
“He that is not aware of his ignorance, will be only misled by his knowledge.”
Thoughts and Apophthegms from the Writings of Archbishop Whately (1856), p. 164 http://books.google.com/books?id=kW8YAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA164
Source: A Study in Scarlet
“He that is not aware of his ignorance, will be only misled by his knowledge.”
Thoughts and Apophthegms from the Writings of Archbishop Whately (1856), p. 164 http://books.google.com/books?id=kW8YAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA164
“Man's knowledge, save before his fellow man,
Is ignorance—his widest wisdom folly.”
The Coming of Love and Other Poems (1897)
Source: "Prophetic Pictures at Venice VII: New Year's Morning, 1867", p. 207.
“The man who realizes his ignorance has taken the first step toward knowledge.”
The Rosicrucian Cosmo-Conception (1909) Introduction
The Ethics of Belief (1877), The Weight Of Authority
Context: In what cases, then, let us ask in the first place, is the testimony of a man unworthy of belief? He may say that which is untrue either knowingly or unknowingly. In the first case he is lying, and his moral character is to blame; in the second case he is ignorant or mistaken, and it is only his knowledge or his judgment which is in fault. In order that we may have the right to accept his testimony as ground for believing what he says, we must have reasonable grounds for trusting his veracity, that he is really trying to speak the truth so far as he knows it; his knowledge, that he has had opportunities of knowing the truth about this matter; and his judgment, that he has made proper use of those opportunities in coming to the conclusion which he affirms.
However plain and obvious these reasons may be, so that no man of ordinary intelligence, reflecting upon the matter, could fail to arrive at them, it is nevertheless true that a great many persons do habitually disregard them in weighing testimony. Of the two questions, equally important to the trustworthiness of a witness, "Is he dishonest?" and "May he be mistaken?" the majority of mankind are perfectly satisfied if one can, with some show of probability, be answered in the negative. The excellent moral character of a man is alleged as ground for accepting his statements about things which he cannot possibly have known.
Source: Education of a Wandering Man (1989), Ch. 11
Recreation (1919)
Context: I am not attempting here a full appreciation of Colonel Roosevelt. He will be known for all time as one of the great men of America. I am only giving you this personal recollection as a little contribution to his memory, as one that I can make from personal knowledge and which is now known only to myself. His conversation about birds was made interesting by quotations from poets. He talked also about politics, and in the whole of his conversation about them there was nothing but the motive of public spirit and patriotism. I saw enough of him to know that to be with him was to be stimulated in the best sense of the word for the work of life. Perhaps it is not yet realised how great he was in the matter of knowledge as well as in action. Everybody knows that he was a great man of action in the fullest sense of the word. The Press has always proclaimed that. It is less often that a tribute is paid to him as a man of knowledge as well as a man of action. Two of your greatest experts in natural history told me the other day that Colonel Roosevelt could, in that department of knowledge, hold his own with experts. His knowledge of literature was also very great, and it was knowledge of the best. It is seldom that you find so great a man of action who was also a man of such wide and accurate knowledge. I happened to be impressed by his knowledge of natural history and literature and to have had first-hand evidence of both, but I gather from others that there were other fields of knowledge in which he was also remarkable.
Michael Witzel – An Examination of his Review of my Book (2001)
“Everyone's friend is his reason; his enemy is his ignorance.”
Muhammad Kulayni, Usūl al-Kāfī, vol.1, p. 11 ; Wasā'il al-Shī‘ah, vol.1, p. 161.
Regarding Knowledge & Wisdom, General