Psychedelic Society (1984)
Context: What blinds us, or what makes historical progress very difficult, is our lack of awareness of our ignorance. And [I think] that beliefs should be put aside, and that a psychedelic society would abandon belief systems [in favor of] direct experience and this is, I think much, of the problem of the modern dilemma, is that direct experience has been discounted and in its place all kind of belief systems have been erected... If you believe something, you're automatically precluded from believing in the opposite, which means that a degree of your human freedom has been forfeited in the act of this belief.
Development, Geography, and Economic Theory (1995), Ch. 3. Models and Metaphors
Source: The Evolution of Civilizations (1961) (Second Edition 1979), Chapter 10, Western Civilization, p. 333-334
“Let's not be too rough on our own ignorance; it's what makes America great!”
A appearance on The Tonight Show (29 June 1988)
Variant: Let's not be too rough on our own ignorance, it's what makes America great!
“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 Book of My Life (1930)
Context: What if one should address a word to the kings of the earth and say, "Not one of you but eats lice, flies, bugs, worms, fleas—nay the very filth of your servants! With what an attitude would they listen to such statements, though they be truths? What is this complacency then but an ignoring of conditions, a pretense of not being aware of what we know exists, or a will to set aside a fact by force? And so it is with everything else foul, vain, confused and untrue in our lives.
Source: When Women Were Birds: Fifty-four Variations on Voice
“The role of reason is not to make us wise but to reveal our ignorance”
Commonly attributed to Hume, but without any apparent basis.
Misattributed
