Ignorance quotes

Ignorance

2.8K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.

2.8K quotes

Explore further

Browse quotes that often appear alongside ignorance — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.

Quote collection

Ignorance quotes (page 52 of 140)

Follow a thought to its author, or read the full quote page.

Kim Harrison Author
Ignorance

"I never considered I might make a career out of writing as I was going to school, so when I did turn my attentions that way, I was very ill prepared, having only what I read as a guide, and no formal training whatsoever. I credit that very ignorance with a great deal of my success."

Read quote 3 likes
Jane Austen Novelist
Ignorance

"She was heartily ashamed of her ignorance - a misplaced shame. Where people wish to attach, they should always be ignorant. To come with a well−informed mind is to come with an inability of administering to the vanity of others, which a sensible person would always wish to avoid. A woman especially, if she have the misfortune of knowing anything, should conceal it as well as she can."

Read quote 3 likes
Ignorance

"I thought you'd gotten over your whoring when you left him, Catherine, but it seems you only postponed it." Bones' face turned to stone, and he answered her even before I could snap out an indignant response. "Don't you ever speak to her that way again." There was pure warning in the whip of his words. "You can call me any name you like and more, but I will not stand by while you slander her out of your own ignorance."

Read quote 3 likes
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Poet, Playwright, Novelist
Ignorance

"In happy ignorance, I sighed for a world I did not know, where I hoped to find every pleasure and enjoyment which my heart could desire; and now, on my return from that wide world... how many disappointed hopes and unsuccessful plans have I brought back!"

Read quote 3 likes
John Adams Founding Father, Politician
Ignorance

"Let us hear the dangers of thralldom to our consciences from ignorance, extreme poverty, and dependence; in short, from civil and political slavery. Let us see delineated before us the true map of man. Let us hear the dignity of his nature, and the noble rank he holds among the works of God-that consenting to slavery is a sacrilegious breach of trust, as offensive in the sight of God as it is derogatory from our own honor or interest or happiness-and that God Almighty has promulgated from heaven liberty, peace, and goodwill to man!"

Read quote 3 likes
John Locke Philosopher, Physician
Ignorance

"A man may live long, and die at last in ignorance of many truths, which his mind was capable of knowing, and that with certainty."

Read quote 3 likes
Joseph Conrad Novelist, Short Story Writer
Ignorance

"She feared the unknown as we all do, and her ignorance made the unknown infinitely vast."

Read quote 3 likes
Ignorance

"To sacrifice the principles of manners, which require compassion and respect, and bat people over the head with their ignorance of etiquette rules they cannot be expected to know is both bad manners and poor etiquette. That social climbers and twits have misused etiquette throughout history should not be used as an argument for doing away with it."

Read quote 3 likes
Ignorance

"Like language, a code of manners can be used with more or less skill, for laudable or for evil purposes, to express a great variety of ideas and emotions. In itself, it carries no moral value, but ignorance in use of this tool is not a sign of virtue."

Read quote 3 likes
John Ruskin Art Critic, Writer
Ignorance

"Ignorance, which is contented and clumsy, will produce what is imperfect, but not offensive. But ignorance dis contented and dexterous, learning what it cannot understand, and imitating what it cannot enjoy, produces the most loathsome forms of manufacture that can disgrace or mislead humanity."

Read quote 3 likes
John Muir Naturalist, Writer
Ignorance

"The wrongs done to trees, wrongs of every sort, are done in the darkness of ignorance and unbelief, for when the light comes, the heart of the people is always right."

Read quote 3 likes
John Muir Naturalist, Writer
Ignorance

"Yet how hard most people work for mere dust and ashes and care, taking no thought of growing in knowledge and grace, never having time to get in sight of their own ignorance."

Read quote 3 likes