ignorance

The origin of all science is in the desire to know causes; and the origin of all false science and imposture is in the desire to accept false causes rather than none; or, which 388 is the same thing, in the unwillingness to acknowledge our own ignorance.

—Hazlitt,William

Know then thyself, presume not God to scan; The proper study of mankind is man. Placed on this isthmus of a middle state, A being darkly wise, and rudely great: With too much knowledge for the sceptic side, With too much weakness for the stoic's pride, He hangs between; in doubt to act or rest, In doubt to deem himself a god, or beast; In doubt his mind or body to prefer, Born but to die, and reas'ning but to err; Alike in ignorance, his reason such, Whether he thinks too little, or too much.

—Pope, Alexander

I am very glad that I see Rome while it yet exists; before a great number of years are elapsed, I question whether it will be worth seeing. Between the ignorance and poverty of the present Romans, every thing is neglected and falling to decay.

—Walpole, Horace, 4th Earl of Orford

Where blind and naked Ignorance Delivers brawling judgements, unashamed, On all things all day long.

—Tennyson

Surely, it is in youth man is most thoroughly depraved. Hell lies about us in our infancy. The youthful innocency sung by aged poets (who forget their first childhood) is nothing but ignorance of evil. As the child comes to know evil, he loves it.

—Mishima,Yukio pseudonym of  Hiraoka Kimitake

   In civil business;What first? Boldness;What second, and third? Boldness. And yet boldness is a child of ignorance and baseness.

—Bacon, Francis,Viscount St Albans

The controversy over freedom of speech and of the press is at the bottom a controversy over the desirability, or otherwise, of telling lies.What is really at issue is the right to report events truthfully, or as truthfully as is consistent with the ignorance, bias and self-deception from which every observer necessarily suffers.

—Orwell, George pseudonym of  Eric Arthur Blair

I have never found, in a long experience of politics, that criticism is ever inhibited by ignorance.

—Stockton

Don't die of ignorance.

—Anonymous

And she, being old, fed from a mashed plate as an old mare might droop across a fence to the dull pastures of her ignorance. Her husband held her upright while he prayed to God who is all-forgiving to send down some angel somewhere who might land perhaps in his foreign wings among the gradual crops. She munched, half dead, blindly searching the spoon.

—A'Ghobhainn

If you think education is expensiveötry ignorance.

—Bok, Derek

For I say, this is death and the sole death, When a man's loss comes to him from his gain, Darkness from light, from knowledge ignorance, And lack of love from love made manifest.

—Browning, Robert

Even if they're functioning out of ignorance, theyare still participating and must be suppressed. In China, even one million people can be considered a small sum.

—Deng Xiaoping

To charge all unmerited praise with the guilt of flattery, and to suppose that the encomiast always knows and feels the falsehood of his assertions, issurely to discover great ignorance of human nature and human life. In determinations depending not on rules, but on experience and comparison, judgement is always to some degree subject to affection.Very near to admiration is the wish to admire.

—Johnson, Samuel known as Dr Johnson

If your daughters are inclined to love reading, do not check their inclination by hindering them of the diverting part of it. It is as necessary for the amusement of women as the reputation of men; but teach them not to expect anyapplause from it† Ignorance is as much the fountain of vice as idleness, and indeed generally produces it. People that do not read or work for a livelihood have many hours they know not how to employ, especially women, who commonly fall into vapours or something worse.

—Montagu, Lady Mary Wortley ne¤  e Pierrepoint

To each his suff'rings, all are men, Condemned alike to groan; The tender for another's pain, Th'unfeeling for his own. Yet ah! why should they know their fate? Since sorrow never comes too late, And happiness too swiftly flies. Thought would destroy their paradise. No more; where ignorance is bliss, 'Tis folly to be wise.

—Gray,Thomas

Ignorance is like a delicate exotic fruit; touch it and the bloomisgone.Thewholetheoryof moderneducationis radically unsound. Fortunately, in England, at any rate, education produces no effect whatsoever.

—Wilde, Oscar Fingal O'FlahertieWills

Whatever Nature has instore for mankind, unpleasant as it may be, men must accept, for ignoranceisnever better than knowledge.

—Fermi, Enrico

Ignorance is not innocence but sin.

—Browning, Robert

War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.

—Orwell, George pseudonym of  Eric Arthur Blair

The historyof theVictorian age will never be written: we know too much about it. For ignorance is the first requisite of the historianöignorance, which simplifies and clarifies, which selects and omits, with a placid perfection unattainable by the highest art.

—Strachey, (Giles) Lytton

Ignorance est me'  re de tous les maux. Ignorance is the mother of all evils.

—Rabelais, Fran c° ois

Ignorance, madam, pure ignorance.

—Johnson, Samuel known as Dr Johnson

Children's talent to endure stems from their ignorance of alternatives.

—Angelou, Maya originally MayaJohnson

Knowledge of physical science will not console me for ignorance of morality in time of affliction, but knowledge of morality will always console me for ignorance of physical science.

—Pascal, Blaise

Science, after all, is onlyan expression for our ignorance of our own ignorance.

—Butler, Samuel

Ignorance of the law excuses no man; not that all men know the law, but because 'tis an excuse every man will plead, and no man can tell how to confute him.

—Selden,John

Must helpless man, in ignorance sedate, Roll darkling down the torrent of his fate?

—Johnson, Samuel known as Dr Johnson

True science teaches us to doubt and, in ignorance, to refrain.

—Bernard, Claude

I remember, I remember, The fir trees dark and high; I used to think their slender tops Were close against the sky: It was a childish ignorance, But now 'tis little joy To know I'm farther off from heav'n Than when I was a boy.

—Honorius of Autun

Can knowledge have no bound, but must advance So far, to make us wish for ignorance?

—Denham, SirJohn

The Enemy has been here in the night of our natural ignorance, and sown the tares of spiritual errors.

—Hobbes,Thomas

I count religion but a childish toy, And hold there is no sin but ignorance.

—Marlowe, Christopher

There is only one good, knowledge, and only one evil, ignorance.

—Socrates

   Science is the father of knowledge, but opinion breeds ignorance.

—Hippocrates   c.460

   For this, indeed, isthetruesource ofour ignoranceöthe fact that our knowledge can only be finite, while our ignorance must necessarily be infinite.

—Popper, Sir Karl Raimund

Have mercy upon all Jews,Turks, Infidels, and Hereticks, and take fromthem all ignorance, hardness of heart, and contempt of thy word.

—Book of Common Prayer

The greater the ignorance the greater the dogmatism.

—Osler, Sir William

And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men every where to repent.

—Bible (NewTestament)

Gesetzt, wir wollenWahrheit: warum nicht lieber Unwahrheit? Und Ungewissheit? Selbst Unwissenheit? Granted we want truth: why not rather untruth? And uncertainty? Even ignorance?

—Nietzsche, FriedrichWilhelm

Until you understand a writer's ignorance, presume yourself ignorant of his understanding.

—Coleridge, Samuel Taylor

There Poetry shall tune her sacred voice, And wake from ignorance the WesternWorld.

—Johnson, Samuel known as Dr Johnson

Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where one class is made to feel that society is an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob, and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be safe.

—Washington Bailey