philosophy; the first asserts that the quest for truth is unnecessary, while the second asserts that it is impossible. The Socratic knowledge of ignorance, which I take to be the beginning point of all philosophy, defines the sensible middle ground between two extremes.” KnowsFirstsTwoImportantReasonPhilosophyOpinionImpossibleMiddleIgnoranceTruth IsImportant ThingsThreatExtremesSensibleQuestsUnnecessaryMiddle GroundTwo ExtremesSocratic Author:Allan Bloom
“One of the deepest and strangest of all human moods is the mood which will suddenly strike us perhaps in a garden at night, or deep in sloping meadows, the feeling that every flower and leaf has just uttered something stupendously direct and important, and that we have by a prodigy of imbecility not heard or understood it. There is a certain poetic value, and that a genuine one, in this sense of having missed the full meaning of things. There is beauty, not only in wisdom, but in this dazed and dramatic ignorance.” HumansImportantFeelingsNightCertainValuesKnowledgeHeardIgnoranceFlowerUnderstoodGardenDirectStrikesMoodDramaticPoeticLeafsMeadowsProdigiesImbecilityDazed Author:Gilbert K. Chesterton
“According to our social science, we can be or become wise in all matters of secondary importance, but we have to be resigned to utter ignorance in the most important respect: we cannot have any knowledge regarding the ultimate principles of our choices, i.e. regarding their soundness or unsoundness... We are then in the position of beings who are sane and sober when engaged in trivial business and who gamble like madmen when confronted with serious issues.” ImportantMatterChoicesSocialPrinciplesIssuesWisePositionIgnoranceSeriousUltimateImportanceEngagedSaneSoberGambleMadmenOur ChoicesSocial ScienceResignedSoundnessSerious IssuesUnsoundness Author:Leo Strauss
“If you attain liberation do not feel that it matters or it is important. You had nothing to do with it. If you are bound by ignorance do not feel bad. You had nothing to do with it.” IfsFeelsImportantMatterIgnoranceBuddhismBoundsBuddhistLiberationEtiquette Author:Frederick Lenz