Hoyt & Roberts, comps. Hoyt’s New Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations. 1922.
Ignorance
Be ignorance thy choice, where knowledge leads to woe.
Beattie—The Minstrel. Bk. II. St. 30.
For “ignorance is the mother of devotion,” as all the world knows.
Burton—Anatomy of Melancholy. Pt. III. Sec. IV. Memb. 1. Subsect. 2. Phrase used by Dr. Cole—Disputation with the Papists at Westminster, March 31, 1559. Quoted from Cole by Bishop Jewel—Works. Vol. III. Pt. II. P. 1202. Quoted as a “Popish maxim” by Thos. Vincent—Explicatory Catechism. Epistle to the Reader. about 1622. Said by Jeremy Taylor—To a person newly converted to the Church of England. (1657). Same found in New Custome. I. I. A Morality printed 1573. (True devotion.)
The truest characters of ignorance
Are vanity, and pride, and annoyance.
Butler—Hudibras.
Causarum ignoratio in re nova mirationem facit.
In extraordinary events ignorance of their causes produces astonishment.
Cicero—De Divinatione. II. 22.
Ignoratione rerum bonarum et malarum maxime hominum vita vexatur.
Through ignorance of what is good and what is bad, the life of men is greatly perplexed.
Cicero—De Finibus Bonorum et Malorum. I. 13.
Non me pudet fateri nescire quod nesciam.
I am not ashamed to confess that I am ignorant of what I do not know.
Cicero—Tusc. Quæst. I. 25. 60.
Ignorance seldom vaults into knowledge, but passes into it through an intermediate state of obscurity, even as night into day through twilight.
Coleridge—Essay XVI.
Ignorance never settles a question.
Benj. Disraeli—Speech in House of Commons, May 14, 1866.
Mr. Kremlin himself was distinguished for ignorance, for he had only one idea, and that was wrong.
Benj. Disraeli—Sybil. Bk. IV. Ch. V.
For your ignorance is the mother of your devotion to me.
Dryden—The Maiden Queen. Act I. Sc. 2.
Ignorance gives one a large range of probabilities.
George Eliot—Daniel Deronda. Bk. II. Ch. XIII.
Ignorance is the dominion of absurdity.
Froude—Short Studies on Great Subjects. Party Politics.
Often the cock-loft is empty, in those whom nature hath built many stories high.
Fuller—Andronicus. Sec. VI. Par. 18. 1.
Es ist nichts schrecklicher als eine thätige Unwissenheit.
There is nothing more frightful than an active ignorance.
Goethe—Sprüche in Prosa. III.
And his best riches, ignorance of wealth.
Goldsmith—Deserted Village. L. 61.
Where ignorance is bliss,
’Tis folly to be wise.
Gray—On a Distant Prospect of Eton College. St. 10. Same idea in Euripides—Fragment. Antip. XIII.
Who ne’er knew salt, or heard the billows roar.
Homer—Odyssey. Bk. XI. L. 153. Pope’s trans.
It was a childish ignorance,
But now ’tis little joy
To know I’m further off from heaven
Than when I was a boy.
Hood—I Remember, I Remember.
Ignorance, madam, pure ignorance.
Samuel Johnson, in reply to the lady who asked why “pastern” was defined in the dictionary as “the knee of the horse.” Boswell’s—Life. (1755).
Rien n’est si dangereux qu’un ignorant ami:
Mieux vaudrait un sage ennemi.
Nothing is so dangerous as an ignorant friend; a wise enemy is worth more.
La Fontaine—Fables. VIII. 10.
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.
Locke—Human Understanding. Bk. I. Ch. II.
But let a man know that there are things to be known, of which he is ignorant, and it is so much carved out of his domain of universal knowledge.
Horace Mann—Lectures on Education. Lecture VI.
Not to know me argues yourselves unknown,
The lowest of your throng.
Milton—Paradise Lost. Bk. IV. L. 830.
The living man who does not learn, is dark, dark, like one walking in the night.
Ming Lum Paou Keën. Trans. for Chinese Repository by Dr. Wm. Milne.
Quod latet ignotum est; ignoti nulla cupido.
What is hid is unknown: for what is unknown there is no desire.
Ovid—Ars Amatoria. III. 397.
It is better to be unborn than untaught: for ignorance is the root of misfortune.
Plato.
Etiam illud quod scies nesciveris;
Ne videris quod videris.
Know not what you know, and see not what you see.
Plautus—Miles Gloriosus. II. 6. 89.
From ignorance our comfort flows,
The only wretched are the wise.
Prior—To the Hon. Chas. Montague. (1692).
Illi mors gravis incubat qui notus nimis omnibus ignotus moritur sibi.
Death presses heavily on that man, who, being but too well known to others, dies in ignorance of himself.
Seneca—Thyestes. CCCCI.
O thou monster, Ignorance, how deformed dost thou look!
Love’s Labour’s Lost. Act IV. Sc. 2. L. 21.
Madam, thou errest: I say, there is no darkness, but ignorance; in which thou art more puzzled, than the Egyptians in their fog.
Twelfth Night. Act IV. Sc. 2. L. 44.
The more we study, we the more discover our ignorance.
Shelley—Scenes from the Magico Prodigioso of Calderon. Sc. 1.
Omne ignotum pro magnifico est.
Everything unknown is magnified.
Tacitus—Agricola. XXX. Quoting Galgacus, the British leader, to his subjects before the battle of the Grampian Hills. Ritter says the sentence may be a “marginal gloss” and brackets it. Anticipated by Thucydides—Speech of Nicias. VI. 11. 4.
***Where blind and naked Ignorance
Delivers brawling judgments, unashamed,
On all things all day long.
Tennyson—Idylls of the King. Vivien. L. 515.
Homine imperito nunquam quidquid injustius,
Qui nisi quod ipse facit nihil rectum putat.
Nothing can be more unjust than the ignorant man, who thinks that nothing is well done by himself.
Terence—Adelphi. I. 2. 18.
Ita me dii ament, ast ubi sim nescio.
As God loves me, I know not where I am.
Terence—Heauton timoroumenos. II. 3. 67.
Namque inscitia est,
Adversum stimulum calces.
It is consummate ignorance to kick against the pricks.
Terence—Phormio. I. 2. 27.