Ignorant Quotes - Page 20

• The greatest Inventions were produced in Times of Ignorance; as the Use of the Compass, Gunpowder, and Printing; and by the dullest Nation, as the Germans.

  Jonathan Swift

  Ignorance, Science, Gunpowder

  Jonathan Swift (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Jonathan Swift (Illustrated)”, p.894, Delphi Classics

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• The scientist who yields anything to theology, however slight, is yielding to ignorance and false pretenses, and as certainly as if he granted that a horse-hair put into a bottle of water will turn into a snake.

  H. L. Mencken

  Religious, Horse, Ignorance

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• To introduce something altogether new would mean to begin all over, to become ignorant again, and to run the old, old risk of failing to learn.

  Isaac Asimov

  Running, Ignorance, Mean

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• Until I became a published writer, I remained completely ignorant of books on how to write and courses on the subject ... they would have spoiled my natural style; made me observe caution; would have hedged me with rules.

  Isaac Asimov

  Book, Writing, Ignorance

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• The idea of protoplasm, which was really a name for our ignorance, [is] only a little less misleading than the expression "Vital force".

  John B. S. Haldane

  Ignorance, Expression, Names

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• To be truly ignorant, be content with your own knowledge.

  Zhuangzi

  Life, Letting Go, Knowledge

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• A person is truly a human if he or she learns, and teaches, and inspires others. It is difficult to regard as truly human someone who is ignorant and has no desire to learn.

  Fethullah Gulen

  Wisdom, Islamic, Inspire

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• For most of us, karma and negative emotions obscure the ability to see our own intrinsic nature, and the nature of reality. As a result we clutch on to happiness and suffering as real, and in our unskillful and ignorant actions go on sowing the seeds of our next birth. Our actions keep us bound to the continuous cycle of worldly existence, to the endless round of birth and death. So everything is at risk in how we live now at this very moment: How we live now can cost us our entire future.

  Sogyal Rinpoche

  Death, Karma, Real

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• We are quite ignorant of the condition of energy in bodies generally. We know how much gas goes in, and how much comes out, and know whether at entrance and exit it is in the form of heat or of work. That is all.

  Peter Tait

  Body, Exit, Energy

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• A free man, who lives among ignorant people, tries as much as he can to refuse their benefits. .. He who lives under the guidance of reason endeavours as much as possible to repay his fellow's hatred, rage, contempt, etc. with love and nobleness.

  Baruch Spinoza

  Men, People, Hatred

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• Biographical history, as taught in our public schools, is still largely a history of boneheads; ridiculous kings and queens, paranoid political leaders, compulsive voyagers, ignorant general the flotsam and jetsam of historical currents. The men who radically altered history, the great scientists and mathematicians, are seldom mentioned, if at all.

  Martin Gardner

  Queens, Kings, Teaching

  "Adventures Of a Mathematician" by Martin Gardner, www.nytimes.com. May 9, 1976.

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• It is of dangerous consequence to represent to man how near he is to the level of beasts, without showing him at the same time his greatness. It is likewise dangerous to let him see his greatness without his meanness. It is more dangerous yet to leave him ignorant of either; but very beneficial that he should be made sensible of both.

  Blaise Pascal

  Greatness, Men, Levels

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• We are merely instruments of the Almighty's will and therefore ignorant of what helps us forward and what acts as an impediment. We must thus rest satisfied with the knowledge only of the means and if these are pure, we can fearlessly leave the end to take care of itself.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Mean, Religion, Care

  Mahatma Gandhi, Anand T. Hingorani, Ganga Anand Hingorani (1985). “The Encyclopaedia of Gandhian Thoughts”

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• So most skeptics who criticize us are really just misinformed and kind of ignorant. They're just assuming something about us. We're quite critical ourselves, but we're here to help people.

  Ryan Buell

  People, Helping, Kind

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• Our history shows that the death penalty has been unjustly imposed, innocents have been killed by the state, effective rehabilitation has been impaired, judicial administration has suffered. It is the poor, the sick, the ignorant, the powerless, and the hated who are executed.

  Ramsey Clark

  Sick, Rehabilitation, Administration

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• The death penalty is no more effective a deterrent than life imprisonment... It is also evident that the burden of capital punishment falls upon the poor, the ignorant and the underprivileged members of society.

  Thurgood Marshall

  Fall, Punishment, Death Penalty

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• Democracy disciplined and enlightened is the finest thing in the world. A democracy prejudiced, ignorant, superstitious, will land itself in chaos and may be self-destroyed.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Self, Land, Democracy

  Mahatma Gandhi, Dennis Dalton (1995). “Gandhi: Selected Political Writings”, p.146, Hackett Publishing

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• It may be safely averred that good cookery is the best and truest economy, turning to full account every wholesome article of food, and converting into palatable meals what the ignorant either render uneatable or throw away in disdain.

  Eliza Acton

  Meals, May, Economy

  Eliza Acton (1865). “Modern Cookery: For Private Families... a Series of Carefully Tested Receipts...”, p.8

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• We must abandon the prevalent belief in the superior wisdom of the ignorant.

  Daniel J. Boorstin

  Learning, Intellectual, Intelligence

  "Daniel Boorstin" by Godfrey Hodgson, www.theguardian.com. March 1, 2004.

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• We must express the view, based on our empirical observations, that a substantial number of journalists are ignorant, lazy, opinionated, and intellectually dishonest. The profession is heavily cluttered with aged hacks toiling through a miasma of mounting decrepitude and often alcoholism, and even more so with arrogant and abrasive youngsters who substitute 'commitment' for insight. The product of their impassioned intervention in public affairs is more often confusion than lucidity.

  Conrad Black

  Commitment, Numbers, Views

  "A Brief to the Special Senate Committee on the Mass Media from the Sherbrooke Record". 1969.

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• The newspaper that obstructs the law on a trivial pretext, for money's sake, is a dangerous enemy to the public weal. That awful power, the public opinion of a nation, is created in America by a horde of ignorant, self-complacent simpletons who failed at ditching and shoemaking and fetched up in journalism on their way to the poorhouse.

  Mark Twain

  Self, Media, America

  Mark Twain (2000). “Mark Twain: Plymouth Rock and the Pilgrims and Other Speeches”, Cooper Square Pub

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• Wer fremde Sprachen nicht kennt, weiss nichts von seiner eigenen.He who is ignorant of foreign languages, knows not his own.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Language, Foreign Language, Knows

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• If they are ignorant, they are despised, if learned, mocked. In love they are reduced to the status of courtesans. As wives they are treated more as servants than as companions. Men do not love them: they make use of them, they exploit them, and expect, in that way, to make them subject to the law of fidelity.

  George Sand

  Love, Men, Law

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• It has often been said that, to make discoveries, one must be ignorant. This opinion, mistaken in itself, nevertheless conceals a truth. It means that it is better to know nothing than to keep in mind fixed ideas based on theories whose confirmation we constantly seek, neglecting meanwhile everything that fails to agree with them.

  Claude Bernard

  Knowledge, Mean, Science

  "An Introduction to the Study of Experimental Medicine".

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• What is true, just, and beautiful is not determined by popular vote. The masses everywhere are ignorant, short-sighted, motivated by envy, and easy to fool. Democratic politicians must appeal to these masses in order to be elected. Whoever is the best demagogue will win. Almost by necessity, then, democracy will lead to the perversion of truth, justice and beauty.

  Hans-Hermann Hoppe

  Beauty, Beautiful, Truth

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