Ignorant Quotes - Page 4

• Though the ancients were ignorant of the principles of Christianity there were in them the germs of its spirit.

  Herman Melville

  Principles, Germs, Spirit

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• Even the ignorant may appear very worthy,
  If they keep silent before the learned.

  Thiruvalluvar

  May, Silent, Worthy

  "Tirukkural". Book by Thiruvalluvar, 1840.

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• Man enjoys living on the edge of his dreams and neglects the real things of the world which are so beautiful. The ignorant and indifferent destroy beautiful things merely by looking at the marble. Things that remake the soul of him who understands them.

  Auguste Rodin

  Beautiful, Dream, Real

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• Those who wish to be ignorant and free, believe in something that never was and never shall be.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Believe, Wish

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• If the ability to tell right from wrong should turn out to have anything to do with the ability to think, then we must be able to "demand" its exercise from every sane person, no matter how erudite or ignorant, intelligent or stupid, he may happen to be. Kant in this respect almost alone among the philosophers was much bothered by the common opinion that philosophy is only for the few, precisely because of its moral implications.

  Hannah Arendt

  Stupid, Philosophy, Exercise

  "The Life of the Mind". Book by Hannah Arendt, p. 13, 1978.

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• There is a constant rush to judgment in Foucault. He is filled with specious generalizations, false categories, distortions, fudging, pretenses to knowledge in areas where he was ignorant. He had no ability whatsoever to distinguish among historical sources, where he makes terrible blunders.

  Camille Paglia

  Historical, Judgment, Source

  "Junk Bonds and Corporate Raiders: Academe in the Hour of the Wolf". Camille Paglia, "Arion", Third Series, Volume 1, No. 2, Spring 1991.

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• Without a huge shock, the sleepy-head, ignorant Japanese will never wake up.

  Hiroo Onoda

  Wake Up, Sleepy, Shock

  "Words to Live By: Hiroo Onoda". Judit Kawaguchi, The Japan Times, January 16, 2007.

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• All men are ignorant, just in different fields.

  Albert Einstein

  Men, Different, Fields

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• Over time, I started becoming more aware of the vastness and complexity of the universe, which led me away from any sort of conventional Christianity. I still love the teachings of Christ, but I also believe that the human condition prevents us from having any true objective knowledge of the universe. All human belief systems are inherently flawed. If I had to label myself now, I'd call myself a Taoist-Christian-agnostic quantum mechanic. Also, there's nothing in the actual Bible that limits a Christian in their interest in science. Anti-science is a function of ignorant fundamentalism.

  Moby

  Christian, Teaching, Believe

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• If I had to describe my remarks this evening frankly as if I were in police court and on oath, so to speak I should have to call it a ramble over several subjects, portions of which may seem to you to be impudent, and portions of which will be ignorant, and portions of which may contrive to be both at once.

  Robertson Davies

  Should Have, Police, Evening

  Robertson Davies (2008). “Selected Works on the Pleasures of Reading”, Penguin Group Canada

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• The number one problem in academia today is not ignorant students but ignorant professors, who have substituted narrow "expertise" and "theoretical sophistication" (a preposterous term) for breadth and depth of learning in the world history of art and thought... Art is a vast, ancient interconnected web-work, a fabricated tradition. Overconcentration on any one point is a distortion. This is one of the primary reasons for the dullness and ineptitude of so much twentieth-criticism, as compared to nineteenth-century belles-lettres.

  Camille Paglia

  Art, Numbers, Criticism

  "Junk Bonds and Corporate Raiders: Academe in the Hour of the Wolf". Camille Paglia, "Arion", Third Series, Volume 1, No. 2, Spring 1991.

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• The error of the ignorant goes so far as to say that God's power is insufficient, because he has given to this Universe the properties which they imagine cause these great evils, and which do not help all evil-disposed persons to obtain the evil which they seek, and to bring their evil souls to the aim of their desires, though these, as we have shown, are really without limit.

  Maimonides

  Errors, Evil, Soul

  Moses Maimonides (1919). “The Guide for the Perplexed”

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• Know that the difficulties which lead to confusion in the question what is the purpose of the Universe or of any of its parts, arise from two causes: first, man has an erroneous idea of himself, and believes that the whole world exists only for his sake; secondly, he is ignorant both about the nature of the sublunary world, and about the Creator's intention to give existence to all beings whose existence is possible, because existence is undoubtedly good.

  Maimonides

  Believe, Men, Ideas

  Moses Maimonides (1961). “The Guide for the Perplexed”, p.309, Courier Corporation

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• The ignorant are like useless, brackish soil;
  They exist and that is all.

  Thiruvalluvar

  Useless, Soil

  "Tirukkural". Book by Thiruvalluvar, 1840.

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• I know that the blacks, take them half enlightened and ignorant, are more humane and merciful than the most enlightened and refined European that can be found in all the earth.

  David Walker

  Half, Earth, Enlightened

  David Walker (2008). “Walker's Appeal”, p.28, Applewood Books

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• To be ignorant or unconvinced of one's own needs has become the unforgivable anti-social act. The good citizen is one who imputes standardized needs to himself with such conviction that he drowns out any desire for alternatives, much less the renunciation of need.

  Ivan Illich

  Desire, Needs, Alternatives

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• Christianity was preached by ignorant men and believed by servants, and that is why it resembles nothing ever known.

  Joseph de Maistre

  Art, Philosophy, Men

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• People who know little are usually great talkers, while men who know much say little. It is plain that an ignorant person thinks everything he does know important, and he tells it to everybody. But a well-educated man is not so ready to display his learning; he would have too much to say, and he sees that there is much more to be said, so he holds his peace.

  Jean-Jacques Rousseau

  Knowledge, Men, Thinking

  Jean Jacques Rousseau (2015). “Emile”, p.577, eKitap Projesi

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• The best lessons a man ever learns are from his mistakes. It is not for want of schoolmasters that we are still ignorant.

  Henry Ward Beecher

  Mistake, Men, Lessons

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• No people are so easy to govern as the intelligent, and none are so hard to govern as the ignorant.

  Henry Ward Beecher

  Intelligent, People, Easy

  Henry Ward Beecher, William Drysdale (1887). “Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit”

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• Common-sense is part of the home-made ideology of those who have been deprived of fundamental learning, of those who have been kept ignorant.

  John Berger

  Home, Common Sense, Fundamentals

  John Berger (2015). “A Fortunate Man: The Story of a Country Doctor”, p.66, Canongate Books

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• Do not mathematics and all sciences seem full of contradictions and impossibilities to the ignorant, which are all resolved and cleared to those that understand them?

  Richard Baxter

  Contradiction, Mathematics, Seems

  Richard Baxter (1830). “The Practical Works of Richard Baxter: with a Life of the Author and a Critical Examination of His Writings by William Orme”, p.206

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• He seemeth to be most ignorant that trusteth most to his wit.

  Plato

  Wit

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• I can never quite decide whether the anti-Columbus movement is merely risible or faintly sinister. It is sinister, though, because it is an ignorant celebration of stasis and backwardness, with an unpleasant tinge of self-hatred.

  Christopher Hitchens

  Self, Hatred, Movement

  "Minority Report". The Nation, October 19, 1992.

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• Even when a person suffers pain in consequence of a thorn having entered into his hand, although it is at once drawn out, it is a punishment that has been inflicted on him, and the least pleasure he enjoys is a reward; all this is meted out by strict justice; as is said in the Scripture, "all His ways are judgement" (Deut. xxxii. 4); we are only ignorant of the working of that judgement.

  Maimonides

  Pain, Hands, Punishment

  Moses Maimonides (2016). “Guide for the perplexed”, p.1088, Moses Maimonides

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