The dumbest people I know are those who know it all. Malcolm Forbes
The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge. Professor Stephen Hawking
We refuse to let our knowledge, however limited, be informed by your ignorance, however vast. Professor David Ray Griffin
The significance of our lives and our fragile planet is then determined only by our own wisdom and courage. We are the custodians of life’s meaning. We long for a Parent to care for us, to forgive us our errors, to save us from our childish mistakes. But knowledge is preferable to ignorance. Better by far to embrace the hard truth than a reassuring fable. If we crave some cosmic purpose, then let us find ourselves a worthy goal. Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot
I have a foreboding of an America in my children’s or grandchildren’s time – when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what’s true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness ...
The dumbing down of American is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30 second sound bites (now down to 10 seconds or less), lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance. Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
Avoidable human misery is more often caused not so much by stupidity as by ignorance, particularly our ignorance about ourselves. ibid.
It is a common sentence that knowledge is power; but who hath duly considered or set forth the power of ignorance? Knowledge slowly builds up what ignorance in an hour pulls down. George Eliot, Daniel Deronda
Beware of the man who works hard to learn something, learns it, and finds himself no wiser than before. Kurt Vonnegut, Cat’s Cradle
Nothing in education is so astonishing as the amount of ignorance it accumulates in the form of inert facts. Henry Brooks Adams, 1838-1918
The purpose of education is not to validate ignorance but to overcome it. Lawrence M Krauss
Education is a progressive discovery of our own ignorance. Will Durant
Dogmatism and scepticism are both, in a sense, absolute philosophies; one is certain of knowing, the other of not knowing. What philosophy should dissipate is certainty, whether of knowledge or ignorance. Bertrand Russell
He always called himself an uneducated man. Da Vinci: The Lost Treasure, BBC 2011
And usually it’s Christians who haven’t got the faintest idea in the world what’s going on. Christians are the most ill-informed ignorant people on the face of the Earth. Jordan Maxwell, interview Keith Thompson
I believe every American should be forced to commiserate with people from other countries while they are growing up. Only when I talked to people from outside my borders did I realize how insanely myopic the entire establishment of the US is. People here really can’t seem to understand why the world gets mad at us. It is not evil that’s the problem here I think, just incredible, earth-shattering, incalculable, painfully entrenched ignorance. spf2119, board post 2001
If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be. Thomas Jefferson
Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing than he who believes what is wrong. Thomas Jefferson
Nothing in this world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity. Martin Luther King
There is much to be said in favour of modern journalism. By giving us the opinion of the uneducated, it keep us in touch with the ignorance of the community. Oscar Wilde
I know no disease of the soul but ignorance: a pernicious evil, the darkener of man’s life, the disturber of his reason, and common confounder of Truth. Ben Jonson
What you don’t know can’t hurt you. Late 16th century proverb
Where ignorance is bliss, ’tis folly to be wise. Mid-18th century proverb
Ignorance is not innocence but sin. Robert Browning
I see no other single hindrance such as this hindrance of ignorance, obstructed by which mankind for a long long time runs on and circles on. Pali Tipitaka
Our knowledge can only be finite, while our ignorance must necessarily be infinite. Karl Popper
Ignorance is an evil weed, which dictators may cultivate among their dupes, but which no democracy can afford among its citizens. William Henry Beveridge, 1879-1963
And seeing ignorance is the curse of God,
Knowledge the wing wherewith we fly to heaven. William Shakespeare, II Henry IV vii 72-73, Saye
O monstrous ignorance, how deformed dost thou look! William Shakespeare, Love’s Labour’s Lost IV ii 22-23
O heavy ignorance! Thou praisest the worst best. William Shakespeare, Othello II i 146-147
Knowing naught, like dogs, but following. William Shakespeare, The History of King Lear II ii 78, Kent
The ignorance of one voter in a democracy impairs the security of all. John F Kennedy, address Vanderbilt University 18th May 1963
There is nothing more frightful than ignorance in action. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
To be ignorant of one’s ignorance is the malady of the ignorant. Amos Bronson Alcott
The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance – it is the illusion of knowledge. Daniel Boorstin
I believe that ignorance is the root of all evil, and that no-one knows the truth. Molly Ivans
From ignorance our comfort flows,
The only wretched are the wise. Matthew Prior, To the Hon Charles Montague, 1692
I pity his ignorance and despise him. Charles Dickens, Nicholas Nickleby, Fanny Squeers
It’s appropriate that the word ‘ignorance’ is an extension of the word ‘ignore’. We ignore so much and so we become ignore-ant. David Icke
Lawyers are the only persons in whom ignorance of the law is not punished. Jeremy Bentham
I know nothing except the fact of my ignorance. Socrates
Paranoia is just another word for ignorance. Hunter S Thompson
The more we study the more we discover our ignorance. Percy Bysshe Shelley
The truest characters of ignorance
Are vanity, and pride, and annoyance. Samuel Butler, Hudibras, 1663-1664
Ignorance never settles a question. Benjamin Disraeli, speech House of Commons 14 May 1866
Not to know me argues yourselves unknown,
The lowest of your throng. John Milton, Paradise Lost IV:830