Famous Quotes & Sayings

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.

Louise Erdrich

The length of sky is just about the size of my ignorance. Pure and wide.

Henry Rollins

Weakness is what brings ignorance, cheapness, racism, homophobia, desperation, cruelty, brutality, all these things that will keep a society chained to the ground, one foot nailed to the floor.

Hazrat Inayat Khan

Very often pessimistic people speak against their own desire. They want to undertake some work, and they say, 'I will do this, but I don't think I shall succeed in it.' Thus they hinder themselves in their path. Man does not know that every thought makes an impression on the consciousness and on the rhythm with which the consciousness is working. According to that rhythm that reflection will come true and happen; and a man proves to be his own enemy by his ignorance of these things.

Hazrat Inayat Khan

All ignorance is the lack of love.

Hendrik Willem Van Loon

A few drops of science will often disinfect an entire barrel full of ignorance and prejudice.

Hendrik Willem Van Loon

An ignorant person is, by the very fact of his or her ignorance, a very dangerous person.

Hendrik Willem Van Loon

Any formal attack on ignorance is bound to fail because the masses are always ready to defend their most precious possession - their ignorance.

Henry David Thoreau

How can we remember our ignorance, which our growth requires, when we are using our knowledge all the time?

Henry Ford

What we call evil, it seems to me, is simply ignorance bumping its head in the dark.

Manly Hall

Ignorance of ignorance, then, is that self-satisfied state of unawareness in which man, knowing nothing outside the limited area of his physical senses, bumptiously declares there is nothing more to know!

Manmohan Singh

My top most priority is to deal with India's massive social and economic problems, so that chronic poverty, ignorance and disease can be conquered in a reasonably short period of time.

Mahatma Gandhi

Much that we hug today as knowledge is ignorance pure and simple. It makes the mind wander and even reduces it to a vacuity.

Mahatma Gandhi

We are less than atoms, I say, because the atom obeys the law of its being, whereas we in the insolence of our ignorance deny the law of nature. But I have no argument to address to those who have no faith.

Mark Twain

All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence; then success is sure.

Eric Hoffer

Naivete in grownups is often charming; but when coupled with vanity it is indistinguishable from stupidity.

James Anthony Froude

Ignorance is the dominion of absurdity.

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.

Lord Chesterfield

Nothing convinces persons of a weak understanding so effectually, as what they do not comprehend.

Lord Acton

There are two things which cannot be attacked in front: ignorance and narrow-mindedness. They can only be shaken by the simple development of the contrary qualities. They will not bear discussion.

M. Scott Peck

The major threats to our survival no longer stem from nature without but from our own human nature within. It is our carelessness, our hostilities, our selfishness and pride and willful ignorance that endanger the world.

Luther Burbank

Science . . . has opened our eyes to the vastness of the universe and given us light, truth and freedom from fear where once was darkness, ignorance and superstition. There is no personal salvation, except through science.

Luis Valdez

A lot of the public responses are based on the prejudices and ignorance, they've been inherited from previous generations. California has always been a multicultural state, but the thing is, you've got to open your eyes and people in general need to get over their own prejudices.

Luis Gutierrez

Uncertainty and fear and ignorance about immigrants, about people who are different, has a history as old as our Nation.

John Cheever

At my back I hear the word-"homosexual"-and it seems to split my world in two.... It is ignorance, our ignorance of one another, that creates this terrifying erotic chaos. Information, a crumb of information, seems to light the world.

Orson Scott Card

If you did not in your own mind distinguish between useful and erroneous information, then you were not learning at all, you were merely replacing ignorance with false belief, which was no improvement.