„I speak from ignorance.
Who once learned much, but speaks from ignorance now.“

— Nathaniel Tarn

Poem Last of the Chiefs published in: Nathaniel Tarn (1965) Old savage, young city. p. 18.

Last update May 22, 2020.

Nathaniel Tarn3

American poet, essayist, anthropologist, and translator 1928

Related quotes

„You never really learn much from hearing yourself speak.“

— George Clooney American actor, filmmaker, and activist 1961

Learning

„What happens when bosses ignore memos from subordinates? The country is now learning the answer to that question in a most painful way.“

— Richard Behar American journalist

On July 10, 2001, an FBI agent in Phoenix [Arizona] wrote a memo raising serious concerns about Middle Eastern men attending U. S. flight schools. The memo never made its way up the chain of command, and no action was taken. ––Richard Behar, introd. to "FBI's 'Phoenix' memo Unmasked", Fortune [date? ], [date accessed? ]. (See (incomplete) list of Behar's Fortune articles in his section of his Publications http://www.richardbehar.com/articles/fortune/fortune_all.html [some defunct links].)

Country, Learning, Question, Way

„It is the semi-learned who scorn the ignorant; the learned know too much about them for that.“

— Henry S. Haskins 1875 - 1957

Source: Meditations in Wall Street (1940), p. 92

Learning

„Montaigne speaks of an “Abecedarian” ignorance that precedes knowledge, and a doctoral ignorance that comes after it. The first is the ignorance of those who, not knowing their A-B-C’s, cannot read at all. The second is the ignorance of those who have misread many books. They are, as Alexander Pope rightly calls them, “bookful blockheads, ignorantly read.” There have always been literate ignoramuses, who have read too widely, and not well. The Greeks had a name for such a mixture of learning and folly which might be applied to the bookish but poorly read of all ages. They are all “sophomores.”“

— Mortimer J. Adler, book How to Read a Book

Source: How to Read a Book (1940, 1972), p. 11

Reading, Learning, Knowledge, Age

„I have never met a man so ignorant that I could not learn something from him.“

— Galileo Galilei Italian mathematician, physicist, philosopher and astronomer 1564 - 1642

As quoted in The Story of Civilization : The Age of Reason Begins, 1558-1648 (1935) by Will Durant, p. 605
Attributed

Learning

„When I pass, speak freely of my shortcomings and my flaws. Learn from them, for I'll have no ego to injure.“

— Aaron McGruder American cartoonist 1974

Source: The Boondocks: Because I Know You Don't Read the Newspaper

Learning

„Once one learns how to speak a language, the authority of the language has fulfilled its aim, but is not thereby overcome. Authority remains as the entry to the inquiry one has undertaken. It is not overcome or passed by so much as it is actualized, fulfilled. That is why philosophic reformations seem too often to be nested within what it is they seek to reform. Insofar as it begins from its predecessor, every attempted reformation is only the confession of the authority of its predecessor's discourse. The appearance of abrupt 'revolutions' in philosophy is produced only by ignoring, sometimes ingenuously, the authority of previous speech.“

— Mark D. Jordan 1953

Authority and persuasion in philosophy (1985)

Appearance, Learning

„Only one who has learned much can fully appreciate his ignorance.
He knows well the limits of his knowledge and how much is waiting to be learned.“

— Louis L'Amour Novelist, short story writer 1908 - 1988

Source: Education of a Wandering Man (1989), Ch. 11

Waiting, Learning, Knowledge

„It is curious that it is far easier to maintain a high "manners" rating if, like Kasparov, you simply don't speak to anyone. I still have much to learn from the great man…“

— Nigel Short British chess player and writer 1965

From his current personal profile at ChessBase Internet server, where he uses to play blitz. (08/05/2008)

Learning

„What I have learned from my travels is that by listening at least as much as we speak, and by trying to understand before we act, we perhaps stand a better chance of coming up with the right answers…“

— Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall second wife of Prince Charles 1947

The Duchess of Cornwall speaking in 2007
Unsourced

Chance, Learning, Understanding, Travel

„A pity that poets have used symbol and metaphor and no man learned anything from them for their speaking in figures“

— Ezra Pound American Imagist poet and critic 1885 - 1972

Addendum for C
Drafts and Fragments of Cantos CX-CXVII

Learning

„Witchcraft to the ignorant,…. Simple science to the learned.“

— Leigh Brackett American novelist and screenwriter 1915 - 1978

Science, Learning

„You learn to speak by speaking, to study by studying, to run by running, to work by working; and just so you learn to love God and man by loving. All those who think to learn in any other way deceive themselves.“

— Francis de Sales French bishop, saint, writer and Doctor of the Church j 1567 - 1622

Quoted by Bishop Jean-Pierre Camus in The Spirit of Saint Francis de Sales, ch. 1, Pg. 3 (1880)

Learning, Study, Thinking, Way

„I learned to understand their language and to speak it a little.“

— Cyrano de Bergerac French novelist, dramatist, scientist and duelist 1619 - 1655

The Other World (1657)
Context: I learned to understand their language and to speak it a little. Immediately the news spread throughout the kingdom that two little wild men had been discovered. We were smaller than everybody else because the wilderness had provided us with such bad food. And it was a genetic defect that caused us to have forelimbs that weren't strong enough to support us.
This belief gained strength through repetition despite the priests of the country. They opposed it, saying that it was an awful impiety to believe that not only animals but monsters might be of the same species as they.

Learning, Understanding