The Quotes canon
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Browse all 10,075 quotes or apply filters in different categories to narrow your search.
Browse all 10,075 quotes or apply filters in different categories to narrow your search.
Socrates3 quotes
I know that I do not know. — Socrates · 399 BCBehold! human beings living in an underground den... Like ourselves... They see only their own shadows, or the shadows of one another, which the fire throws on the opposite wall of the cave. — Socrates · 375 BCTo fear death, my friends, is only to think ourselves wise, without being wise: for it is to think that we know what we do not know. — Socrates · 399 BCThomas Jefferson2 quotes
If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be. — Thomas Jefferson · 1816Ignorance is preferable to error, and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong. — Thomas Jefferson · 1785Alexander Pope1 quote
A little learning is a dangerous thing;
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring:
There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,
And drinking largely sobers us again. — Alexander Pope · 1711Alexis de Tocqueville1 quote
At every step the natural light which illuminates their path grows dimmer and less secure; and that, in spite of all their efforts, they have as yet only discovered a small number of conflicting notions, on which the mind of man has been tossed about for thousands of years, without either laying a firmer grasp on truth, or finding novelty even in its errors. — Alexis de Tocqueville · 1840Benjamin Disraeli1 quote
To be conscious that you are ignorant is a great step to knowledge. — Benjamin Disraeli · 1845Blaise Pascal1 quote
Men blaspheme what they do not know. — Blaise Pascal · 1662Charles Darwin1 quote
Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, and not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science. — Charles Darwin · 1871Cicero1 quote
To be ignorant of what happened before you were born is to be ever a child. — Cicero · 46 BCCypher1 quote
Ignorance is bliss. — Cypher · 1999Francis Bacon1 quote
There is nothing makes a man suspect much, more than to know little. — Francis Bacon · 1625John Milton1 quote
The first and wisest of them all professed
To know this only, that he nothing knew. — John Milton · 1671John Ruskin1 quote
To know anything well involves a profound sensation of ignorance. — John Ruskin · 1856Jonathan Swift1 quote
There’s none so blind as they that won’t see. — Jonathan Swift · 1738Lao Tzu1 quote
He who knows does not speak.
He who speaks does not know. — Lao Tzu · 400 BCLucretius1 quote
Life is one long struggle in the dark. — Lucretius · 55 BCMatthew Henry1 quote
None so blind as those that will not see. — Matthew Henry · 1706Mencius1 quote
All men have in themselves that which is truly honorable. Only they do not think of it. — Mencius · 300 BCMuhammad Ali1 quote
A rooster crows only when it sees the light. Put him in the dark and he'll never crow. I have seen the light and I'm crowing. — Muhammad Ali · 1964Professor Charles Xavier1 quote
Mankind was not evil, just...uninformed. — Professor Charles Xavier · 2000Robert Greene1 quote
To learning & law, there's no greater foe than they that nothing know. — Robert Greene · 1592Sean1 quote
You're just a kid, you don't have the faintest idea what you're talkin' about. — Sean · 1997Seneca1 quote
It is better, of course, to know useless things than to know nothing. — Seneca · 65Sophocles1 quote
The happiest life consists in ignorance. — Sophocles · 442 BCSt. Jerome1 quote
It is worse still to be ignorant of your ignorance. — St. Jerome · 394William Osler1 quote
The greater the ignorance the greater the dogmatism. — William Osler · 1902