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. 1,158,269 quotes Who coined it · How we decide
EnglishItalianoPolskiעבריתFrançaisPortuguêsفارسیEspañol中文РусскийDeutschالعربيةहिन्दी日本語ΕλληνικάLatina
Knowledge
LoveFriendshipHappinessHopeFearCourageDeathLifeTimeWarPeaceFreedomTruthWisdomKnowledgeScienceArtMusicNatureMoneyWorkPowerGodBeautyLaughterFamilySuccess and failureChangeDreamsBooks and reading
“Learn to breathe, learn to speak, but first..learn to feel.”
Joan Crawford (1905–1977) first seen 1973 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Interview, Town Hall (1973)
“We learn, when we learn, only from experience, and then we only learn from our mistakes. Our successes only serve to reinforce our superstitions.”
Arthur Jones (inventor) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Grief is a cruel kind of education. You learn how ungentle mourning can be, how full of anger. You learn how glib condolences can feel. You learn how much grief is about language, the failure of language and the grasping for language.”
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (born 1977) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Work hard but work smarter surround yourself with the people that know more than you do or have more than you do learn learn learn.”
Wavy the Creator (born 1996) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The only way to write is by writing. If you want to write, read well and write well. By reading, you learn from those who are good-you learn style, you learn use of language, which is even the major thing. Whatever language you are using, you must master that language. It is very important.”
Femi Osofisan (born 1946) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The beauty of democracy is that you learn to disagree to agree, you learn to make concessions, you learn to tolerate dissenting views.”
Della Sowah (born 1959) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I learnt a lot from being in the fields. You have to learn about the birds. You have to learn the sounds. That is science, you know. You had to learn in the field what kind of plants are edible, and so science started there in my view. I think that is when a scientist was born.”
Tebello Nyokong (born 1951) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Read, read, read, and learn, learn, learn.”
Aprille Ericsson-Jackson (born 1963) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“What’s important to us is that people who come to us with liberal arts backgrounds are dedicated students and want to learn. So if we put something in front of you, you’re going to learn it. You’re going to study it. You’re going to think, you’re going to ask questions, and you’re going to understand how to communicate well, because that’s a lot of what you learn from your liberal arts education”
Abigail Johnson (born 1961) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Ako, I'm the type of person to listen and understand. And then I learn from everyone else. It's not like I [only] learn from my own situations, but I learn from other people's situations too... I learned so much from each and every person inside the house.”
Charlie Fleming (born 2008) first seen 2025 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Metro Exclusive: Charlie Fleming Is Further Proof That Age Is Never a Barrier to Success Metro.style, 1 August 2025.
“Sometimes I learn random facts. Sometimes I learn something about people. And very often, I learn something about myself.”
Wole Talabi (born 1986) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The minute I stepped into the professional space, I had to learn that all this comes with developing my self-esteem, learn to be a leader, have communication skills, and learn to be patient with things.”
Karabo Meso (born 2007) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Life pushes all of us around. Some give up. Others fight. A few learn the lesson and move on. They welcome life pushing them around. To these few people, it means they need and want to learn something. They learn and move on. Most quit, and a few like you fight.”
Robert Kiyosaki (born 1947) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The impurity of ignorance is in none so manifest as in the devout; for they act on their ignorance, and fill themselves and others with miserable scruples and hard thoughts of God, and are as apt to call good evil as other men are to call evil good.”
Coventry Patmore (1823–1896) said by 1896 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You had to form for yourself a lucid language for the world, to overcome the battering of experience, to replace everyday life’s pain and harshness and wretched dreariness with — no not with certainty but with an ignorance you could live with. Deep ignorance, but still a kind that knew its limits. The limits were crucial.”
Gregory Benford (born 1941) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I speak from ignorance. Who once learned much, but speaks from ignorance now.”
Nathaniel Tarn (1928–2024) first seen 1965 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Poem Last of the Chiefs published in: Nathaniel Tarn (1965) Old savage, young city. p. 18.
“But ignorance exists in the map, not in the territory. If I am ignorant about a phenomenon, that is a fact about my own state of mind, not a fact about the phenomenon itself. A phenomenon can seem mysterious to some particular person. There are no phenomena which are mysterious of themselves. To worship a phenomenon because it seems so wonderfully mysterious, is to worship your own ignorance.”
Eliezer Yudkowsky (born 1979) first seen 2007 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Mysterious Answers To Mysterious Questions (August 2007); Yudkowsky credits the map/territory analogy to physicist/statistician Edwin Thompson Jaynes.
“If the history of science teaches us anything, it is that what conquers our ignorance is research, not giving up and attributing our ignorance to the miraculous work of a creator.”
Jerry Coyne (born 1949) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“No ignorance of truth is a personal sin before God, except that ignorance which springs from personal sin.”
Henry Edward Manning (1808–1892) first seen 1850 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Sermons (London: William Pickering, 1850), Vol. 4, Sermon IV: "Christ Preached in Any Way a Cause of Joy", p. 76
“Understanding is better than ignorance. Ignorance, unlike life, unlike narrative, is static. Understanding implies a forward motion, thus the possibility of change.”
Robert Charles Wilson (born 1953) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Ignorance is not bad faith. But persistence in ignorance is. (5. The Double Standard of Content)”
Joanna Russ (1937–2011) said by 2011 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I do not approve of anything that tampers with natural ignorance. Ignorance is like a delicate exotic fruit; touch it and the bloom is gone.”
Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) said by 1900 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You err, not knowing the Scriptures nor the power of God" This canon is the mother of all canons against heresy; the causes of error are two; the ignorance of the will of God, and the ignorance or not sufficient consideration of his power.”
Francis Bacon (1561–1626) said by 1626 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A lady once asked him how he came to define 'pastern', the knee of a horse: instead of making an elaborate defence, as might be expected, he at once answered, "Ignorance, Madam, pure ignorance.”
Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) first seen 1755 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: (1755), p. 82
“Ignorance, to a scientist, is an itch that begs to be pleasurably scratched. Ignorance, if you are a theologian, is something to be washed away by shamelessly making something up.”
Richard Dawkins (born 1941) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It has become almost a cliché to remark that nobody boasts of ignorance of literature, but it is socially acceptable to boast ignorance of science and proudly claim incompetence in mathematics.”
Richard Dawkins (born 1941) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“all ignorance toboggans into know and trudges up to ignorance again”
E. E. Cummings (1894–1962) said by 1962 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Ignorance is not bliss — it is oblivion. Determined ignorance is the hastiest kind of oblivion.”
Philip Wylie (1902–1971) said by 1971 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The England of our day would fain bring up both sexes and keep all ages in profound ignorance of sexual and intersexual relations; and the consequences of that imbecility are particularly cruel and afflicting. … Shall we ever understand that ignorance is not innocence?”
Richard Francis Burton (1821–1890) first seen 1888 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Supplemental Nights (1888), quoted in The Life of Sir Richard Burton, Vol. II (1906), by Thomas Wright, p. 124
“[H]istory is — the record of what human beings have been impelled to do by their ignorance and the enormous bumptiousness that makes them canonize their ignorance as a political or religious dogma.”
Aldous Huxley (1894–1963) said by 1963 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“But if one Subject giveth Counsell to another, to do anything contrary to the Lawes, whether that Counsell proceed from evil intention, or from ignorance onely, it is punishable by the Common-wealth; because ignorance of the Law, is no good excuse, where every man is bound to take notice of the Lawes to which he is subject.”
Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679) said by 1679 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Most ignorance is by choice, you know, and so ignorance is very telling about what really matters to people.”
Kim Stanley Robinson (born 1952) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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.”
John Cheever (1912–1982) first seen 1966 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Sixties, 1966 entry.
“That's what it was to be alive. To move about in a cloud of ignorance; to go up and down trampling on the feelings of those... of those about you. To spend and waste time as though you had a million years. To be always at the mercy of one self-centered passion, or another. Now you know — that's the happy existence you wanted to go back to. Ignorance and blindness.”
Thornton Wilder (1897–1975) said by 1975 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Any forthcoming dispute was likely to be a battle between ignorance of one sort and ignorance of another.”
Michael Moorcock (born 1939) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In many cases, ignorance is a good thing : the mind retains its freedom of investigation and does not stray along roads that lead nowhither, suggested by one's reading. I have experienced this once again. ... Yes, ignorance can have its advantages; the new is found far from the beaten track.”
Jean Henri Fabre (1823–1915) said by 1915 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“(…) creation itself is rooted in ignorance; matter itself is ignorance. Not to know, and not to know that one does not know, is the cause of endless suffering.”
Nisargadatta Maharaj (1897–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings.”
Sam Harris (born 1967) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You asked for wisdom? Hear these words. Nothing limits intelligence more than ignorance; nothing fosters ignorance more than one's own opinions; nothing strengthens opinions more than refusing to look at reality.”
Sheri S. Tepper (1929–2016) said by 2016 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The history of the Victorian Age will never be written: we know too much about it. For ignorance is the first requisite of the historian – ignorance, which simplifies and clarifies, which selects and omits, with a placid perfection unattainable by the highest art.”
Lytton Strachey (1880–1932) said by 1932 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Our coming-to-be is as mysterious as our ceasing-to-be at death. Can we therefore not derive hope because our ignorance about our origin matches our ignorance about our destiny? Cannot life be lived as a challenging and wonderful adventure that has meaning yet to be discovered? (95)”
John Carew Eccles (1903–1997) said by 1997 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A scientist can be tactful and PC with his mouth, but not his ears or eyes and certainly not his mind. Truth must reign there above all. For your first allegiance is either to Truth or to Ignorance. Worry about offending, and you are choosing Ignorance.”
Patri Friedman (born 1976) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“To succeed as a pioneer you need two things: ignorance and purpose. Ignorance of just how tough the path ahead will be. And a driving purpose, which keeps you going nonetheless.”
Lewis Pugh (born 1969) first seen 2014 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 26 November 2014, Twitter
“The Soul appears to be finite because of ignorance. When ignorance is destroyed the Self which does not admit of any multiplicity truly reveals itself by itself: like the Sun when the clouds pass away.”
Adi Shankara (788–820) said by 820 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Atman is an ever-present Reality. Yet, because of ignorance it is not realised. On the destruction of ignorance Atman is realised.”
Adi Shankara (788–820) said by 820 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The ignorance of science means the enforced ignorance of mankind.”
Karl Pearson (1857–1936) said by 1936 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We have a really shamefully horrid healthcare system, and I think that’s part of it. It’s much more convenient to think these people are just crazy, or it’s in their heads. It’s a very real thing; I don’t know of anyone who doubts it any more. Occasionally I encounter people that do. I’m astounded at their wilful ignorance; it’s not actual ignorance.”
Porochista Khakpour (born 1978) first seen 2018 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: On writing a book that addressed America’s healthcare system in “Porochista Khakpour, author of Sick: ‘It’s more convenient to treat patients as crazy’” in The Guardian (2018 Jul 28)
“The Europeans have been trying for years to keep the Orientals in the well of ignorance, and they have come to one conclusion from this behavior: the Orientals become powerless and helpless in the shadow of this ignorance.”
Ahmad Kasravi (1890–1946) said by 1946 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Cancer also produces fear -- and much of that fear cots from ignorance about the progress already made and ignorance of the need for preventive medicine for men and women alike. Cancer wherever it strikes the body, also strikes the spirit, and the best doctors in the world cannot cure the spirit. Only love and understanding can accomplish this important role.”
Betty Ford (1918–2011) said by 2011 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I don’t mean to insult you, Mr. Breen. But you’re speaking from ignorance.” “No offense taken,” I said. “If I didn’t want to cure my ignorance, I wouldn’t be asking questions.”
Mike Resnick (1942–2020) said by 2020 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source