Our hearts should know the world of reason, and reason must be guided by an informed
heart.
—Bruno Bettelheim, 1990
***
There is only one good, knowledge, and one evil, ignorance.
—Socrates
21
Ignorance is not innocence but sin.
—Robert Browning, 1875
Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious
stupidity.
—Martin Luther King Jr., 1963
He who is not aware of his ignorance will only be misled by his knowledge.
—Richard Whatley, 1856
To be proud of learning is the greatest ignorance in the world.
—Jeremy Taylor
22
The greatest obstacle to [discovery is] not ignorance, but the illusion of knowledge.
—Daniel J. Boorstin, 1983
Very few people, the most remarkable ones, can honestly utter: ‘I do not know’.
—Dmitry Pisarev
23
To be conscious that you are ignorant is a great step to knowledge.
—Benjamin Disraeli, 1845
***
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, 1849
There are many things of which a wise man might wish to be ignorant.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1883
In research a certain amount of intelligent ignorance is essential to progress.
—Charles F. Kettering, 1957
Man can act only because he can ignore.
—Paul Valéry, 1921
21
As quoted by Diogenes Laërtius in the third century AD.
22
First published, apparently, only in 1822.
23
As quoted, without a date, by V. Vorontsov in 1979.
On Education, Reading, and Knowledge
65