Ignorant Quotes - Page 8

• There never was any party, faction, sect, or cabal whatsoever, in which the most ignorant were not the most violent; for a bee is not a busier animal than a blockhead.

  Alexander Pope

  Party, Animal, Bees

  Alexander Pope (1812). “The works of Alexander Pope. With a selection of explanatory notes, and the account of his life by dr. Johnson”, p.227

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• Does a man reproach thee for being proud or ill-natured, envious or conceited, ignorant or detracting? Consider with thyself whether his reproaches are true. If they are not, consider that thou art not the person whom he reproaches, but that he reviles an imaginary being, and perhaps loves what thou really art, though he hates what thou appearest to be.

  Epictetus

  Art, Hate, Conceited

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• Have charity; have patience; have mercy. Never bring a human being, however silly, ignorant, or weak--above all, any little child--to shame and confusion of face. Never by petulance, by suspicion, by ridicule, even by selfish and silly haste--never, above all, by indulging in the devilish pleasure of a sneer--crush what is finest and rouse up what is coarsest in the heart of any fellow-creature.

  Charles Kingsley

  Crush, Children, Selfish

  Charles Kingsley (2008). “Daily Thoughts (EasyRead Super Large 18pt Edition)”, p.253, ReadHowYouWant.com

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• Nothing is so dangerous as an ignorant friend; a wise enemy is worth more.
  [Fr., Rien n'est si dangereux qu'un ignorant ami;
  Mieux vaudrait un sage ennemi.]

  Jean de La Fontaine

  Wise, Ignorance, Enemy

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• Ambitious men spend their youth in rendering themselves worthy of patronage; it is their great mistake. While the foolish creatures are laying in stores of knowledge and energy, so that they shall not sink under the weight of responsible posts that recede from them, schemers come and go who are wealthy in words and destitute of ideas, astonish the ignorant, and creep into the confidence of those who have a little knowledge.

  Honore de Balzac

  Success, Mistake, Ambition

  Honore de Balzac (2011). “The Magic Skin: Or The Wild Ass's Skin”, p.99, The Floating Press

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• Lawsuits generally originate with the obstinate and the ignorant, but they do not end with them; and that lawyer was right who left all his money to the support of an asylum for fools and lunatics, saying that from such he got it, and to such he would bequeath it.

  Jeremy Bentham

  Support, Asylums, Fool

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• I think the world is in the mess it's in because we are spiritually ignorant.

  Shirley MacLaine

  Thinking, World, Spirituality

  Shirley MacLaine (1987). “It's all in the playing”, Bantam

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• Certainly I do not wish that instead of these masters I had read baby books, written down to children, and with such ignorant dullness that they blunt the sense and corrupt the tastes of the still plastic human being. But I do wish that I had read no books at all till later - that I had lived with toys, and played in the open air. Children should not cull the fruits of reflection and observation early, but expand in the sun, and let thoughts come to them. They should not through books antedate their actual experiences.

  Margaret Fuller

  Baby, Children, Book

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• A theme is always necessary, a plain, simple, unadorned theme to confuse the ignorant.

  Lillian Hellman

  Simple, Deception, Theme

  Lillian Hellman (1976). “Scoundrel time”

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• The monstrosity of bureaucracy, I thought: always the pint-pot judging the gallon, the scribe's, the door-keeper's world. Always the stupidity of people who feel certain about things they never try to find out. A world that educates people to be ignorant - that is what this world of ours is.

  Freya Stark

  Doors, Judging, People

  Freya Stark (1964). “The Journey's Echo: Selections”

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• most people did not care to be taught what they did not already know; it made them feel ignorant.

  Mary McCarthy

  Education, Learning, People

  Mary McCarthy (2017). “Mary McCarthy: Novels 1963-1979”, p.397, Library of America

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• I'm intelligent enough and capable enough to understand that you are ignorant, pompous, egotistical, cretin. I'm going to crush you on here because I'm tired of hearing about it.

  Richard Sherman

  Crush, Tired, Intelligent

  "Richard Sherman Still Talking, Taunting This Morning" by Colleen Curry, abcnews.go.com. January 20, 2014.

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• As the fish doesn't know water, people are ignorant of space. Consciousness is concerned only with changing and varying details; it ignores constants-especially constant backgrounds. Thus only very exceptional people are aware of what is basic to everything.

  Alan Watts

  Space, People, Water

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• When, to gratify a private appetite, it is once resolved upon that an ignorant and helpless creature shall be sacrificed, it is an easy matter to pick up sticks enough from any thicket where it has strayed, to make a fire to offer it up with.

  Laurence Sterne

  Fire, Matter, Sticks

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• The masses are still ungrateful or ignorant. They prefer murder, poisonings, and crimes generally to a literature possessed of style and feeling.

  George Sand

  Ungrateful, Feelings, Style

  George Sand (2009). “Letters of George Sand”, p.140, Cosimo, Inc.

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• Intellectuals range through the finest gradations of kind and quality: from those who are merely educated neurotics, usually with strong hidden reactionary tendencies, through mediocrities of all kinds, to men of real brains and sensibility, more or less stiffened into various respectabilities or substitutes for respectability. The number of Ignorant Specialists is large. The number of hysterics and compulsives is also large.

  Louise Bogan

  Strong, Real, Men

  Louise Bogan (2005). “A poet's prose: selected writings of Louise Bogan : with the uncollected poems”, Swallow Press

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• Love points the way. Desire is its ignorant advisor.

  Elfriede Jelinek

  Desire, Way, Advisors

  Elfriede Jelinek (2010). “The Piano Teacher”, p.277, Profile Books

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• Although all men are born free, slavery has been the general lot of the human race. Ignorant--they have been cheated; asleep--they have been surprised; divided--the yoke has been forced upon them. But what is the lesson...? The people ought to be enlightened, to be awakened, to be united, that after establishing a government they should watch over it.... It is universally admitted that a well-instructed people alone can be permanently free.

  James Madison

  Men, Race, People

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• swearing is, as I have said, learning to the ignorant, eloquence to the blockhead, vivacity to the stupid, and wit to the coxcomb.

  Mary Collyer

  Stupid, Said, Vivacity

  Mary Collyer (1749). “Felicia To Charlotte: Being Letters From A Young Lady in the Country, To Her Friend in Town : Containing A Series of the Most Interesting Events, Interspersed with Moral Reflections ...”, p.203

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• Anyone who dares to speak about an aether is regarded as an ignorant and backward mind and he can only lose his credibility in scientific circles, although in reality those who criticize him use the same concept of intermediate medium in other words, whether it be fields, an associated fluid, a probability fluid, a pilot fluid, a quantum fluid, etc.

  Maurice Allais

  Reality, Circles, Mind

  "L'anisotropie de l'espace. La nécessaire révision de certains postulats des théories contemporaines. Les données de l'expérience" by Maurice Allais, Clément Juglar, Paris, (p. 506), 1997.

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• Ignorant people always suppose that popular writers are wonderfully well-paid - and must be making rapid fortunes - because they neither starve in garrets, nor wear rags - at least in America.

  Eliza Leslie

  America, People, Rags

  Eliza Leslie (1839). “Miss Leslie's Behaviour Book: A Guide and Manual for Ladies as Regards Their Conversation; Manners; Dress; with Full Instructions and Advice in Letter Writing [!]; Receiving Presents; Incorrect Words”, p.259

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• The ignorant and the deluded are, I think, in a strange way to be envied. That which is not known of does not trouble us, while an imagined but insubstantial peril does not harm us. To know the truths behind reality is a far greater burden.

  H. P. Lovecraft

  Reality, Thinking, Doe

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• Since there is no system of public education, the great majority of my fellow citizens is frighteningly ignorant. They have no idea where Iraq is. They accept as the gospel whatever the government tells them. Good grief, any other normal country would have been against the Iraq war! But we live in an abnormal country, governed by experts in deceptive advertising.

  Gore Vidal

  Country, War, Grief

  "The End of Gore Vidal". Interview with Lila Azam Zanganeh, www.guernicamag.com. August 15, 2012.

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• I'm just very interested in what my guests have to say. You have to be vigilant to stay ignorant.

  Stephen Colbert

  Guests, Vigilant

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• The world, and the great and free United States in particular, is full of narrow-minded, ignorant, moronic, bigoted, cowardly, self-righteous, anemic, pig-headed, stupid, puritanical, hypocritical, prejudiced, fanatical, cocoa-blooded atavists, who soothe their inferiority complex by barking their hatred of anything new.

  Gertrude Atherton

  Stupid, Pigs, Self

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