Famous quotes
Quotes by famous people, credited to who said them. Your own quotes must not match any of these. More are added all the time. 1,158,808 quotes Who coined it · How we decide
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“We are apt to form romantic and exaggerated notions about the moral innocence of our ancestors. Ages of ignorance and simplicity are thought to be ages of purity. The direct contrary, I believe, is the case...In the middle ages, not only the most flagrant violations of modesty were frequently practised and permitted, but the most infamous vices. Men are less ashamed as they are less polished.”
Thomas Warton (1728–1790) first seen 1774 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The History of English Poetry (1774-81) vol. 1, p. 431.
“I am one of those people whom the vulgar and illiberal call "Negurs."- The first part of my life was rather unlucky, as I was placed in a family who judged ignorance the best and only security for obedience.”
Ignatius Sancho (1729–1780) first seen 1766 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: (from vol. 1, letter 35: Jul 1776, to Mr Sterne [i.e. Laurence Sterne who died in 1768- date should be 1766]).
“Don’t lose your temper,” said Ruell evenly. “It’s your worst fault, except for ignorance.”
Damon Knight (1922–2002) said by 2002 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It is of first-rate importance to notice from the start that stupidity is not the same thing, or the same sort of thing, as ignorance. There is no incompatibility between being well-informed and being silly, and a person who has a good nose for arguments or jokes may have a bad head for facts.”
Gilbert Ryle (1900–1976) said by 1976 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“To peer through the quick stubble of mathematics and see the wonders lurking behind was to momentarily live in the infinite, beyond the press of the ordinary world where everyone else dwelled in ignorance.”
Gregory Benford (born 1941) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The ground for taking ignorance to be restrictive of freedom is that it causes people to make choices which they would not have made if they had seen what the realization of their choices involved.”
A. J. Ayer (1910–1989) said by 1989 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The time for thinkers has come. Truth, independent of doctrines and time-honored systems, knocks at the portal of humanity. Contentment with the past and the cold conventionality of materialism are crumbling away. Ignorance of God is no longer the stepping-stone to faith. The only guarantee of obedience is a right apprehension of Him whom to know aright is Life eternal.”
Mary Baker Eddy (1821–1910) said by 1910 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We need to tranquilize our neighbors. State officials ought to remain in ignorance. Let the Armenians wait, opportunities will certainly come our way too. Turkey belongs only to the Turks.”
Mehmed Talat (1874–1921) said by 1921 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quoted in "Blood and Soil: A World History of Genocide and Extermination" - Page 405 - by Ben Kiernan - Social Science - 2007
“The Hindus do not pay particular attention to alchemy, but no nation is entirely free from it, and one nation has more bias for it than another, which must not be construed as proving intelligence or ignorance; for we find that many intelligent people are entirely given to alchemy, whilst ignorant people ridicule the art and its adepts.”
Al-Biruni (973–1048) said by 1048 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Alberuni, quoted from Lal, K. S. (1992). The legacy of Muslim rule in India. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan. Chapter 1
“The Buddha Fa” is most profound; among all the theories in the world, it is the most intricate and extraordinary science. In order to explore this domain, humankind must fundamentally change its conventional thinking. Otherwise, the truth of the universe will forever remain a mystery to humankind, and everyday people will forever crawl within the boundary delimited by their own ignorance.”
Li Hongzhi (born 1951) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Those who have hitherto governed the nation, believing, and believing with justice, that ignorance and docility go hand in hand, have taken care to ration the education of the workers in doses small enough to be innocuous to the established order.”
R. H. Tawney (1880–1962) said by 1962 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Wisdom and intellect is every man's friend, ignorance and illiteracy are his enemies.”
Ali al-Rida (770–818) said by 818 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Everyone's friend is his reason; his enemy is his ignorance.”
Ali al-Rida (770–818) said by 818 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Reason is a free gift from God and politeness is acquisition. He who undertakes politeness has power over it. He who undertakes reason increases (himself) through that nothing but ignorance.”
Ali al-Rida (770–818) said by 818 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Little work from a scholar is doubly accepted; much work from the men of low desire and ignorance is refused.":309”
Musa al-Kadhim (745–799) said by 799 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Those feminists who say that masculinity is about men believing they can batter women display the deepest ignorance possible about men and masculinity.”
Warren Farrell (born 1943) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We live in a society where there is no law in making money in the promulgation of ignorance or, in some cases, stupidity. There are a lot of things you can say never happened. You can go as relatively quasi-harmless as saying no one went to the moon. But you also can say that the Holocaust never happened.”
Tom Hanks (born 1956) first seen 2002 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: At the November 2002 Cape Canaveral premiere of the IMAX version of Apollo 13.
“When the facts of history are written Haile Selassie of Abyssinia will go down as a great coward who ran away from his country to save his skin and left the millions of his countrymen to struggle through a terrible war that he brought upon them because of his political ignorance and his racial disloyalty.”
Marcus Garvey (1887–1940) first seen 1937 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Failure of Haile Selassie as Emperor" The Blackman, April, 1937.
“We are hurtling back into a Soviet abyss, into an information vacuum that spells death from our own ignorance. All we have left is the internet, where information is still freely available. For the rest, if you want to go on working as a journalist, it's total servility to Putin. Otherwise, it can be death, the bullet, poison, or trial - whatever our special services, Putin's guard dogs, see fit.”
Anna Politkovskaya (1958–2006) first seen 2004 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in "Poisoned by Putin: The horror of Beslan was made still worse by the intimidation of Russia's servile media" (9 September 2004), The Guardian, United Kingdom: Guardian News and Media Limited
“No faith can possibly suffice. It’s always undermined by ignorance.”
John Brunner (1934–1995) said by 1995 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“All my foundation in virtue was no other than a total ignorance of vice.”
John Cleland (1709–1789) said by 1789 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Foolish critics often betray their ignorance by saying that a painter or a writer "only copies what he has seen, or puts down what he has known." They forget that no man imagines what he has not seen or known, and that it is in the selection of the characteristic details that the artistic power is manifested.”
George Henry Lewes (1817–1878) said by 1878 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I have…read it with a good deal of amusement and enjoyment. The latter is due, I suppose, entirely to the subject – for everyone likes to imagine what a man could do if he were a dictator or Pope, or Caliph; the amusement is mainly at the author's expence. The style is one of the most preposterous I have ever read, and I doubt if I ever saw so much pedantry combined with so much ignorance.”
Frederick Rolfe (1860–1913) said by 1913 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: C. S. Lewis, letter to Arthur Greeves dated October 1, 1934, cited from W. H. Lewis (ed.) The Collected Letters of C. S. Lewis (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2004) vol. 2, p. 143
“Listening to a cultivated person of today who jokes and almost boasts of his scientific ignorance is as sad as listening to a scientist who boasts of not having read any poem.”
Carlo Rovelli (born 1956) first seen 2010 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Il Sole 24 Ore cultural supplement, October 17, 2010.
“Time is... the expression of our ignorance of the full microstate.”
Carlo Rovelli (born 1956) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If we do not weed the present body of corruption, bribery, perfunctoriness, and ignorance, and establish instead a clean and efficient administration, the day will soon come when the revolution will be started against us.”
Chiang Kai-shek (1887–1975) said by 1975 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The prejudices of ignorance are more easily removed than the prejudices of interest; the first are blindly adopted; the second wilfully preferred.”
George Bancroft (1800–1891) said by 1891 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“My circumstances are unusual, Brightness.” “Ignorance is hardly unusual, Miss Davar. The longer I live the more I come to realize that it is the natural state of the human mind. There are many who will strive to defend its sanctity and then expect you to be impressed with their efforts.”
Brandon Sanderson (born 1975) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“That was the coward’s route. Wishing for ignorance.”
Brandon Sanderson (born 1975) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Whenever I teach my semiconductor device physics course, one of the central messages I try to get across early is the importance of energy band diagrams. I often put this in the form of "Kroemer's Lemma of Proven Ignorance":”
Herbert Kroemer (1928–2024) first seen 2000 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: in his Nobel Lecture, Quasi-Electric Fields and Band Offsets: Teaching Electrons New Tricks, 8 December 2000, at Aula Magna, Stockholm University.
“If through ignorance and incompetence... [man] fails, no personality, vindictive or benevolent, will interfere. The machine will go on in the same way as..., according to geology, it has been.., in a regular uniform manner for aeons before man arrived...”
Frederick Soddy (1877–1956) said by 1956 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Did ignorance save his freedom, or merely his illusion of freedom?”
Poul Anderson (1926–2001) said by 2001 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Isaac was still piqued by the ignorance surrounding watercraeft. It brought home to him, again, how much mainstream science was bunk, how much "analysis" was just, description-often bad description-hiding behind obfuscatory rubbish.”
China Miéville (born 1972) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Part of you understands without recourse to words, even if your higher mind asks questions in a format which renders an answer impossible." He looked at her triumphantly. "You too are the bastard-zone, Ms. Lin! Your art takes place where your understanding and your ignorance blur.”
China Miéville (born 1972) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Tearfly looked at Bellis curiously, bewildered by her ignorance. She did not care. What was important to her was where she was fleeing from, not where she was, or where she was going.”
China Miéville (born 1972) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“He is wisdom for your ignorance, strength for your weakness, righteousness for your guilt, sanctification for your corruption, redemption from all the thralldom of your apostasy.”
Richard Fuller (minister) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I’m tired of ignorance held up as inspiration, where vicious anti-intellectualism is considered a positive trait, and where uninformed opinion is displayed as fact.”
Phil Plait (born 1964) first seen 2009 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The mainstreaming of crazy" (8 September 2009)
“The great Roman statesman Cicero observed that, 'Not to know what happened before one was born is to be always a child.' In our ignorance of the Immoral values that form part of our history and heritage, we Americans have become perpetual children.”
Ilana Mercer first seen 2013 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: A Burning Dilemma Among America’s Dhimma,” American Daily Herald, May 10, 2013.
“The slogan "Stop climate change" is a very public advertisement of absolute total ignorance as it is not cognisant of history, archaeology, geology, astronomy, ocean sciences, atmospheric sciences and the life sciences.”
Ian Plimer (born 1946) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Attention Deficit Democracy produces the attitudes, ignorance and arrogance that pave the way to political collapse.”
James Bovard (born 1956) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Cricket is no excuse for ignorance.”
Barry Perowne (1908–1985) first seen 1979 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Novel, Raffles of the MCC (1979)
“Circumstantial evidence, Markham, is the utt‘rest tommyrot imag‘nable. Its theory is not unlike that of our present-day democracy. The democratic theory is that if you accumulate enough ignorance at the polls, you produce intelligence; and the theory of circumst‘ntial evidence is that if you accumulate a sufficient number of weak links, you produce a strong chain.”
S. S. Van Dine (1888–1939) said by 1939 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Shackle your mind when you bend on the cross, When ignorance reigns life is lost.”
Zack de la Rocha (born 1970) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If ignorance is bliss, then knock the smile off my face.”
Zack de la Rocha (born 1970) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Quels que soient les progrès des connaissances humaines, il y aura toujours place pour l'ignorance et par suite pour le hasard et la probabilité.”
Émile Borel (1871–1956) said by 1956 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Fear tends to come from ignorance. Once I knew what the problem was, it was just a problem, nothing to fear.”
Patrick Rothfuss (born 1973) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The speculators deadly enemies are: Ignorance, greed, fear and hope. All the statute books in the world and all the rules of all the Exchanges on earth cannot eliminate these from the human animal.”
Edwin Lefèvre (1871–1943) said by 1943 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Bring your ignorance to the Holy Spirit, the great teacher, who by His precious truth will lead you into all truth.”
William Paton Mackay (1839–1885) said by 1885 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Woe unto thee if after all thy profession thou shouldst be found under the power of ignorance, lost in formality, drowned in earthly-mindedness, envenomed with malice, exalted in an opinion of thine own righteousness, leavened with hypocrisy and carnal ends in God's service.”
Joseph Alleine (1634–1668) said by 1668 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Sometimes in the ignorance I feel the meaning Invincible invisible wisdom, And I commune with intuitive instinct With the force that made life be And since it made life be It is greater than life And since it let extinction be It is greater than extinction. I commune with feelings more than prayer”
Sun Ra (1914–1993) first seen 1970 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Differences" (1970), p. 132