Ignorance means the state of being ignorant – a lack of understanding in general or in respect to a specific issue.
Ignorance can stop us from reaching our full potential and hinder our capacity to interact with others – from making bad judgments to spreading damaging stereotypes.
Despite its negative consequences, ignorance is a common human experience that we all go through at some point in our lives.
We’ve compiled a list of some of the most thought-provoking ignorance quotes and sayings of all time in this article.
Best Ignorance Quotes of All Time
“In the age of information, ignorance is a choice.” ~ Donald Miller.
“War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.” ~ George Orwell.
“The highest form of ignorance is when you reject something you don’t know anything about.” ~ Wayne W. Dyer.
“They say a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, but it’s not one half so bad as a lot of ignorance.” ~ Terry Pratchett.
“Beware of false knowledge; it is more dangerous than ignorance.” ~ George Bernard Shaw.
“Don’t ever mistake my silence for ignorance, my calmness for acceptance or my kindness for weakness. Compassion and tolerance are not a sign of weakness, but a sign of strength.” ~ Dalai Lama XIV.
“Science is the father of knowledge, but opinion breeds ignorance.” ~ Hippocrates.
“Ignorance is a virus. Once it starts spreading, it can only be cured by reason. For the sake of humanity, we must be that cure.” ~ Neil deGrasse Tyson.
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Top Ignorance Quotes
“Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge.” ~ Charles Darwin.
“If someone can prove me wrong and show me my mistake in any thought or action, I shall gladly change. I seek the truth, which never harmed anyone: the harm is to persist in one’s own self-deception and ignorance.” ~ Marcus Aurelius.
“The angel is free because of his knowledge, the beast because of his ignorance. Between the two remains the son of man to struggle.” ~ Rumi.
“Intelligent design is a philosophy of ignorance.” ~ Neil deGrasse Tyson.
“Either America will destroy ignorance or ignorance will destroy the United States.” ~ W. E. B. Du Bois.
“Once a person stops searching for information and self-knowledge, ignorance sets in.” ~ Robert T. Kiyosaki.
“Of all the frictional resistances, the one that most retards human movement is ignorance.” ~ Nikola Tesla.
“The worst kind of arrogance is arrogance from ignorance.” ~ Jim Rohn.
Famous Ignorance Quotes
“Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance.” ~ H. L. Mencken.
“Ignorance, the root and the stem of every evil.” ~ Plato.
“Our trouble is not ignorance, but inaction.” ~ Dale Carnegie.
“Sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.” ~ Lewis Carroll.
“Trust that little voice in your head that says ‘Wouldn’t it be interesting if…’; And then do it.” ~ Duane Michals.
“You have been a prisoner of a little pond, I am the ocean and its turbulent flood, come merge with me, leave this world of ignorance.” ~ Rumi.
Inspiring Ignorance Quotes
“It takes considerable knowledge just to realize the extent of your own ignorance.” ~ Thomas Sowell.
“No matter how busy you may think you are, you must find time for reading, or surrender yourself to self-chosen ignorance.” ~ Confucius.
“Make war not on terrorism but on ignorance, on sickness and on environmental degradation.” ~ Kurt Vonnegut.
“Opinion is the medium between knowledge and ignorance.” ~ Plato.
“Beware of the man who works hard to learn something, learns it, and finds himself no wiser than before. He is full of murderous resentment of people who are ignorant without having come by their ignorance the hard way.” ~ Kurt Vonnegut.
Popular Ignorance Quotes
“When you combine ignorance and leverage, you get some pretty interesting results.” ~ Warren Buffett.
“Stupidity is a talent for misconception.” ~ Edgar Allan Poe.
“Men are anxious to improve their circumstances, but are unwilling to improve themselves; they therefore remain bound.” ~ James Allen.
“Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiation – creation – there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans…” ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.
“Science literacy is a vaccine against the charlatans of the world that would exploit your ignorance.” ~ Neil deGrasse Tyson.
“If any man can convince me and bring home to me that which I do not think or act aright, gladly will I change; for I search after truth, by which man never yet was harmed. But he is harmed who abideth on still in his deception and ignorance.” ~ Marcus Aurelius.
“Be careful, you are not in Wonderland. I’ve heard the strange madness long growing in your soul. But you are fortunate in your ignorance, in your isolation. You who have suffered, find where love hides. Give, share, lose – lest we die, unbloomed.” ~ Allen Ginsberg.
“The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of the infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far.” ~ H.P. Lovecraft.
“Man’s basic vice, the source of all his evils, is the act of unfocusing his mind, the suspension of his consciousness, which is not blindness, but the refusal to see, not ignorance, but the refusal to know.” ~ Ayn Rand.
“Science is a philosophy of discovery. Intelligent design is a philosophy of ignorance. You cannot build a program of discovery on the assumption that nobody is smart enough to figure out the answer to a problem.” ~ Neil deGrasse Tyson.
“In a spiral galaxy, the ratio of dark-to-light matter is about a factor of ten. That’s probably a good number for the ratio of our ignorance-to-knowledge. We’re out of kindergarten, but only in about third grade.” ~ Vera Rubin.
“Being ignorant is not so much a shame, as being unwilling to learn.” ~ Benjamin Franklin.
More Ignorance Quotes
The only victories which leave no regret are those which are gained over ignorance. ~ Napoleon Bonaparte.
To know you are ignorant is the beginning of wisdom. ~ Marion Zimmer Bradley.
The most violent element in society is ignorance. ~ Emma Goldman.
I would rather have my ignorance than another man’s knowledge, because I have got so much more of it. ~ Mark Twain.
Through ignorance, all troubles did surmount. ~ Anne Bradstreet.
I am not ashamed to confess I am ignorant of what I do not know. ~ Cicero.
I think what a life in science really teaches you is the vastness of our ignorance. ~ David Eagleman.
Out of ignorance and fear comes judgment and division. ~ David Furnish.
Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery. ~ Winston Churchill.
Ignorance is always afraid of change. ~ Jawaharlal Nehru.
The most violent element in society is ignorance. ~ Emma Goldman.
Anyway, no drug, not even alcohol, causes the fundamental ills of society. If we’re looking for the source of our troubles, we shouldn’t test people for drugs, we should test them for stupidity, ignorance, greed and love of power. ~ P. J. O’Rourke.
I do not believe in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance. ~ Thomas Carlyle.
I think we risk becoming the best informed society that has ever died of ignorance. ~ Ruben Blades.
My mother said I must always be intolerant of ignorance but understanding of illiteracy. That some people, unable to go to school, were more educated and more intelligent than college professors. ~ Maya Angelou.
Knowledge is not a guarantee of good political behavior, but ignorance is a virtual guarantee of bad behavior. ~ Martha Nussbaum.
The truest characters of ignorance Are vanity, pride, and annoyance. ~ Samuel Butler.
Ignorance is not innocence, but sin. ~ Robert Browning.
The ignorance we’re ignorant of is the ignorance most difficult to remedy. ~ Leah Hager Cohen.
All I know is just what I read in the papers, and that’s an alibi for my ignorance. ~ Will Rogers.
Not ignorance, but ignorance of ignorance, is the death of knowledge. ~ Alfred North Whitehead.
It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile. ~ Sting.
Teach the ignorant as much as you can. ~ Victor Hugo.
They say a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, but it’s not one half so bad as a lot of ignorance. ~ Terry Pratchett.
Ignorance is the night of the mind, but a night without moon or star. ~ Confucius.
Ignorance breeds monsters to fill up the vacancies of the soul that are unoccupied by the verities of knowledge. ~ Horace Mann.
Ignorance, the root and stem of all evil. ~ Plato.
Everybody is ignorant, only on different subjects. ~ Will Rogers.
Better be ignorant of a matter than half know it. ~ Publilius Syrus.
The little I know, I own to ignorance. ~ Sacha Guitry.
A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep. ~ Saul Bellow.
I know nothing except the fact of my ignorance. ~ Socrates.
Where ignorance is our master, there is no possibility of real peace. ~ Dalai Lama.
Ignorance never settles a question. ~ Benjamin Disraeli.
Truth will always be truth, regardless of lack of understanding, disbelief or ignorance. ~ W. Clement Stone.
If ignorance is bliss, there should be more happy people. ~ Victor Cousin.
I count religion but a childish toy, and hold there is no sin but ignorance. ~ Christopher Marlowe.
Thoroughly conscious ignorance is the prelude to every real advance in science. ~ James Clerk Maxwell.
The recipe for perpetual ignorance is: Be satisfied with your opinions and content with your knowledge. ~ Elbert Hubbard.
Education is a progressive discovery of our own ignorance. ~ Will Durant.
To be ignorant of one’s ignorance is the malady of ignorance. ~ A. Bronson Alcott.
Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong. ~ Thomas Jefferson.
In guiltless ignorance, in ignorant guilt. ~ Stephen Crane.
By ignorance the truth is known. ~ Heinrich Suso.
It is in the admission of ignorance and the admission of uncertainty that there is a hope for the continuous motion of human beings in some direction that doesn’t get confined, permanently blocked, as it has so many times before in various periods in the history of man. ~ Richard P. Feynman.
Ignorance breeds fear. ~ Mike Wilson.
Ignorance is right. ~ Christopher Andrea.
Beware of false knowledge; it is more dangerous than ignorance. ~ George Bernard Shaw.
Pain and ignorance lead to great joy and knowledge because the Supreme Being has created nothing vain under the sun. ~ Khalil Gibran.
It may be that the ignorant man, alone, has any chance to mate his life with life. ~ Wallace Stevens.
The ignorance of one voter in a democracy impairs the security of all. ~ John F. Kennedy.
The truth is incontrovertible. Malice may attack it, ignorance may deride it, but in the end, there it is. ~ Winston Churchill.
For ignorance, its growth and its protection. ~ Ezra Pound.
The highest form of ignorance is when you reject something you don’t know anything about. ~ Wayne Dyer.
To be conscious that you are ignorant of the facts is a great step toward knowledge. ~ Benjamin Disraeli.
It is certain, in any case, that ignorance, allied with power, is the most ferocious enemy justice can have. ~ James Baldwin.
Ignorance is never out of style. It was in fashion yesterday, it is the rage today and it will set the pace tomorrow. ~ Frank Dane.
The pleasures of ignorance are as great, in their way, as the pleasures of knowledge. ~ Aldous Huxley.
Ignorance has always been the weapon of tyrants; enlightenment the salvation of the free. ~ Bill Richardson.
Ignorance must be a fun place to live; my parents seem to vacation there year-round. ~ Nenia Campbell.
Ignorance is an underrated virtue, my lord. ~ Andrew Levkoff.
Isn’t it funny how ignorance is the source of strength of so many. ~ Lionel Suggs.
Ignorance may be bliss, but only if it outweighs curiosity. ~ Victoria Schwab.
Is it not ignorance that we share? A lie takes two. The truth we find alone. ~ Anthony Marais.
A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance. ~ Saul Bellow.
We fear things in proportion to our ignorance of them. ~ Christian Nestell Bovee.
You can rule ignorance; you can manipulate the illiterate; you can do whatever you want when a people are uneducated, so that goes in line with corrupt business and corrupt politics. ~ will.i.am.
Ignorance deprives people of freedom because they do not know what alternatives there are. It is impossible to choose to do what one has never heard of. ~ Ralph B. Perry.
Ignorance must be prosecuted when arrested. The only way for its arrest is by information and the only way for prosecution is through reading and learning of new things. ~ Israelmore Ayivor
Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity. ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.
Even one voice in a wilderness of ignorance is a voice that is heard by someone. ~ Kristen Ashley.
If you think education is expensive, try ignorance. ~ Jeff Rich.
Arrogance, ignorance, and incompetence. Not a pretty cocktail of personality traits in the best of situations. No sirree. Not a pretty cocktail in an office-mate and not a pretty cocktail in a head of state. In fact, in a leader, it’s a lethal cocktail. ~ Graydon Carter.
Ignorance is like a delicate fruit; touch it, and the bloom is gone. ~ Oscar Wilde.
Ignorance is the curse of God; knowledge is the wing wherewith we fly to heaven. ~ William Shakespeare.
You can still be sincere and still be stupid. ~ Charles F. Kettering.
Being ignorant is not so much a shame, as being unwilling to learn. ~ Benjamin Franklin.
Opinion is the medium between knowledge and ignorance. ~ Plato.
To turn down knowledge is to resign to ignorance. ~ Kyle Schmalenberg.
Nothing is more terrible than to see ignorance in action. ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.
It is when within the darkness of ignorance when you shout do you shine. ~ William Andrews.
All ignorance toboggans into know and trudges up to ignorance again. ~ Edward Estlin Cummings.
There is nothing more frightful than ignorance in action. ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.
Ignorance is not a capital crime. It is a correct condition. ~ Laura Knight-Jadczyk.
The only good is knowledge, and the only evil is ignorance. ~ Herodotus.
Real knowledge is to know the extent of one’s ignorance. ~ Confucius.
Read it wisely, Little One, for the power of ignorance is great. ~ Stephen Fry.
We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. ~ H. P. Lovecraft.
It takes considerable knowledge just to realize the extent of your own ignorance. ~ Thomas Sowell.
Fear is the only true enemy, born of ignorance and the parent of anger and hate. ~ Edward Albert.
Not engaging in ignorance is wisdom. ~ Bodhidharma.
Ignorance is still better than martyrdom. ~ Ira N. Barin.
I will not have my life narrowed down. I will not bow down to somebody else’s whim or to someone else’s ignorance. ~ Bell hooks.
We should all learn from our experiences, but I don’t think hatred is the best way to deal with ignorance. ~ Doja Cat.
Ignorance of the law excuses no man from practicing it. ~ Addison Mizner.
Ignorance is never better than knowledge. ~ Enrico Fermi.
A quality education grants us the ability to fight the war on ignorance and poverty. ~ Charles B. Rangel.
All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence, and then success is sure. ~ Mark Twain.
Ignorance speaks loudly, so as to be heard; but its volume proves reason to doubt every word. ~ Wes Fessler.
The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance – it is the illusion of knowledge. ~ Daniel J. Boorstin.
Ignorance is the dominion of absurdity. ~ James Anthony Froude.
Discussion is an exchange of knowledge; an argument an exchange of ignorance. ~ Robert Quillen.
Our ignorance of history causes us to slander our own times. ~ Gustave Flaubert.
Most ignorance is invincible ignorance. We don’t know because we don’t want to know. ~ Aldous Huxley.
Far and away, the greatest threat to the ocean, and thus to ourselves, is ignorance. But we can do something about that. ~ Sylvia Earle.
To remove ignorance is an important branch of benevolence. ~ Ann Plato.
Our knowledge can only be finite, while our ignorance must necessarily be infinite. ~ Karl Popper.
We live on an island surrounded by a sea of ignorance. As our island of knowledge grows, so does the shore of our ignorance. ~ John Archibald Wheeler.
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. ~ Charles Darwin.
The mist of ignorance, esteems untrue. Rejecting whatsoever is a wonder. ~ Ludovico Ariosto.
The truest characters of ignorance are vanity and pride and arrogance. ~ Samuel Butler.
It’s innocence when it charms us, ignorance when it doesn’t. ~ Anatole France.
Knowledge will forever govern ignorance; and a people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives. ~ James Madison.
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