Ignorant Quotes - Page 9

• The ignorant man marvels at the exceptional; the wise man marvels at the common; the greatest wonder of all is the regularity of nature.

  George Dana Boardman Pepper

  Wise, Nature, Ignorance

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• I am ignorant and that's why I'm happy!

  Patty Andrews

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• A character, to be acceptable as more than a chess piece, has to be ignorant of the future, unsure about the past, and not at all sure of what he's supposed to be doing.

  Anthony Burgess

  Character, Past, Chess Pieces

  Anthony Burgess (1986). “Homage to QWERT YUIOP: essays”, Vintage

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• Deep thinkers who look everywhere for the mysterious causes of poverty, ignorance, crime and war need look no further than their own mirrors. We are all born into this world poor and ignorant, and with thoroughly selfish and barbaric impulses. Those of us who turn out any other way do so largely through the efforts of others, who civilized us before we got big enough to do too much damage to the world or ourselves.

  Thomas Sowell

  War, Selfish, Ignorance

  Thomas Sowell (1987). “Compassion Versus Guilt and Other Essays”, William Morrow

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• (I)f France's righteous bloviating against war makes them your Dashboard Saint of International Integrity, it's either because you are sand-poundingly ignorant of how the world works or it's because you think France's self-interest is more important than America's. If the former applies to you, read a book. If it's the latter, maybe you should move there along with Alec Baldwin, Robert Altman, and the rest of the crowd who promised to leave a long time ago. But whatever you do, don't call France's position principled, because that just insults us both.

  Jonah Goldberg

  War, Integrity, Moving

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• To remain ignorant of history is to remain forever a child

  Marcus Tullius Cicero

  Children, Forever

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• The person who is ignorant enough to believe that his nourishment depends on meat is in a horrible dilemma.

  George Bernard Shaw

  Believe, Meat, Enough

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• If there should chance to be any mathematicians who, ignorant in mathematics yet pretending to skill in that science, should dare, upon the authority of some passage of Scripture wrested to their purpose, to condemn and censure my hypothesis, I value them not, and scorn their inconsiderate judgement.
  De Revolutionibus Coelestibus

  Nicolaus Copernicus

  Skills, Judgement, Purpose

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• Science with its retorts would have put me to sleep; it was the opportunity to be ignorant that I improved. It suggested to me that there was something to be seen if one had eyes. It made a believer of me more than before. I believed that the woods were not tenantless, but choke-full of honest spirits as good as myself any day,--not an empty chamber, in which chemistry was left to work alone, but an inhabited house,--and for a few moments I enjoyed fellowship with them.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Nature, Sleep, Eye

  Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henry David Thoreau (Illustrated)”, p.621, Delphi Classics

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• Every one of the numberless religions and religious sects views the Deity after its own fashion; and, fathering on the unknown its own speculations, it enforces these purely human outgrowths of overheated imagination on the ignorant masses, and calls them "revelation." As the dogmas of every religion and sect often differ radically, they cannot be true. And if untrue, what are they?

  H. P. Blavatsky

  Fashion, Religious, Views

  H.P. Blavatsky (2014). “Isis Unveiled”, p.780, Lulu Press, Inc

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• The exercise of magical power is the exercise of natural powers, but superior to the ordinary functions of Nature. A miracle is not a violation of the laws of Nature, except for ignorant people. Magic is but a science, a profound knowledge of the Occult forces in Nature, and of the laws governing the visible or the invisible world. Spiritualism in the hands of an adept becomes Magic, for he is learned in the art of blending together the laws of the Universe, without breaking any of them and thereby violating Nature.

  H. P. Blavatsky

  Art, Exercise, Hands

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• It is not uncommon for ignorant and corrupt men to falsely charge others with doing what they imagine that they themselves, in their narrow minds and experience, would have done under the circumstances of a given case, and the surest check, often the only check, on such perjury, is to recognize the impossibility that men of larger instruction and resources and experience could have been guilty of such conduct.

  John Henrik Clarke

  Men, Justice, Mind

  Valdez v. United States, 244 U.S. 432, 450, 1917.

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• They that are fated to be fools, have one consolation, that they are fated also to be ignorant of it.

  Norm MacDonald

  Fool, Consolation

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• How pleasant it is to be ignorant! Not to know exactly who Mozart was, to ignore his origin, his influence, the details of his technique! To just let him lead one by the hand.

  Maria Luisa Bombal

  Music, Hands, Technique

  Arturo Torres-Rioseco, Félix Pita Rodríguez, Lino Novás Calvo, Horacio Quiroga, Francisco Ayala (1967). “Short stories of Latin America”

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• Thus men of more enlighten'd genius and more intrepid spirit must compose themselves to the risque of public censure, and the contempt of their jealous contemporaries, in order to lead ignorant and prejudic'd minds into more happy and successful methods.

  Jon Jones

  Jealous, Learning, Successful

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• The Woman had once been supreme; in France she still seemed potent, not merely as a sentiment but as a force; why was she unknownin America? for evidently America was ashamed of her, and she was ashamed of herself, otherwise they would not have strewn fig-leaves so profusely all over her. When she was a true force, she was ignorant of fig-leaves, but the monthly-magazine-made American female had not a feature that would have been recognized by Adam. The trait was notorious, and often humorous, but anyone brought up among Puritans knew that sex was sin. In any previous age, sex was strength.

  Henry Adams

  Sex, Women, Humorous

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• When a scientist doesn't know the answer to a problem, he is ignorant. When he has a hunch as to what the result is, he is uncertain. And when he is pretty darn sure of what the result is going to be, he is still in some doubt. We have found it of paramount importance that in order to progress we must recognize our ignorance and leave room for doubt. Scientific knowledge is a body of statements of varying degrees of certainty - some most unsure, some nearly sure, but none absolutely certain.

  Richard P. Feynman

  Ignorance, Order, Doubt

  "The Value of Science". Richard P. Feynman's public address at the National Academy of Sciences, Autumn 1955.

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• Men are much more unwilling to have their weaknesses and their imperfections known, than their crimes; and, if you hint to a man that you think him silly, ignorant, or even ill-bred or awkward, he will hate you more, and longer, than if you tell him plainly that you think him a rogue.

  Lord Chesterfield

  Hate, Silly, Men

  "Manners and speech or maxims extracted from Lord Chesterfield's letters to his son". Book by Lord Chesterfield, 1884.

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• A seeming ignorance is very often a most necessary part of worldly knowledge. It is, for instance, commonly advisable to seem ignorant of what people offer to tell you; and when they say, Have not you heard of such a thing? to answer No, and to let them go on, though you know it already.

  Lord Chesterfield

  Ignorance, Knowledge, People

  "Manners and speech or maxims extracted from Lord Chesterfield's letters to his son". Book by Lord Chesterfield, 1884.

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• The most ignorant are the boldest conjecturers.

  Lord Chesterfield

  Ignorance

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• Whoever is ignorant is vulgar.

  Miguel de Cervantes

  Ignorance, Vulgar

  Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Quixote de la Mancha (don, fict.name.) (1818). “Don Quixote de la Mancha. Tr. [by M. Smirke].”, p.184

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• Be not under the dominion of thine own will; it is the vice of the ignorant, who vainly presume on their own understanding.

  Miguel de Cervantes

  Understanding, Vices, Dominion

  Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (1851). “The History of Don Quixote de la Mancha”, p.321

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• If men were stubborn just in proportion as they were right, stubbornness would take her seat among the virtues; but men are generally stubborn just in proportion as they are ignorant and wrong.

  Josh Billings

  Men, Stubborn, Virtue

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• Not to destroy but to construct,
  I hold the unconquerable belief
  that science and peace will triumph over ignorance and war
  that nations will come together
  not to destroy but to construct
  and that the future belongs to those
  who accomplish most for humanity.

  Adlai E. Stevenson

  War, Ignorance, Science

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• Have the courage to be ignorant of a great number of things, in order to avoid the calamity of being ignorant of everything.

  Sydney Smith

  Courage, Ignorance, Order

  Sydney Smith (1856). “Wit and Wisdom of the Rev. Sydney Smith”, p.198

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