“Nothing is more frightful than to see ignorance in action.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Es ist nichts schrecklicher als eine tätige Unwissenheit.
Maxim 542, trans. Stopp
Variant translation by Saunders: Nothing is more terrible than ignorance in action. (231)
Maxims and Reflections (1833)

Original

Es ist nichts schrecklicher als eine tätige Unwissenheit.

Maxims and Reflections (1833)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Nothing is more frightful than to see ignorance in action." by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe?

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe 185

German writer, artist, and politician 1749–1832

Sheri S. Tepper (1929–2016) American fiction writer

Guardian Camwar, in Ch. 4 : the cooper
Source: The Visitor (2002)
Context: 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.

“In such business
Action is eloquence, and the eyes of th’ ignorant
More learned than the ears.”

William Shakespeare (1564–1616) English playwright and poet

“There is nothing more horrifying than stupidity in action.”

Jawaharlal Nehru (1889–1964) Indian lawyer, statesman, and writer, first Prime Minister of India

“Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

Source: 1960s, Strength to Love (1963), Ch. 4 : Love in action, Sct. 3

“You can’t judge a man solely on his actions. Sometimes actions are nothing more than re actions.” - Loring Blackman”

Tiffanie DeBartolo (1970) American writer

Source: How to Kill a Rock Star

“There is nothing more dangerous to the shackles of complacency and the warden of fear than philosophy in action.”

Steve Maraboli (1975)

Source: Life, the Truth, and Being Free (2010), p. 154

“In actions of enthusiasm, this drawback appears: but in those lower activities, which have no higher aim than to make us more comfortable and more cowardly, in actions of cunning, actions that steal and lie, actions that divorce the speculative from the practical faculty, and put a ban on reason and sentiment, there is nothing else but drawback and negation.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

“Goethe; or, the Writer,” pp. 271-272
1850s, Representative Men (1850)

“Nothing is more humiliating than to see idiots succeed in enterprises we have failed in.”

Gustave Flaubert book Sentimental Education

Rien n'est humiliant comme de voir les sots réussir dans les entreprises où l'on échoue.
Pt. 1, Ch. 5
Sentimental Education (1869)

“Actually the action called a kiss represented nothing more for me than some place where my spirit could seek shelter.”

Yukio Mishima book Confessions of a Mask

Source: Confessions of a Mask (1949), p. 115.

“No tool is more beneficial than intelligence. No enemy is more harmful than ignorance.”

Al-Shaykh Al-Mufid (948–1022) scholar

http://encarta.msn.com/quote_561557126/Intelligence_No_tool_is_more_beneficial_than.html
The Book of Guidance into the Lives of the Twelve Imams, 1981, "The Life of the Commander of the Faithful" (I. K. A. Howard (tr.)).

“Nothing is more frightful than to see ignorance in action.”

Original

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe 185

Related quotes

Related topics