“Knowledge is not happiness, and science
But an exchange of ignorance for that
Which is another kind of ignorance.”

— George Gordon Byron , book Manfred

Act II, scene iv.
Manfred (1817)

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 "Knowledge is not happiness, and science But an exchange of ignorance for that Which is another kind of ignorance." by George Gordon Byron?

George Gordon Byron 227

English poet and a leading figure in the Romantic movement 1788–1824

Robert Quillen (1887–1948) American journalist

As quoted in The School Day Begins : A Guide to Opening Exercises, Grades Kindergarten - 12 (1967) by Agnes Krarup

“What makes a philosopher is the movement which leads back without ceasing from knowledge to ignorance, from ignorance to knowledge, and a kind of rest in this movement.”

Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1908–1961) French phenomenological philosopher

Source: In Praise of Philosophy (1963), p. 5
Context: Even those who have desired to work out a completely positive philosophy have been philosophers only to the extent that, at the same time, they have refused the right to install themselves in absolute knowledge. They taught not this knowledge, but its becoming in us, not the absolute but, at most, our absolute relation to it, as Kierkegaard said. What makes a philosopher is the movement which leads back without ceasing from knowledge to ignorance, from ignorance to knowledge, and a kind of rest in this movement.

“The fuel on which science runs is ignorance. Science is like a hungry furnace that must be fed logs from the forests of ignorance that surround us. In the process, the clearing we call knowledge expands, but the more it expands, the longer its perimeter and the more ignorance comes into view.”

Matt Ridley book Genome

Source: Genome (1999), Chapter 20 “Politics” (p. 271)

“Man was formed with an understanding for the obtainment of knowledge; and happy is he who is employed in the pursuit of it. Ignorance is in its nature unprofitable; but every kind of knowledge may be turned to use. Diligence is generally rewarded with the discovery of that which it seeks after; sometimes of that which is more valuable.”

George Horne (1730–1792) English churchman, writer and university administrator

Prose Quotations from Socrates to Macaulay, 1880

“Not ignorance, but ignorance of ignorance is the death of knowledge.”

Alfred North Whitehead (1861–1947) English mathematician and philosopher

“The history of Western science confirms the aphorism that the great menace to progress is not ignorance but the illusion of knowledge.”

Daniel J. Boorstin (1914–2004) American historian

This "aphorism" was expressed in different forms by Josh Billings and Socrates. note: Often misquoted as, "The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge," and often misattributed to Stephen Hawking.
Source: Cleopatra's Nose: Essays on the Unexpected (1995).