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539e1ce War is peace freedom ignorance inspirational war George Orwell
0720d79 War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength. ignorance inspirational war George Orwell
5a6d98c Confidence is ignorance. If you're feeling cocky, it's because there's something you don't know. humor ignorance knowledge Eoin Colfer
b6ae32e If you don't want a man unhappy politically, don't give him two sides to a question to worry him; give him one. Better yet, give him none. Let him forget there is such a thing as war. If the government is inefficient, top-heavy, and tax-mad, better it be all those than that people worry over it. Peace, Montag. Give the people contests they win by remembering the words to more popular songs or the names of state capitals or how much corn Iowa grew last year. Cram them full of noncombustible data, chock them so damned full of 'facts' they feel stuffed, but absolutely 'brilliant' with information. Then they'll feel they're thinking, they'll get a of motion without moving. And they'll be happy, because facts of that sort don't change. brilliance change contests data facts forget government happiness ignorance information motion peace philosophy politics popular questioning taxation thinking war worry Ray Bradbury
5c22b8b I've been saying it so long to you, you just wouldn't listen. Every time you said 'Farm Boy do this' you thought I was answering 'As you wish' but that's only because you were hearing wrong. 'I love you' was what it was, but you never heard. devotion ignorance love William Goldman
c25ae41 "Do you mean ter tell me," he growled at the Dursleys, "that this boy--this boy!--knows nothin' abou'--about ANYTHING?" Harry thought this was going a bit far. He had been to school, after all, and his marks weren't bad. "I know some things," he said. "I can, you know, do math and stuff." humor ignorance math J.K. Rowling
882131b He knows nothing; and he thinks he knows everything. That points clearly to a political career. ignorance politicians politics George Bernard Shaw
23095a8 Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science. ignorance knowledge open-mindedness science willful-ignorance Charles Darwin
d7c1d2b Education is a system of imposed ignorance. homeschooling ignorance public-education Noam Chomsky
dc78721 Our wretched species is so made that those who walk on the well-trodden path always throw stones at those who are showing a new road. disregard ignorance innovation persecution reformers trailblazers Voltaire
62b4f04 Imagine the people who believe such things and who are not ashamed to ignore, totally, all the patient findings of thinking minds through all the centuries since the Bible was written. And it is these ignorant people, the most uneducated, the most unimaginative, the most unthinking among us, who would make themselves the guides and leaders of us all; who would force their feeble and childish beliefs on us; who would invade our schools and libraries and homes. I personally resent it bitterly. bible bitter childish childish-beliefs guide guides home ignorance ignore imagine invade leader leaders library resentment school science shame the-bible thought uneducated unimaginative unthinking writing Isaac Asimov
7c7daa4 A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep. ignorance illusion intelligence self-deception Saul Bellow
4cb077e Ignorance is the parent of fear. fear ignorance Herman Melville
e7c7681 How could I have been so ignorant? she thinks. So stupid, so unseeing, so given over to carelessness. But without such ignorance, such carelessness, how could we live? If you knew what was going to happen, if you knew everything that was going to happen next--if you knew in advance the consequences of your own actions--you'd be doomed. You'd be as ruined as God. You'd be a stone. You'd never eat or drink or laugh or get out of bed in the morning. You'd never love anyone, ever again. You'd never dare to. despair ignorance insight loneliness love sorrow wisdom Margaret Atwood
fdf04ca Nothing is so firmly believed as that which we least know. firm ignorance intensity knowledge Michel de Montaigne
a0fdd47 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. The whole theory of modern education is radically unsound. Fortunately in England, at any rate, education produces no effect whatsoever. ignorance Oscar Wilde
8f42ff9 ...it is not to be understood that I am with him [Jesus] in all his doctrines. I am a Materialist, he takes the side of spiritualism; he preaches the efficacy of repentance toward forgiveness of sin. I require a counterpoise of good works to redeem it... Among the sayings & discourses imputed to him by his biographers, I find many passages of fine imagination, correct morality, and of the most lovely benevolence: and others again of so much ignorance, so much absurdity, so much untruth, charlatanism, and imposture, as to pronounce it impossible that such contradictions should have proceeded from the same being. [ ] atheism atheist contradictions forgiveness good-works ignorance materialism materialist untruth Thomas Jefferson
190c3eb One of the things Ford Prefect had always found hardest to understand about human beings was their habit of continually stating and repeating the very very obvious, as in or or At first Ford had formed a theory to account for this strange behaviour. If human beings don't keep exercising their lips, he thought, their mouths probably seize up. After a few months' consideration and observation he abandoned this theory in favour of a new one. If they don't keep on exercising their lips, he thought, their brains start working. ignorance Douglas Adams
06d4997 He was talking about the sign that said 'THE COMPLICATED FUTILITY OF IGNORANCE. futility ignorance inspirational Kurt Vonnegut
92580c7 "He was talking about the sign that said 'THE COMPLICATED FUTILITY OF IGNORANCE.' 'All knew was that I didn't want my daughter or anybody's child to see a message that negative every time she comes into the library,' he said. 'And then I found out it was you who was responsible for it.' 'What's so negative about it?' I said. 'What could be a more negative word than "futility"?' he said. '"Ignorance,"' I said." ignorance inspirational Kurt Vonnegut
2271160 Point me out the happy man and I will point you out either extreme egotism, selfishness, evil -- or else an absolute ignorance. evil happiness ignorance Graham Greene
02aeca1 The man who believes that the secrets of the world are forever hidden lives in mystery and fear. Superstition will drag him down. The rain will erode the deeds of his life. But that man who sets himself the task of singling out the thread of order from the tapestry will by the decision alone have taken charge of the world and it is only by such taking charge that he will effect a way to dictate the terms of his own fate. fate fear ignorance life order secrets self-determination superstition Cormac McCarthy
e4cc0c6 May it [American independence] be to the world, what I believe it will be, (to some parts sooner, to others later, but finally to all,) the signal of arousing men to burst the chains under which monkish ignorance and superstition had persuaded them to bind themselves, and to assume the blessings and security of self-government. That form which we have substituted, restores the free right to the unbounded exercise of reason and freedom of opinion. All eyes are opened, or opening, to the rights of man. The general spread of the light of science has already laid open to every view the palpable truth, that the mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few booted and spurred, ready to ride them legitimately... These are grounds of hope for others. For ourselves, let the annual return of this day forever refresh our recollections of these rights, and an undiminished devotion to them. [ ] chains freedom-of-opinion hope ignorance light-of-science monkish reason science superstition Thomas Jefferson
00e6417 When we set out on the path, we always have a fairly clear idea of what we hope to find. Women are generally seeking their Soul Mate, and men looking for Power. Neither party is really interested in learning. They simply want to reach the thing they have set as their goal. ignorance life Paulo Coelho
3d28bb3 Fear and realisation of ignorance, strong medicines against stupid pride. ignorance inspirational pride Garth Nix
b159b51 What a refreshing mind you have, young man. There really is nothing quite like total ignorance, is there? ignorance irony Neil Gaiman
cfe2ad2 "... in a cycle as old as tribalism, ignorance of the Other engenders fear; fear engenders hatred; hatred engenders violence; violence engenders further violence until the only "rights", the only law, are whatever is willed by the most powerful." -- hatred ignorance power violence David Mitchell
4a3884f It's very simple. As you grow, you learn more. If you stayed at twenty-two, you'd always be as ignorant as you were at twenty-two. Aging is not just decay, you know. It's growth. It's more than the negative that you're going to die, it's also the positive that you understand you're going to die, and that you live a better life because of it. dying growth ignorance learning life Mitch Albom
4d97342 There comes a moment in history when ignorance is no longer a forgivable offense... a moment when only wisdom has the power to absolve. - Bertrand Zobrist ignorance power wisdom Dan Brown
e7dfa51 Admission of ignorance is often the first step in our education. education ignorance Stephen R. Covey
02aad68 History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance of which their civil as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purposes. { } alexander-von-humboldt free-government history humboldt ignorance priest Thomas Jefferson
780c3a4 Inexperience can be overcome, ignorance can be enlightened, but prejudice will destroy you. ignorance inexperience mercedes-lackey prejudice Mercedes Lackey
39dd405 "But you can't be a scientist if you're uncomfortable with ignorance, because scientists live at the boundary between what is known and unknown in the cosmos. This is very different from the way journalists portray us. So many articles begin, "Scientists now have to go back to the drawing board." It's as though we're sitting in our offices, feet up on our desks--masters of the universe--and suddenly say, "Oops, somebody discovered something!" No. We're always at the drawing board. If you're not at the drawing board, you're not making discoveries. You're not a scientist; you're something else. The public, on the other hand, seems to demand conclusive explanations as they leap without hesitation from statements of abject ignorance to statements of absolute certainty." drawing-conclusions ignorance science scientists Neil deGrasse Tyson
8488ab4 I expect what you're not aware of would fill several books, Dursely. ignorance J.K. Rowling
ef5b956 I rememeber asking a wise man, once . . . 'Why do Men fear the dark?' . . . 'Because darkness' he told me, 'is ignorance made visible.' 'And do Men despise ignorance?' I asked. 'No,' he said, 'they prize it above all things--all things!--but only so long as it remains invisible. fear ignorance pg-323 R. Scott Bakker
6797bc3 The shortest route to courage is absolute ignorance. ignorance Dan Simmons
43a501b I have always regarded as a stroke of good fortune that I was not born or brought up in a small American town; they may be the backbone of the nation, but they are also the backbone of ignorance, bigotry, and boredom, all in vast quantities. americans ignorance murica society-thinking Gore Vidal
b41edb8 Eating is an agricultural act,' as Wendell Berry famously said. It is also an ecological act, and a political act, too. Though much has been done to obscure this simple fact, how and what we eat determines to a great extent the use we make of the world - and what is to become of it. To eat with a fuller consciousness of all that is at stake might sound like a burden, but in practice few things in life can afford quite as much satisfaction. By comparison, the pleasures of eating industrially, which is to say eating in ignorance, are fleeting. Many people today seem erfectly content eating at the end of an industrial food chain, without a thought in the world; this book is probably not for them. food ignorance industry life politics Michael Pollan
ed3b8c1 Ignorance is fatal. death fatal ignorance knowledge ray wisdom Ray Bradbury
153ce58 Those at too great a distance may, I am well are, mistake ignorance for perspective. debate education ignorance informed knowledge perspective rational Carl Sagan
5cd66a5 This century will be called 's century. He was one of the greatest men who ever touched this globe. He has explained more of the phenomena of life than all of the religious teachers. . Think of the men who replied to him. Only a few years ago there was no person too ignorant to successfully answer , and the more ignorant he was the more cheerfully he undertook the task. He was held up to the ridicule, the scorn and contempt of the Christian world, and yet when he died, England was proud to put his dust with that of her noblest and her grandest. conquered the intellectual world, and his doctrines are now accepted facts. His light has broken in on some of the clergy, and the greatest man who to-day occupies the pulpit of one of the orthodox churches, Henry Ward Beecher, is a believer in the theories of --a man of more genius than all the clergy of that entire church put together. ...The church teaches that man was created perfect, and that for six thousand years he has degenerated. demonstrated the falsity of this dogma. He shows that man has for thousands of ages steadily advanced; . Religion and science are enemies. One is a superstition; the other is a fact. One rests upon the false, the other upon the true. One is the result of fear and faith, the other of investigation and reason. atonement biology charles-darwin clergy darwin dogma england evolution fact false fear garden-of-eden genius geology ignorance investigation myth nature origin-of-species original-sin orthodox orthodox-christianity reason science superstition survival-of-the-fittest true Robert Green Ingersoll
57718d2 Sleep is like a cat: It only comes to you if you ignore it. I drank more and continued my mantra. 'Stop thinking', swig, 'empty your head', swig, 'now, seriously empty your head'. alcoholic alone binging cat cats drinking empty-your-head ignorance ignoring insomnia lonely mantra murphy-s-law playing-hard-to-get self-assurance sleep sleeping stop-thinking talking-to-yourself the-mind thinking thinking-process thoughts voices-inside-your-head Gillian Flynn
3cce926 A knavish speech sleeps in a fool's ear. humor ignorance intelligence wisdom William Shakespeare
2f776d8 "Much of our food system depends on our not knowing much about it, beyond the price disclosed by the checkout scanner; cheapness and ignorance are mutually reinforcing. And it's a short way from not knowing who's at the other end of your food chain to not caring-to the carelessness of both producers and consumers that characterizes our economy today. Of course, the global economy couldn't very well function without this wall of ignorance and the indifference it breeds. This is why the American food industry and its international counterparts fight to keep their products from telling even the simplest stories-"dolphin safe," "humanely slaughtered," etc.-about how they were produced. The more knowledge people have about the way their food is produced, the more likely it is that their values-and not just "value"-will inform their purchasing decisions." dilemma food-chain food-regulation food-safety ignorance industry michael michael-pollan-omnivore-dilemma omnivore pollan product purchase Michael Pollan
82d613a In the days when hyenas of hate suckle the babes of men, and jackals of hypocrisy pimp their mothers' broken hearts, may children not look to demons of ignorance for hope. bigotry coexistence coexisting-together coexistência election-year-politics extremism gun-laws gun-violence hate-crimes hatred human-rights-day humanity hypocrisy ignorance intelligence leadership megalomania national-history-day nonviolent-conflict-resolution police-reform police-shootings political-commentary political-corruption politics prejudice presidential-election terrorism world-suicide-prevention-day xenophobia Aberjhani
48df226 Just above our terror, the stars painted this story in perfect silver calligraphy. And our souls, too often abused by ignorance, covered our eyes with mercy. classic-quotes faith grace hope ignorance inspiration marvelousmonday-quotes mercy nanowrimo national-novel-writing-month peace peacism quotes-by-famous-authors quotes-by-famous-poets silver souls spirituality stars survival terrorism the-soul war world-suicide-prevention-day Aberjhani
36ce54f Nevertheless, (Jefferson) believed that the habit of skepticism is an essential prerequisite for responsible citizenship. He argued that the cost of education is trivial compared to the cost of ignorance, of leaving government to the wolves. He taught that the country is safe only when the people rule. ignorance skepticism thomas-jefferson Carl Sagan
2b55262 It is always advisable to perceive clearly our ignorance. ignorance Charles Darwin
22ebe66 People are afraid of being more ignorant than their children--especially, apparantly, their daughters. ignorance Daniel C. Dennett
2d6f4f5 "Is everyone who lives in Ignorance like you?" asked Milo. "Much worse," he said longingly. "But I don't live here. I'm from a place very far away called Context." ignorance Norton Juster
42dc143 There's faith that knows itself as faith, Proyas, and there's faith that confuses itself for knowledge. The first embraces uncertainty, acknowledges the mysteriousness of the God. It begets compassion and tolerance. Who can entirely condemn when they're not entirely certain they're in the right? But the second, Proyas, the second embraces certainty and only pays lip service to the God's mystery. It begets intolerance, hatred, violence. god ignorance intolerance religion R. Scott Bakker
582a0a4 How in hell did those bombers get up there every single second of our lives! Why doesn't someone want to talk about it! We've started and won two atomic wars since 2022! Is it because we're having so much fun at home we've forgotten the world? Is it because we're so rich and the rest of the world's so poor and we just don't care if they are? I've heard rumors; the world is starving, but we're well fed. Is it true, the world works hard and we play? Is that why we're hated so much? I've heard the rumors about hate too, once in a long while, over the years. Do you know why? I don't, that's sure! Maybe the books can get us half out of the cave. They just might stop us from making the same damn insane mistakes! bombs books cave classism forgotten fun hate history history-repeating-itself ignorance mistakes poor rich starving uncaring war Ray Bradbury
e0d1cb1 Let us all hope that the dark clouds of racial prejudice will soon pass away and the deep fog of misunderstanding will be lifted from our fear-drenched communities, and in some not too distant tomorrow the radiant stars of love and brotherhood will shine over our great nation with all their scintillating beauty. hope ignorance prejudice racism Martin Luther King Jr.
2e29eea Women of today are still being called upon to stretch across the gap of male ignorance and to educate men as to our existence and our needs. This is an old and primary tool of all oppressors to keep the oppressed occupied with the master's concerns. Now we hear that is is the task of women of Color to educated white women - in the face of tremendous resistance - as to our existence, our differences, our relative roles in our joint survival. This is a diversion of energies and a tragic repetition of racist patriarchal thought. ignorance oppression sexism white-feminism Audre Lorde
4010bef And sometimes ignorance is even harder to deal with than deliberate evil. ignorance Ryū Murakami
594d6a1 The enemy is the tyranny of the dull mind. ignorance tyranny Tom Robbins
57e227f "And where," Socrates smiled, "is the universe?" "The universe is well, there are theories about how it's shaped..." "That's not what I asked. Where is it?" "I don't know - how can I answer that?" "That is the point. You cannot answer it, and you never will. There is no knowing about it. You are ignorant of where the universe is, and thus, where you are. In fact, you have no knowledge of where anything is or of What anything is or how is came to be. Life is a mystery. "My ignorance is based on this understanding. Your understanding is based on ignorance. This is why I am a humorous fool, and you are a serious jackass." ignorance seriousness understanding Dan Millman
eb199b4 "New Rule: Just because a country elects a smart president doesn't make it a smart country. A couple of weeks ago, I was asked on CNN if I thought Sarah Palin could get elected president, and I said I hope not, but I wouldn't put anything past this stupid country. Well, the station was flooded with emails, and the twits hit the fan. And you could tell that these people were mad, because they wrote entirely in CAPITAL LETTERS!!! Worst of all, Bill O'Reilly refuted my contention that this is a stupid country by calling me a pinhead, which (a) proves my point, and (b) is really funny coming from a doody-face like him. Now, before I go about demonstration how, sadly, easy it is to prove the dumbness that's dragging us down, let me just say that ignorance has life-and-death consequences. On the eve of the Iraq War, seventy percent of Americans thought Saddam Hussein was personally involved in 9/11. Six years later, thirty-four percent still do. Or look at the health-care debate: At a recent town hall meeting in South Carolina, a man stood up and told his congressman to "keep your government hands off my Medicare," which is kind of like driving cross-country to protest highways. This country is like a college chick after two Long Island iced teas: We can be talked into anything, like wars, and we can be talked of anything, like health care. We should forget the town halls, and replace them with study halls. Listen to some of these stats: A majority of Americans cannot name a single branch of government, or explain what the Bill of Rights is. Twenty-four percent could not name the country America fought in the Revolutionary War. More than two-thirds of Americans don't know what's in . Two-thirds don't know what the Food and Drug Administration does. Some of this stuff you should be able to pick up simply by being alive. You know, like the way the kid knew about cricket. Not here. Nearly half of Americans don't know that states have two senators, and more than half can't name their congressman. And among Republican governors, only three got their wife's name right on the first try. People bitch and moan about taxes and spending, but they have no idea what their government spends money on. The average voter thinks foreign aid consumes more twenty-four percent of our budget. It's actually less than one percent. A third of Republicans believe Obama is not a citizen ad a third of Democrats believe that George Bush had prior knowledge of the 9/11 attacks, which is an absurd sentence, because it contains the words "Bush" and "knowledge." Sarah Palin says she would never apologize for America. Even though a Gallup poll say eighteen percent of us think the sun revolves around the earth. No, they're not stupid. They're interplanetary mavericks. And I haven't even brought up religion. But here's one fun fact I'll leave you with: Did you know only about half of Americans are aware that Judaism is an older religion than Christianity? That's right, half of America looks at books called the Old Testament and the New Testament and cannot figure out which came first. I rest my case." education essays healthcare-reform humor ignorance immature intelligence medicare religion war-in-iraq war-on-terror Bill Maher
11fab54 "It's ever been the way of the man of science or philosophy. Most folks stay in the dark and then complain they can't see nothing." - Snipes (185)" enlightenment ignorance philosophy science sight Ron Rash
a151a03 Ignorance was bliss. ignorance Chuck Palahniuk
8074dbb Only one who has learned much can fully appreciate his ignorance. ignorance knowledge Louis L'Amour
6215a13 ...most of the damage we cause to the planet is the result of our own ignorance. ignorance Yvon Chouinard
a913409 What you don't know won't hurt you. A dubious maxim: sometimes what you don't know can hurt you very much. ignorance knowledge learning lies loss pain philosophy philosophy-of-life Margaret Atwood
2b6569d "There's a fascinating frailty of the human mind that psychologists know all about, called "argument from ignorance." This is how it goes. Remember what the "U" stands for in "UFO"? You see lights flashing in the sky. You've never seen anything like this before and don't understand what it is. You say, "It's a UFO!" The "U" stands for "unidentified." But then you say, "I don't know what it is; it must be aliens from outer space, visiting from another planet." The issue here is that if you don't know what something is, your interpretation of it should stop immediately. You don't then say it must be X or Y or Z. That's argument from ignorance. It's common. I'm not blaming anybody; it may relate to our burning need to manufacture answers because we feel uncomfortable about being steeped in ignorance." definition ignorance people ufo Neil deGrasse Tyson
15288b3 The truth. Men will blind themselves with hot irons, rather than face it. ignorance truth David Gemmell
7ff554f Teach the ignorant as much as you can. Society is to blame for not giving free education: it is responsible for the darkness it creates. the soul in darkness sins, but the real sinner is he who caused the darkness ignorance responsibillity sin Victor Hugo
ce39eb8 "Which one the right way?" "Huh? You're asking me ? How should I know?" "Mortals call you Buddha." "That is only because they are afflicted with language and ignorance." buddha ignorance Roger Zelazny
a211985 "Chance" is just a word expressing ignorance" ignorance random science Richard Dawkins
10aa344 Not doing anything doing something and choosing to look away is a passive but no less mortal sin. ignorance passive-aggressive sin suffering Bill Maher
aa6f23d The young specialist in English Lit, having quoted me, went on to lecture me severely on the fact that in every century people have thought they understood the Universe at last, and in every century they were proved to be wrong. It follows that the one thing we can say about our modern 'knowledge' is that it is wrong. The young man then quoted with approval what Socrates had said on learning that the Delphic oracle had proclaimed him the wisest man in Greece. 'If I am the wisest man,' said Socrates, 'it is because I alone know that I know nothing.' The implication was that I was very foolish because I was under the impression I knew a great deal. Alas, none of this was new to me. (There is very little that is new to me; I wish my correspondents would realize this.) This particular theme was addressed to me a quarter of a century ago by John Campbell, who specialized in irritating me. He also told me that all theories are proven wrong in time. My answer to him was, 'John, when people thought the Earth was flat, they were wrong. When people thought the Earth was spherical, they were wrong. But if you think that thinking the Earth is spherical is just as wrong as thinking the Earth is flat, then your view is wronger than both of them put together. earth flat-earth greece ignorance knowledge relativity science scientific-theory socrates theory understanding universe wisdom wrong Isaac Asimov
d788ba6 How can we say that the Church wishes to bring us back into the Dark Ages? The Church was the only thing that ever brought us out of them. dark-ages ignorance G.K. Chesterton
8a637d3 There were times he thought it would have been far better to never have known. Yet he continued to return to his core principle: that, in every situation, knowledge was better than ignorance. However agonizing, it was necessary to confront the facts. Only through knowing could a person become strong. ignorance innocence knowledge men women Haruki Murakami
15fee80 I hate stupidity, but what I hate even more is when people actually brag about it. ignorance pride stupidity Bill Maher
c654565 Curiosity takes ignorance seriously, and is confident enough to admit when it does not know. It is aware of not knowing, and it sets out to do something about it curiosity ignorance knowledge questioning Alain de Botton
0495200 Strange are the pictures of the future that mankind can thus draw with this brush of faith and these many-coloured pigments of the imagination! Strange, too, that no one of them tallies with another! disagreement dreams faith future hopes ignorance illusions imagination mankind religion vain-hopes H. Rider Haggard
f65615f "They" hate us because they feel--and "they" are not wrong--that it is within our power to do so much more, and that we practice a kind of passive-aggressive violence on the Third World. We do this by, for example, demonizing tobacco as poison here while promoting cigarettes in Asia; inflating produce prices by paying farmers not to grow food as millions go hungry worldwide; skimping on quality and then imposing tariffs on foreign products made better or cheaper than our own; padding corporate profits through Third World sweatshops; letting drug companies stand by as millions die of AIDS in Africa to keep prices up on lifesaving drugs; and on and on. We do, upon reaching a very high comfort level, mostly choose to go from ten to eleven instead of helping another guy far away go from zero to one. We even do it in our own country. Barbara Ehrenreich's brilliant book describes the impossibility of living with dignity or comfort as one of the millions of minimum-wage workers in fast food, aisle-stocking and table-waiting jobs. Their labor for next to nothing ensures that well-off people can be a little more pampered. So if we do it to our own, what chance do foreigners have?" extremism hate ignorance irresponsible passive-aggressive poverty poverty-and-politics suffering third-world violence Bill Maher
7d2858b "They" hate us because they feel--and "they" are not wrong--that it is within our power to do so much more, and that we practice a kind of passive-aggressive violence on the Third World. We do this by, for example, demonizing tobacco as poison here while promoting cigarettes in Asia; inflating produce prices by paying farmers not to grow food as millions go hungry worldwide; skimping on quality and then imposing tariffs on foreign products made better or cheaper than our own; padding corporate profits through Third World sweatshops; letting drug companies stand by as millions die of AIDS in Africa to keep prices up on lifesaving drugs; and on and on. We do, upon reaching a very high comfort level, mostly choose to go from ten to eleven instead of helping another guy far away go from zero to one. We even do it in our own country. Barbara Ehrenreich's brilliant book describes the impossibility of living with dignity or comfort as one of the millions of minimum-wage workers in fast food, aisle-stocking and table-waiting jobs. Their labor for next to nothing ensures that well-off people can be a little more pampered. So if we do it to our own, what chance do foreigners have?" -- extremism hate ignorance irresponsible passive-aggressive poverty poverty-and-politics suffering third-world violence Bill Maher
d74a680 "There are, and always have been, destructive pseudo-scientific notions linked to race and religion; these are the most widespread and damaging. Hopefully, educated people can succeed in shedding light into these areas of prejudice and ignorance, for as destructive education ignorance prejudice pseudo-science race voltaire Martin Gardner
f484f6a Harshaw had the arrogant humility of the man who has learned so much that he is aware of his own ignorance and he saw no point in 'measurements' when he did not know what he was measuring. humility ignorance limitations Robert A. Heinlein
e1b9d2e "New Rule: Death isn't always sad. This week, the Reverend Jerry Falwell died, and millions of Americans asked, "Why? Why, God? Why...didn't you take Pat Robertson with him?" I don't want to say Jerry was disliked by the gay community, but tonight in New York City, at exactly eight o'clock, Broadway theaters along the Great White Way turned their lights up for two minutes. I know you're not supposed to speak ill of the dead, but I think we can make an exception, because speaking ill of the dead was kind of Jerry Falwell's hobby. He's the guy who said AIDS was God's punishment for homosexuality and that 9/11 was brought on by pagans, abortionists, feminists, gays, and the ACLU--or, as I like to call them, my studio audience. It was surreal watching people on the news praise Falwell, followed by a clip package of what he actually said--things like: "Homosexuals are part of a vile and satanic system that will be utterly annihilated." "If you're not a born-again Christian, you're a failure as a human being." "Feminists just need a man in the house." "There is no separation of church and state." And, of course, everyone's favorite: "The purple Teletubby is gay." Jerry Falwell found out you could launder your hate through the cover of "God's will"--he didn't hate gays, God does. All Falwell's power came from name-dropping God, and gay people should steal that trick. Don't say you want something because it's your right as a human being--say you want it because it's your religion. Gay men have been going at things backward. Forget civil right, and just make gayness a religion. I mean, you're kneeling anyway. And it's easy to start a religion. Watch, I'll do it for you. I had a vision last night. The Blessed Virgin Mary came to me--I don't know how she got past the guards--and she told me it's time to take the high ground from the Seventh-day Adventists and give it to the twenty-four-hour party people. And that what happens in the confessional stays in the confessional. Gay men, don't say you're life partners. Say you're a nunnery of two. "We weren't having sex,officer. I was performing a very private mass.Here in my car. I was letting my rod and my staff comfort him." One can only hope that as Jerry Falwell now approaches the pearly gates, he is met there by God Himself, wearing a Fire Island muscle shirt and nut-hugger shorts, saying to Jerry in a mighty lisp, "I'm not talking to you." hate hate-speech humor ignorance jerry-falwell religion Bill Maher
3e109b8 "Do you really think that God in his heaven with all the angels, there from the beginning of time and looking towards the day of judgement day, really looks down on all the world and see's you and little harry and says 'whatever you choose to do is my will?' "Yes i do." she says uncertainly." ignorance sarcasm-humor Philippa Gregory
0e9cebc Censorship is the child of fear the father of ignorance and the desperate weapon of fascists everywhere. fascism fear ignorance Laurie Halse Anderson
6ef0852 Fate is unalterable only in the sense that given a cause, a certain result must follow, but no cause is inevitable in itself, and man can shape his world if he does not resign himself to ignorance. destiny education fate ignorance self-determination understanding Pearl S. Buck
83958e4 Staring at a world too horrible to comprehend, believing -- by dint of ignorance and innocence -- that beneath this unbearable contract of guilt and blame there is always an older contract that may bind and release in a more salutary way. dorothy hope ignorance innocence philosophy wicked witch Gregory Maguire
699f759 Poke had never shared out so many raisins, because she had never had so many to share. But the little kids wouldn't understand that. They'd think, Poke gave us garbage, and Achilles gave us raisins. That's because they were stupid. ignorance poke share stupid Orson Scott Card
36e771c But what is it that drives haters crazy with rage? Many times, it's being ignored. To a person with pride, being ignored is often worse than out-and-out hate; it's that much more of an insult, that you're not even worth noticing. hate ignorance insulting politics pride Bill Maher
694b811 Es un ciclo tan antiguo como el tribalismo. Todo comienza con la ignorancia. La ignorancia genera miedo. El miedo genera odio y el odio genera violencia. La violencia provoca mas violencia hasta que la unica ley viene dictada por la voluntad del mas fuerte. fear hate ignorance ignorancia law ley miedo odio spanish David Mitchell
1288f4b When I visited , in 1948, at his home in Aylot, a suburb of London, he was extremely anxious for me to tell him all that I knew about . During the course of the conversation, he told me that had made a tremendous impression upon him, and had exercised an influence upon him probably greater than that of any other man. He seemed particularly anxious to impress me with the importance of 's influence upon his intellectual endeavors and accomplishments. In view of this admission, what percentage of the greatness of belongs to ? If 's influence upon so great an intellect as was that extensive, what must have been his influence upon others? What seed of wisdom did he plant into the minds of others, and what accomplishments of theirs should be attributed to him? The world will never know. What about the countless thousands from whom he lifted the clouds of darkness and fear, and who were emancipated from the demoralizing dogmas and creeds of ignorance and superstition? What will be 's influence upon the minds of future generations, who will come under the spell of his magic words, and who will be guided into the channels of human betterment by the unparalleled example of his courageous life? The debt the world owes can never be paid. darkness debt fear george-b-shaw george-bernard-shaw george-shaw greatness honor ignorance influence ingersoll praise respect robert-g-ingersoll robert-green-ingersoll robert-ingersoll shaw superstition wisdom Joseph Lewis
1a0ccf3 "My feet," said Montag. "I can't move them. I feel so damn silly. My feet won't move!" "Listen. Easy now," said the old man gently. "I know, I know. You're afraid of making mistakes. be. Mistakes can be profited by. Man, when I was young I my ignorance in people's faces. They beat me with sticks. By the time I was forty my blunt instrument had been honed to a fine cutting point for me. If you hide your ignorance, no one will hit you and you'll never learn." -- fahrenheit-451 growth guy-montag ignorance learning life Ray Bradbury
834c48c Bigotry is the disease of ignorance, of morbid minds; enthusiasm of the free and buoyant. Education and free discussion are the antidotes of both. We are destined to be a barrier against the returns of ignorance and barbarism. Old Europe will have to lean on our shoulders, and to hobble along by our side, under the monkish trammels of priests and kings, as she can. What a Colossus shall we be when the Southern continent comes up to our mark! What a stand will it secure as a ralliance for the reason & freedom of the globe! I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past. So good night. I will dream on, always fancying that Mrs Adams and yourself are by my side marking the progress and the obliquities of ages and countries. dreams future history ignorance inspirational progress Thomas Jefferson
cdc913d I think that it [the Church] stands for everything most hostile to the mental emancipation and stimulation of mankind. It is the completest, most highly organized system of prejudices and antagonisms in existence. Everywhere in the world there are ignorance and prejudice, but the greatest complex of these, with the most extensive prestige and the most intimate entanglement with traditional institutions, is the Roman Catholic Church. It presents many faces towards the world, but everywhere it is systematic in its fight against freedom. catholic catholic-church catholicism church emancipation freedom hostile ignorance intimate mankind prejudice prestige H.G. Wells
ed603a0 those who are ignorant naturally consider everything possible. ignorance life possibility Franz Kafka
6654f27 If it's not clear enough in the piece, I love it when people things to me they know and I'm interested in but don't yet know. It's when they explain things to me I know and they don't that the conversation goes awry. ignorance mansplain mansplaining patriarchal patriarchy Rebecca Solnit
d8b2cbf "The ants are bad" The Bear "the ants?"Tahir "Do not be fooled. They look very small, so harm you don't think of then at all. Then years. Then one day you wake up, and your home has fallen down." Osman." destruction ignorance Tahir Shah
3763e7a He drew from under the table a sheet of strangely scented yellow-Chinese paper, the brushes, and slab of India ink. In cleanest, severest outline he had traced the Great Wheel with its six spokes, whose centre is the conjoined Hog, Snake, and Dove (Ignorance, Anger, and Lust), and whose compartments are all the heavens and hells, and all the chances of human life. balance human-life ignorance life lust the-wheel-of-things Rudyard Kipling
6e756d9 I can't admit of an old boy of a God who takes walks in his garden with a cane in his hand, who lodges his friends in the belly of whales, dies uttering a cry, and rises again at the end of three days; things absurd in themselves, and completely opposed, moreover, to all physical laws, which prove to us, by the way, that priests have always wallowed in turpid ignorance, in which they would fain engulf the people with them. homais ignorance legends myths Gustave Flaubert
95c804d Does a population have informed consent when that population is not taught the inner workings of its monetary system, and then is drawn, all unknowing, into economic adventures? finance financial-mishap government ignorance investing Frank Herbert
e85391b As night goes round the Earth always there are hundreds of thousands of people who should be sleeping, lying awake, fearing a bully, fearing a cruel competition, dreading lest they cannot make good, ill of some illness they cannot comprehend, distressed by some irrational quarrel, maddened by some thwarted instinct or some suppressed perverted desire. ignorance suffering H.G. Wells
3f0d35c Mark, trying his best to distance himself from the cruel and pathetic 21st century, hadn't listened to the news reports, not even when the dark green jeeps and helicopters showed up in town, men dressed in identical uniforms, just like in school, always standing with stony faces, setting up shelters and warning signals and food storage boxes. And as the public service announcements and racist propaganda bloomed onto the screens in every classroom, Mark's only observation was that the United States still had such a long way to go. When times were dire, they resorted to using inaccurate stereotypes and ignorance as a weapon, with an impressionable society always willing to believe without further question. army bigitry box classroom education ignorance military nuclear nuclear-war propaganda public-service-announcement racism radiation radioactive school screen sheeple society stereotype storage-box united-states war weapon Rebecca McNutt
b4e97a5 Ignorance is the parent of fear ... ignorance knowledge wisdom Herman Melville
6955628 Sometimes I think the urge to believe in our own worldview is our most powerful intellectual imperative, the mind's equivalent of feeding, fighting, and fornicating. People will eagerly twist facts into wholly unrecognizable shapes to fit them into existing suppositions. They'll ignore the obvious, select the irrelevant, and spin it all into a tapestry of self-deception, solely to justify an idea, no matter how impoverished or self-destructive. ignorance justification manipulation-of-facts perspective self-destruction Barry Eisler
65b0769 "Last night I thought about all that kerosene I've used in the past ten years. And I thought about books. And for the first time I realized that a man was behind each one of the books. A man had to think them up. A man had to take a long time to put them down on paper. And I'd never even thought that thought before." He got out of bed. "It took some man a lifetime maybe to put some of his thoughts down, looking around at the world and life and then I come along in two minutes and boom! it's all over." "Let me alone," said Mildred. "I didn't do anything." "Let you alone! That's all very well, but how can I leave myself alone? We need not to be let alone. We need to be really bothered once in a while. How long is it since you were bothered? About something important, about something real?" books bother create creation creativity destruction ignorance important kerosene life lifetime observation real reality reality-check thought time work world Ray Bradbury
2e1a533 They let us be, here, in the cage of our ignorance. ignorance suppression Ursula K. Le Guin
f2b58b2 They argued about the weather, sports, sex, war, race, politics, and religion; neither of them knew the subjects they debated, but it seemed that the less they knew the better the could argue. debate ignorance Richard Wright
c1b00c9 Caius was one of those who gloried in his ignorance, called his lack of letters purity, scorned any subtlety of thought or expression. A man for his time, indeed. coarseness crudeness education ignorance stupidity Iain Pears
b9f6028 ...when you take fright and add to it ignorance, you get hatred. That's a very unattractive equation. bigotry fear fright hatred here-today ignorance prejudice xenophobia Ann M. Martin
1155d80 How merciful a thing is man's ignorance of his immediate future! What a ghastly, paralysing thing it would have been if all those present could have known what was about to happen within a matter of seconds! For nothing short of pre-knowledge could have stopped the occurrence, so suddenly it sprang upon them. ignorance premeditation Mervyn Peake
015d50d My Dad says that people like that {ignorant about other countries and cultures} are not truly horrible; they just need a geography class, a passport, and a few foreign friends. ignorance Firoozeh Dumas
d03524f I think she's too ignorant to be a witch. humour ignorance intelligence witch witches Muriel Spark
612b557 I don't respect thinking that is dangerous, prejudicial, childish, and could get me killed. ignorance Bill Maher
52ea5ea Evidentemente, soy muy ignorante, la verdad es esa, y es muy triste para mi, pero esto supone una ventaja: El ignorante osa a mas cosas. Tambien estoy preparado para soportar todavia un poco la ignorancia y sus consecuencias -malas, de acuerdo- tanto como resistan mis fuerzas. ignorance Franz Kafka
3a49764 "It's a funny thing to complain about, but most of America is perfectly devoid of smells. I must have noticed it before, but this last time back I felt it as an impairment. For weeks after we arrived I kept rubbing my eyes, thinking I was losing my sight or maybe my hearing. But it was the sense of smell that was gone. Even in the grocery store, surrounded in one aisle by more kinds of food than will ever be known in a Congolese lifetime, there was nothing on the air but a vague, disinfected emptiness. I mentioned this to Anatole, who'd long since taken note of it, of course. "The air is just blank in America," I said. "You can't ever smell what's around you, unless you stick your nose right down into something." "Maybe that is why they don't know about Mobutu," he suggested." ignorance Barbara Kingsolver
3124ae9 Some may say that the British are obsessed with class difference and that knowing your apostrophes is a way of belittling the uneducated. To which accusation, I say (mainly), 'Pah!' How can it be a matter of class difference when ignorance is universal? class-difference grammar humor ignorance intellectualism Lynne Truss
e276320 "He came away with an exasperated sense of failure. He denounced parliamentary government root and branch that night. Parliament was doomed. The fact that it had not listened to Rud was only one little conclusive fact in a long indictment. "It has become a series of empty forms," he said. "All over the world, always, the sawdust of reality is running out of the shapes of quasi-public things. Not one British citizen in a thousand watches what is done in Parliament; not one in a thousand Americans follows the discourses of Congress. Interest has gone. Every election in the past thirty years has been fought on gross misunderstandings." government ignorance parliament politicians politics H.G. Wells
8bb8546 To specialize is to brush one tooth. When a person specializes he channels all of his energies through one narrow conduit; he knows one thing extremely well and is ignorant of almost everything else. ignorance specialization Tom Robbins
d382c90 "It was his first definite encounter with the wary-eyed, platitudinous, evasive Labour leaders, and he realised at once the formidable barrier of inert leadership they constituted, between the discontented masses and constructive change. They seemed to be almost entirely preoccupied by internecine intrigues and the "discipline of the Party". They were steeped in Party professionalism. They were not in any way traitors to their cause, or wilfully reactionary, but they had no minds for a renascent world. They meant nothing, but they did not know they meant nothing. They regarded Rud just as in their time they had regarded Liberalism, Fabianism, Communism, Science, suspecting them all, learning nothing from them, blankly resistant. They did not want ideas in politics. They just wanted to be the official representatives of organised labour and make what they could by it. Their manner betrayed their invincible resolution, as strong as an animal instinct, to play politics according to the rules, to manoeuvre for positions, to dig themselves into positions -- and squat..." ignorance labour-party politicians politics H.G. Wells
5d7e4dd I tell you, stupidity, self-protective stupidity, is the fundamental sin. No man alive has a right to contentment. No man alive has a right to mental rest. No man has any right to be as stupid as educated, Liberal men have been about that foolish affair at Geneva. Men who have any leisure, any gifts, any resources, have no right to stifle their consciences with that degree of imposture. ignorance stupidity H.G. Wells
0a58279 We convince ourselves that even our shameless waste, our unchecked consumption and our appalling ignorance of anyplace in the world except our own little corner must continue-- ! No, when you become smarter and less gluttonous, win. We win! consumption ignorance politics war-on-terror waste Bill Maher
79a23ab Sticking one's head in the sand is a deep human impulse. Like when you feel some kind of bump or growth on the back of your neck, and your heart jumps, because, Christ, that could be something bad, I should see a doctor right away. But then you don't, because it's too scary, and what if they do find something, and...and besides: ! ignorance Bill Maher
0a14178 If there was an elephant in the supermarket, she'd either not see it at all, or call it Mrs Jones and talk about fishcakes. blinkered environment expectations ignorance narrow-mindedness small-minded Jeanette Winterson
137af52 There is always a city. There is always a civilisation. There is always a barbarian with a pickaxe. Sometimes you are the city, sometimes you are the civilisation, but to become that city, that civilisation, you once took a pickaxe and destroyed what you hated, and what you hated was what you did not understand. civilization hate history ignorance understanding Jeanette Winterson
2bdf14b Ignorance is not so damnable as humbug; but when it prescribes pills it may happen to do more harm. ignorance George Eliot
8183fc4 At Gabriel College there was a very holy object on the high altar of the Oratory, covered with a black velvet cloth... At the height of the invocation the Intercessor lifted the cloth to reveal in the dimness a glass dome inside which there was something too distant to see, until he pulled a string attached to a shutter above, letting a ray of sunlight through to strike the dome exactly. Then it became clear: a little thing like a weathervane, with four sails black on one side and white on the other, began to whirl around as the light struck it. It illustrated a moral lesson, the Intercessor explained, for the black of ignorance fled from the light, whereas the wisdom of white rushed to embrace it. { .} crookes holy ignorance moral-lesson oratory science william-crookes wisdom Philip Pullman
d981e5b "Euere Schuld, Deichgraf!" schrie eine Stimme aus dem Haufen." guilt ignorance mobs prejudice responsibility Theodor Storm
1506261 "According to H.G. Wells, you either adapt or perish, now as ever, is nature's inexorable imperative. It is not necessary to change, after all survival is not mandatory This generation might seem arrogant to the older generation due to some reasons. The older generation believes an older person or someone of higher authority is always right and being sceptical is an insult, lol Our generation is full of people who are so skeptical, they wanna know why this is this and that is that, they don't just hear and believe, they hear, hear from other sides, look at it critically and express their opinions based on their conviction. This generation is full of people who are somewhat confident cos they study, they observe and due to these, they are equipped with better information and like you know, knowledge is power. You know right from wrong, you know truth from lies. When you are with those in authority and have this knowledge, an ignorant person of higher authority would be scared of you, feel threatened and might resort to maltreating and frustrating you, defaming your character etc The older generation and the younger generation are usually having misunderstanding because the older generation are being deceived by pride, the younger generation due to their advanced education do not wanna give merit to whom it isn't due. While the older generation postulates that respect is not earned but compulsory for them to be accorded, the younger generation believes respect must be earned. lol The older generation rules by fiction but the younger generation lives by facts. The older generation uses age to oppress, the younger generation uses their knowledge to defend. The older generation believes they can never be wrong, the younger generation wants fair hearing, demands for it, if denied, they take it by force due to the confidence they've built around themselves. The older generation is unfair to the younger generation, there was once a time they were listened to without doubts and opposition, this is the time for the younger generation to be listened to due to advancement in education and exposure. The younger generation, due to their quest for higher knowledge through research, etc, they have realized the consequences of being ignorant and with their power of conviction, they are not letting the older generation have their autocratic ways affect them. To the younger generation, one should be able to prove whatever he says, no more latent heresies and this is what the older generation don't wanna hear of. The older generation wants to continue enslaving the younger generation but the younger generation is more equipped than the older generation and as such, not letting that happen. adoption aged civilization generation ignorance old respect technology threat young OMOSOHWOFA CASEY
371f66c ...you must understand that not even the Jedi know all there is to be known about the Force; no mortal mind can. We speak of the as someone ignorant of gravity might say it is the will of a river to flow to the ocean; it is a metaphor that describes our ignorance. The simple truth - if any truth is ever simple - is that we do not truly know what the will of the Force may be. We can know. It is so far beyond our limited understanding that we can only surrender to its mystery. ignorance jedi metaphor mystery obi-wan-kenobi old-ben simple-truth surrender-to-mystery the-force the-will-of-the-force truth Matthew Woodring Stover
6106969 "I learned a strange thing... that in a jumble of unintelligible talk, the word "nigger" leaps out with electric clarity. You always hear it and it always stings. And always it casts the person using it into a category of brute ignorance. I thought with some amusement that if these two women only knew what they were revealing about themselves to every Negro on that bus, they would have been outraged." ignorance racial-slurs slurs vulgarity John Howard Griffin
efa4f77 What is a flaw but a human mistake, or an ignorance that sees without options? ignorance Janny Wurts
484af58 Most people would not open a door unless they knew what lay beyond, and even if they opened the door by mistake, they would find an uninteresting room beyond. door ignorance open Trudi Canavan
672d7df Time after time, history demonstrates that when people don't want to believe something, they have enormous skills of ignoring it altogether. history ignorance Jim Butcher
8fa88f3 Ignorance doesn't lead to salvation, nor does knowledge pave the way to sin. - Cinda Williams Chima ignorance knowledge salvation sin Scott Westerfeld
2c93623 Capitalism has a way of letting people view the world through rose-coloured glasses. capitalism greed ignorance money rose-colored-glasses Rebecca McNutt
b18647d For DeHaven it was well worth the extra money to a federal budget that had always allocated more to war than it ever did to peaceful purposes. For a fraction of the cost of one missile he could purchase on the open market every work the library needed to round out its rare books collection. Yet politicians believed that missiles kept you safe, whereas actually books did, and for a simple reason. Ignorance caused wars, and people who read widely were seldom ignorant. ignorance library war David Baldacci
3aa5ab8 The Red Cross irritated Ugwu; the least they could do was ask Biafrans their preferred foods rather than sending so much bland flour. ignorance Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
dd6eb42 "One German-American friend of mine, an architectural historian my own age, can be counted on to excoriate Woodrow Wilson after he has had several strong drinks. He goes on to say that it was Wilson who persuaded this country that it was patriotic to be stupid, to be proud of knowing only one language, of believing that all other cultures were inferior and ridiculous, offensive to God and common sense alike, that artists and teachers and studious persons in general were ninnies when it came to dealing with problems in life that really mattered, and on and on. This friend says that it was a particular misfortune for this country that the German-Americans had achieved such eminence in the arts and education when it was their turn to be scorned from on high. To hate all they did and stood for at that time, which included gymnastics, by the way, was to lobotomize not only the German-Americans but our culture. "That left American football," says my German-American friend, and someone is elected to drive him home." ignorance knowledge nationality patriotism stupidity woodrow-wilson Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
8d93dca There is a tidal wave of ignorance, Mma Ramotswe. It is a great tidal wave and it will drown all of us if we are not careful. drowning ignorance ignorance-quotes tidal-wave Alexander McCall Smith
af19252 For more than half a century, [...] American archaeology was so riddled with pre-formed opinions about how the past look, and about the orderly, linear way in which civilizations evolve, that it repeatedly missed, sidelined, and downright ignored evidence for human presence at all prior to Clovis--until, at any rate, the mass of that evidence became so overwhelming that it took the existing paradigm by storm. civilizations deep-human-history history ignorance prejudices smithsonian-institute Graham Hancock
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