“Admission of ignorance is often the first step in our education.”
Source: The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change
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Stephen R. Covey 125
American educator, author, businessman and motivational spe… 1932–2012Related quotes
“The first step towards knowledge is to accept your own ignorance.”
Source: Curse of the Bane
“And this is often just a first step down a perilous path.”
2015, Remarks to the People of Africa (July 2015)
Context: I have to also say that Africa’s democratic progress is also at risk when leaders refuse to step aside when their terms end. […] When a leader tries to change the rules in the middle of the game just to stay in office, it risks instability and strife -- as we’ve seen in Burundi. And this is often just a first step down a perilous path. And sometimes you’ll hear leaders say, well, I'm the only person who can hold this nation together. If that's true, then that leader has failed to truly build their nation. […] Nobody should be president for life. And your country is better off if you have new blood and new ideas. I'm still a pretty young man, but I know that somebody with new energy and new insights will be good for my country. It will be good for yours, too, in some cases.
Peter Agre's speech at the Nobel Banquet http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/chemistry/laureates/2003/agre-speech-e.html, December 10, 2003
“Education is a progressive discovery of our own ignorance.”
Quoted in "Books: The Great Gadfly", Time magazine, 8 October 1965 (review of The Age of Voltaire by Will and Ariel Durant)
Context: Sixty years ago I knew everything. Now I know nothing. Education is a progressive discovery of our own ignorance.
“The man who realizes his ignorance has taken the first step toward knowledge.”
The Rosicrucian Cosmo-Conception (1909) Introduction
No record of this specific remark exists prior to its use by a George W. Phillips, in an address to the fifth annual convention of the National Association of Life Underwriters (June 1894), reported in The Chronicle: A Weekly Journal, Devoted to the Interests of Insurance Vol. LIII (1894), p. 336 https://books.google.com/books?id=xoAoAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA335&dq=%22What+is+defeat?+Nothing+but+education.+Nothing+but+the+first+step+to+something+better.%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiFiMan5KveAhWl6YMKHYV6C44Q6AEIdTAO#v=onepage&q=%22What%20is%20defeat%3F%20Nothing%20but%20education.%20Nothing%20but%20the%20first%20step%20to%20something%20better.%22&f=false
Misattributed
“Often, the greater our ignorance about something, the greater our resistance to change.”
Source: Animals Matter: A Biologist Explains Why We Should Treat Animals with Compassion and Respect
lecture II: "The Uncertainty of Values"
The Meaning of It All (1999)