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The general population doesn’t know what’s happening, and it doesn’t even know that it doesn’t know. Noam Chomsky
Education is a system of imposed ignorance. Noam Chomsky, Manufacturing Consent
I have never met a man so ignorant that I couldn’t learn something from him. Galileo Galilei
Ignorant people think it’s the noise which fighting cats make that is so aggravating, but it ain’t so; it’s the sickening grammar they use. Mark Twain
All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence; then success is sure. Mark Twain
I count religion but a childish toy,
And hold there is no sin but ignorance. Christopher Marlowe, The Jew of Malta
Pray for ignorance, but strive for truth. Chaz Timberland
Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance. H L Mencken
Reason and Ignorance, the opposites of each other, influence the great bulk of mankind. If either of these can be rendered sufficiently extensive in a country, the machinery of Government goes easily on. Reason obeys itself; and Ignorance submits to whatever is dictated to it. Thomas Paine, The Rights of Man, 1791
Whatever Nature has in store for mankind, unpleasant as it may be, men must accept, for ignorance is never better than knowledge. Enrico Fermi, 1901-54
Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts. Professor Richard Feynman
Fortunately science, like that nature to which it belongs, is neither limited by time nor by space. It belongs to the world, and is of no country and of no age. The more we know, the more we feel our ignorance; the more we feel how much remains unknown; and in philosophy, the sentiment of the Macedonian hero can never apply, – there are always new worlds to conquer. Humphry Davy, Royal Society discourse 30th November 1925
A bishop wrote gravely to The Times inviting all nations to destroy ‘the formula’ of the atomic bomb. There is no simple remedy for ignorance so abysmal. Peter Medawar, British biologist born in Brazil, The Hope of Progress, 1972
Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science. Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man
To surrender to ignorance and call it God has always been premature, and it remains premature today. Isaac Asimov
There are in fact two things, science and opinion; the former begets knowledge, the latter ignorance. Hippocrates
It has become almost a cliché to remark that nobody boasts of ignorance of literature, but it is socially acceptable to boast ignorance of science and proudly claim incompetence in mathematics. Richard Dawkins
A number of social institutions depend on the ignorance of those that they exploit. Richard Dawkins & Dan Dennett, In Conversation, Oxford 2012
This easily maintained ignorance is the life-blood of religious solidarity. ibid.
Human consciousness is just about the last surviving mystery. A mystery is a phenomenon that people don’t know how to think about – yet. There have been other great mysteries: the mystery of the origin of the universe, the mystery of life and reproduction, the mystery of the design to be found in nature, the mysteries of time, space, and gravity. These were not just areas of scientific ignorance, but of utter bafflement and wonder. We do not yet have all the answers to any of the questions of cosmology and particle physics, molecular genetics and evolutionary theory, but we do know how to think about them … With consciousness, however, we are still in a terrible muddle. Consciousness stands alone today as a topic that often leaves even the most sophisticated thinkers tongue-tied and confused. And, as with all of the earlier mysteries, there are many who insist – and hope – that there will never be a demystification of consciousness. Daniel C Dennett, Consciousness Explained
To put it bluntly but fairly, anyone today who doubts that the variety of life on this planet was produced by a process of evolution is simply ignorant – inexcusably ignorant, in a world where three out of four people have learned to read and write. Daniel C Dennett, Darwin’s Dangerous Idea
People cited violation of the First Amendment when a New Jersey schoolteacher asserted that evolution and the Big Bang are not scientific and that Noah’s ark carried dinosaurs. This case is not about the need to separate church and state; it’s about the need to separate ignorant, scientifically illiterate people from the ranks of teachers. Neil deGrasse Tyson
There’s a fascinating frailty of the human mind that psychologists know all about, called ‘argument from ignorance’. This is how it goes. Remember what the U stands for in UFO? You see lights flashing in the sky. You’ve never seen anything like this before and don’t understand what it is. You say, ‘It’s a UFO!’ The U stands for unidentified.
But then you say, ‘I don’t know what it is; it must be aliens from outer space, visiting from another planet.’ The issue here is that if you don’t know what something is, your interpretation of it should stop immediately. You don’t then say it must be X or Y or Z. That’s argument from ignorance. It’s common. I’m not blaming anybody; it may relate to our burning need to manufacture answers because we feel uncomfortable about being steeped in ignorance. Neil deGrasse Tyson, ‘Space Chronicles: Facing the Ultimate Frontier’
There is no shame in not knowing. The problem arises when irrational thought and attendant behavior fill the vacuum left by ignorance. Neil deGrasse Tyson, The Sky is Not the Limit
We use the word singularity to hide our ignorance. We don’t know what the singularity is. Professor Michio Kaku
A singularity is a point of infinite gravity – where space and time become meaningless. But that is ridiculous. A singularity is basically a word for saying I don’t know. It’s a word for saying I’m clueless. Michio Kaku, interview How the Universe Works
Can anything be more absurd than keeping women in a state of ignorance, and yet so vehemently to insist on their resisting temptation? Vicesimus Knox
The risks of liberty we must let everyone take; but the risks of ignorance and self-helplessness are another matter. George Bernard Shaw, Misalliance
It was possible, no doubt, to imagine a society in which wealth, in the sense of personal possessions and luxuries, should be evenly distributed, while power remained in the hands of a small privileged caste. But in practice such a society could not long remain stable. For if leisure and security were enjoyed by all alike, the great mass of human beings who are normally stupefied by poverty would become literate and would learn to think for themselves; and when once they had done this, they would sooner or later realise that the privileged minority had no function, and they would sweep it away. In the long run, a hierarchical society was only possible on a basis of poverty and ignorance. George Orwell, 1984
Anyway, no drug, not even alcohol, causes the fundamental ills of society. If we’re looking for the source of our troubles, we shouldn’t test people for drugs, we should test them for stupidity, ignorance, greed and love of power. P J O’Rourke
I’d take the awe of understanding over the awe of ignorance any day. Douglas Adams, The Salmon of Doubt
A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep. Saul Bellow, To Jerusalem and Back
The first step towards knowledge is to know that we are ignorant. Richard Cecil