Famous Quotes & Sayings

Martin Rees

Scientists habitually moan that the public doesn't understand them. But they complain too much: public ignorance isn't peculiar to science. It's sad if some citizens can't tell a proton from a protein. But it's equally sad if they're ignorant of their nation's history, can't speak a second language, or can't find Venezuela or Syria on a map.

Laini Taylor

A man once said, 'All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence; then success is sure.' Mark Twain, you know. He had a fine mustache. Men of wisdom so often do.

John Trudell

We must go beyond the arrogance of human rights. We must go beyond the ignorance of civil rights. We must step into the reality of natural rights because all of the natural world has a right to existence and we are only a small part of it. There can be no trade-off.

John Selden

Ignorance of the law excuses no man.

John Selden

Ignorance of the law excuses no man; not that all men know the law, but because 'tis an excuse every man will plead, and no man can tell how to refute him.

John Shelby Spong

Papal infallibility and biblical inerrancy are the two ecclesiastical versions of this human idolatry. Both papal infallibility and biblical inerrancy require widespread and unchallenged ignorance to sustain their claims to power. Both are doomed as viable alternatives for the long- range future of anyone.

John Robbins

Every time you make a choice that expresses respect for life, you bring a little more love in your body, into your family, into our society, and into a world that is calling out for this blessing.

John Rawls

The principles of justice are chosen behind a veil of ignorance.

James Russell Lowell

It is not the insurrections of ignorance that are dangerous, but the revolts of the intelligence.

James Russell Lowell

Tyrants are but the spawn of Ignorance, Begotten by the slaves they trample on.

Laurence J. Peter

Ignorance once dispelled is difficult to reestablish.

Laurence J. Peter

Against logic there is no armor like ignorance.

Leslie Stephen

Chance is a name for our ignorance.

Friedrich August von Hayek

Nothing is more securely lodged than the ignorance of the experts.

Friedrich August von Hayek

...the case for individual freedom rests largely on the recognition of the inevitable and universal ignorance of all of us concerning a great many of the factors on which the achievements of our ends and welfare depend.

Friedrich August von Hayek

Why should we, however, in economics, have to plead ignorance of the sort of facts on which, in the case of a physical theory, a scientist would certainly be expected to give precise information?

Friedrich August von Hayek

The Socratic maxim that the recognition of our ignorance is the beginning of wisdom has profound significance for our understanding of society. Most of the advantages of social life, especially in the more advanced forms that we call "civilization" rest on the fact that the individual benefits from more knowledge than he is aware of. It might be said that civilization begins when the individual in the pursuit of his ends can make use of more knowledge than he has himself acquired and when he can transcend the boundaries of his ignorance by profiting from knowledge he does not himself possess.

Frederick Soddy

On our plane knowledge and ignorance are the immemorial adversaries.

Frederick Soddy

Scientific men can hardly escape the charge of ignorance with regard to the precise effect of the impact of modern science upon the mode of living of the people and upon their civilisation.

Frederick Soddy

But what sin is to the moralist and crime to the jurist so to the scientific man is ignorance.

George Gillespie

There is no sinfulness in the will and affections without some error in the understanding. All lusts which a natural man lives in, are lusts of ignorance.

Jon Bon Jovi

The only enemy is ignorance. Peace, people. Let's get rid of all this nuclear testing.

Luc de Clapiers

Superficial knowledge ... is hurtful to those who possess true genius; for it necessarily draws them away from their main object, wastes their industry over details and subjects foreign to their needs and natural talent, and lastly does not serve, as they flatter themselves, to prove the breadth of their mind. In all ages there have been men of very moderate intelligence who knew much, and so on the contrary, men of the highest intelligence who knew very little. Ignorance is not lack of intelligence, nor knowledge a proof of genius.

Luc de Clapiers

Ignorance is not lack of intelligence, nor knowledge a proof of genius.

Ignorance is always ready to admire itself. Procure yourself critical friends.

Nicolas Chamfort

It is among uneducated women that we may look for the most confirmed gossips. Goethe tells us there is nothing more frightful than bustling ignorance.

Nikola Tesla

Misunderstanding are always cause by the inability of appreciating one another's point of view. The best way to dispel ignorance of the doings of others is by a systematic spread of general knowledge. With this object in view, it is most important to aid exchange of thoughts intercourse.

Nikola Tesla

Of all the frictional resistances, the one that most retards human movement is ignorance, what Buddha called 'the greatest evil in the world.' The friction which results from ignorance ... can be reduced only by the spread of knowledge and the unification of the heterogeneous elements of humanity. No effort could be better spent.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Probability is not a mere computation of odds on the dice or more complicated variants; it is the acceptance of the lack of certainty in our knowledge and the development of methods for dealing with our ignorance.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Information is bad for knowledge.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

It has been more profitable for us to bind together in the wrong direction than to be alone in the right one.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Don't ask the barber whether you need a haircut, and don't ask an academic if what he does is relevant.

Morris Kline

Statistics: the mathematical theory of ignorance.