Quotes about ignorance

133 quotes · 93 authors

Quotes

  1. I mentioned that the small god said she brought the asteroid because of what man had become, and they retorted that man might not have become that if we had been relentless in our education of our young people and had not perpetuated ignorance under the guise of cultural sensitivity and the politically correct.

    p. 498

  2. Arnole had time for analysis.

    “It is interesting,” he said to himself, “that this small god implied devils were made of ignorance, for I have always believed this to be true. Ignorance perpetuates itself just as knowledge does. Men write false documents, they preach false doctrine, and those beliefs survive to inspire wickedness in later generations. They are like the spells woven by wizards, lying in wait for the credulous to find them and uses them. Conversely, some men write and teach the truth, only to be declared heretic by the wicked. In such cases, evil has the advantage, for it will do anything to suppress truth, but the good man limits what he will do to suppress falsehood.

    “One might almost make a rule of it: “Whoever declares another heretic is himself a devil. Whoever places a relic or artifact above justice, kindness, mercy, or truth is himself a devil and the thing elevated is a work of evil magic.”

    p. 467

  3. “Much of life,” he said to me, “depends on our being ignorant of reality. If we understood reality, we would never go on.”

    p. 18

  4. I think that some people are hardwired a certain way, and they invent religions to go along with the way they are. Like they are hardwired for bigotry or violence or being ignorant—or maybe ignorance is just a kind of bigotry. People say they don’t want to know a complicated truth, you know, because they already believe something simple, some thing that’s easier on their minds.

    p. 398

  5. The extent of my ignorance oppresses me.

    p. 171

  6. Recognition is famously a passage from ignorance to knowledge.

  7. Beware:

    Ignorance

    Protects itself

    Ignorance

    Promotes suspicion.

    Suspicion

    Engenders fear.

    Fear quails,

    Irrational and blind,

    Or fear looms,

    Defiant and closed.

    Blind, closed,

    Suspicious, afraid,

    Ignorance

    Protects itself,

    And protected,

    Ignorance grows.

    p. 225

  8. My ignorance wasn’t just annoying. It was dangerous.

    p. 126

  9. The storm approaches its thunderhead, and it is apparent that the boat drifts ever closer to shore. So the blind will lead the blind, and the deaf shout warnings to one another until their voices are lost.

  10. How can people be anything but ignorant when knowledge isn’t saved, isn’t taught?

    p. 67

  11. Ignorant power is a bane!

    p. 66

  12. The only death I fear is dying ignorant.

    p. 125