“The first step towards knowledge is to accept your own ignorance.”
Joseph Delaney (1945) British writer
Source: Curse of the Bane
“To be conscious that you are ignorant is a great step to knowledge.”
Book 1, chapter 5.
Books, Coningsby (1844), Sybil (1845)
Variant: To be conscious that you are ignorant is a great step to knowledge.
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Do you have more details about the quote "To be conscious that you are ignorant is a great step to knowledge." by Benjamin Disraeli?
Benjamin Disraeli306
British Conservative politician, writer, aristocrat and Pri… 1804–1881Related quotes
“The man who realizes his ignorance has taken the first step toward knowledge.”
Max Heindel book The Rosicrucian Cosmo-Conception
The Rosicrucian Cosmo-Conception (1909) Introduction
Karl Popper (1902–1994) Austrian-British philosopher of science
Variant translation: The more we learn about the world, and the deeper our learning, the more conscious, clear, and well-defined will be our knowledge of what we do not know, our knowledge of our ignorance. The main source of our ignorance lies in the fact that our knowledge can only be finite, while our ignorance must necessarily be infinite.
Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge (1963)
Context: The more we learn about the world, and the deeper our learning, the more conscious, specific, and articulate will be our knowledge of what we do not know, our knowledge of our ignorance. For this, indeed, is the main source of our ignorance — the fact that our knowledge can be only finite, while our ignorance must necessarily be infinite.
Daniel J. Boorstin book The Discoverers
The Discoverers: A History of Man's Search to Know His World and Himself, Random House, 1983, p. 86.
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).
B.K.S. Iyengar (1918–2014) Indian yoga teacher and scholar
Source: Light on Life: The Yoga Journey to Wholeness, Inner Peace, and Ultimate Freedom, P.x
Karl Pearson (1857–1936) English mathematician and biometrician
The Ethic of Freethought (Mar 6, 1883)
“Not ignorance, but ignorance of ignorance is the death of knowledge.”
Alfred North Whitehead (1861–1947) English mathematician and philosopher
Leonard Bacon (1802–1881) American Congregational preacher and writer.
Reported in Friends' Intelligencer and Journal (1898) Volume 55, p. 210. No earlier source for this quotation is given, or has otherwise been identified. Several variants are found elsewhere, e.g., ""I cannot allow my opponent's Ignorance, however vast, to offset my knowledge, however small," reported in The Kingston Daily Freeman, Volume 33, Number 167, 3 May 1904, p. 4; and "my knowledge, however small, must outweigh your ignorance, however large," reported in Semi-Centennial (1939), p. 5, by Leonard Bacon, the great-grandson of the preacher. This quote has recently been mis-attributed to William James.
Ken MacLeod book Learning the World
Source: Learning the World (2005), Chapter 21 “But The Sky, My Lady! The Sky!” (p. 358)