Quotes about ignorance (2904 quotes, page 19)

“Punish France, ignore Germany, and forgive Russia.”

Condoleezza Rice (1954) American Republican politician; U.S. Secretary of State; political scientist

Washington Post http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&contentId=A10978-2003Apr11, April 13, 2003.

Forgiveness

“Know that for the human mind there are certain objects of perception which are within the scope of its nature and capacity; on the other hand, there are, amongst things which actually exist, certain objects which the mind can in no way and by no means grasp: the gates of perception are closed against it. Further, there are things of which the mind understands one part, but remains ignorant of the other; and when man is able to comprehend certain things, it does not follow that he must be able to comprehend everything.”

Maimónides book The Guide for the Perplexed

Source: Guide for the Perplexed (c. 1190), Part I, p.106 (1881) Tr. Friedlander

Way , Understanding , Nature , Parting

“I do not care a button about having my name in any blessed place. I was never ardent about fame even in my political days; I preferred to remain behind the curtain, push people without their knowing it and get things done. It was the confounded British Government that spoiled my game by prosecuting me and forcing me to be publicly known and a 'leader'. Then, again, I don't believe in advertisement except for books etc., and in propaganda except for politics and patent medicines. But for serious work it is a poison. It means either a stunt or a boom' and stunts and booms exhaust the thing they carry on their crest and leave it lifeless and broken high and dry on the shores of nowhere… or it means a movement. A movement in the case of a work like mine means the founding of a school or a sect or some other damned nonsense. It means that hundreds or thousands of useless people join in and corrupt the work or reduce it to a pompous farce from which the Truth that was coming down recedes into secrecy and silence. It is what has happened to the 'religions' and is the reason of their failure. If I tolerate a little writing about myself, it is only to have a sufficient counter-weight in that amorphous chaos, the public mind, to balance the hostility that is always aroused by the presence of a new dynamic Truth in this world of ignorance. But the utility ends there and too much advertisement would defeat that object. I am perfectly 'rational', I assure you, in my methods and I do not proceed merely on any personal dislike of fame. If and so far as publicity serves the Truth, I am quite ready to tolerate it; but I do not find publicity for its own sake desirable.”

Sri Aurobindo (1872–1950) Indian nationalist, freedom fighter, philosopher, yogi, guru and poet

October 2, 1934
India's Rebirth

Hostility , People , Truth , Books

“"You err, not knowing the Scriptures nor the power of God" This canon is the mother of all canons against heresy; the causes of error are two; the ignorance of the will of God, and the ignorance or not sufficient consideration of his power.”

Francis Bacon (1561–1626) English philosopher, statesman, scientist, jurist, and author

Of Heresies
Meditationes sacræ (1597)

God , Error

“If I had to describe my remarks this evening frankly — as if I were in police court and on oath, so to speak — I should have to call it a ramble over several subjects, portions of which may seem to you to be impudent, and portions of which will be ignorant, and portions of which may contrive to be both at once.”

Robertson Davies (1913–1995) Canadian journalist, playwright, professor, critic, and novelist

Can a Doctor Be a Humanist? (1984).

“We Indians, Arjun, are so good at respecting outward forms while ignoring the substance. We took the forms of parliamentary democracy, preserved them, put them on pedestal and paid them due obeisance. But we ignored the basic fact that parliamentary democracy can only work if those who run it are constantly responsive to needs of the people and if parliamentarians are qualified enough to legislate. Neither condition was fulfilled in India for long. Today most people are simply aware of their own irrelevance to the process. They see themselves standing helplessly on the margins while professional politicians and unprofessional politicians combine to run the country to the ground.”

Shashi Tharoor book The Great Indian Novel

The Great Indian Novel (1989)

People , Democracy , Country

“As an animal, Matilda was all right, full of life, vigour, and activity; as an intelligent being, she was barbarously ignorant, indocile, careless, and irrational; and consequently, very distressing to one who had the task of cultivating her understanding, reforming her manners, and aiding her to acquire those ornamental attainments which, unlike her sister, she despised as much as the rest…”

Anne Brontë book Agnes Grey

Source: Agnes Grey (1847), Ch. VII : Horton Lodge

Life , Intelligence , Understanding , Sister

“I may say this is a deluded generation, veiled with ignorance, that tho popery and slavery be riding in upon them, do not perceive it; tho I am sure there was no man born marked of God above another, for none comes into the world with a saddle on his back, neither any booted and spurred to ride him.”

Richard Rumbold

" Speech on the Scaffold http://www.bartleby.com/268/3/15.html", 1685

God , World

“'The main argument for the term "open source software" is that "free software" makes some people uneasy. That's true: talking about freedom, about ethical issues, about responsibilities as well as convenience, is asking people to think about things they might rather ignore. This can trigger discomfort, and some people may reject the idea for that. It does not follow that society would be better off if we stop talking about these things.”

Richard Stallman (1953) American software freedom activist, short story writer and computer programmer, founder of the GNU project

1990s, Why "Free Software" is better than "Open Source" (1998)

People , Idea , Thinking , Freedom

“It seems to me from my experience where I have been in North Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee and Texas, that while the colored Negroes have great respect for white doctors they can get closer to their own members and more or less lay their cards on the table which means their ignorance, superstitions and doubts. They do not do this with the white people and if we can train the Negro doctor at the Clinic he can go among them with enthusiasm and with knowledge, which, I believe, will have far-reaching results among the colored people. His work in my opinion should be entirely with the Negro profession and the nurses, hospital, social workers, as well as the County’s white doctors. His success will depend upon his personality and his training by us.”

Margaret Sanger (1879–1966) American birth control activist, educator and nurse

People , Color , Knowledge , Success

“Reason … contradicts the established order of men and things on behalf of existing societal forces that reveal the irrational character of this order — for “rational” is a mode of thought and action which is geared to reduce ignorance, destruction, brutality, and oppression.”

Herbert Marcuse book One-Dimensional Man

Source: One-Dimensional Man (1964), pp. 141-142

Men

“And what have our unions done? What do they aim to do? To improve the standard of life, to uproot ignorance and foster education, to instill character, manhood and independent spirit among our people; to bring about a recognition of the interdependence of man upon his fellow man. We aim to establish a normal work-day, to take the children from the factory and workshop and give them the opportunity of the school and the play-ground. In a word, our unions strive to lighten toil, educate their members, make their homes more cheerful, and in every way contribute an earnest effort toward making life the better worth living.”

Samuel Gompers (1850–1924) American Labor Leader[AFL]

Gompers, Samuel. "Gompers Speaks for Labor." McClure's Magazine, February 1912, p. 376 http://books.google.com/books?id=3Su0lykF-OMC&dq=%22And%20what%20have%20our%20unions%20done%3F%20What%20do%20they%20aim%20to%20do%3F%22&pg=PA376#v=onepage&q=%22And%20what%20have%20our%20unions%20done?%20What%20do%20they%20aim%20to%20do?%22&f=false

Life , Children , People , Education

“There is always a nasty surprise in store for the imperial mind. It is typical of the imperial point of view that it is ignorant of, or blind to, the other. The imperial mind keeps missing the point. It fails to appreciate, for all its benevolence, why it might come under attack, why it might, for instance, be worth a nation's while to rise up against it. The imperial mind has to be shocked out of its daydreams.”

James Fenton (1949) poet

"Goodbye to All That?" (p. 72)
The Strength of Poetry: Oxford Lectures (2001)

“Helvidius has shown himself too ignorant, in saying that Mary had several sons, because mention is made in some passages of the brothers of Christ.”

John Calvin (1509–1564) French Protestant reformer

Bernard Leeming, "Protestants and Our Lady", Marian Library Studies, January 1967, p.9.

Christ

“Nothing in education is so astonishing as the amount of ignorance it accumulates in the form of inert facts.”

Henry Adams (1838–1918) journalist, historian, academic, novelist

The Education of Henry Adams (1907)

Education

“The peasantry are wiser in their ignorance than the savants of St Petersburg in their learning.”

William Barrett (philosopher) book Irrational Man: A Study in Existential Philosophy

Source: Irrational Man: A Study in Existential Philosophy (1958), Chapter Six, The Flight From Laputa, p. 128

Learning

“Gallery visitors did not tell Picasso to invent cubism. Jazz fanatics did not suggest that Miles Davies should work with hip-hoppers. Moviegoers did not propose to Lars von Trier, the Danish film director, that he make Breaking the Waves. And customers sure as hell did not come up with the idea for CDNow or Amazon. com. If you want to do something really interesting and revolutionary, learn to ignore your customers.”

Jonas Ridderstråle (1966) Swedish business theorist

Source: Funky Business Forever, 2007, p. 184

Idea , Hell , Learning

“As a national emblem, it is significant of our higher cause, the cause of a superior race, and a higher civilization contending against ignorance, infidelity, and barbarism. Another merit in the new flag is, that it bears no resemblance to the now infamous banner of the Yankee vandals.”

William Tappan Thompson (1812–1882) American humorist

Savannah Morning News (4 May 1863); As quoted in History of the Flag of the United States of America (1882), by George Henry Preble, p. 528

“I think that Jesus would be disappointed in our ignoring the plight of those around us who are suffering and our focus on our own selfish short-term needs. I think he would be appalled, actually.”

John Edwards (1953) American politician

An interview with the website Beliefnet.com http://www.beliefnet.com/story/213/story_21312_1.html. Reported also by Boston Globe, March 5, 2007. http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2007/03/05/edwards_jesus_would_be_appalled/

Disappointment , Thinking , Suffering , Selfishness

“The understanding I had by age thirteen of patriarchal politics created in me expectations of the feminist movement that were quite different from those of young, middle class, white women. When I entered my first women's studies class at Stanford University in the early 1970s, white women were revelling in the joy of being together-to them it was an important, momentous occasion. I had not known a life where women had not been together, where women had not helped, protected, and loved one another deeply. I had not known white women who were ignorant of the impact of race and class on their social status and consciousness (Southern white women often have a more realistic perspective on racism and classism than white women in other areas of the United States.) I did not feel sympathetic to white peers who maintained that I could not expect them to have knowledge of or understand the life experiences of black women. Despite my background (living in racially segregated communities) I knew about the lives of white women, and certainly no white women lived in our neighborhood, attended our schools, or worked in our homes When I participated in feminist groups, I found that white women adopted a condescending attitude towards me and other non-white participants. The condescension they directed at black women was one of the means they employed to remind us that the women's movement was "theirs"-that we were able to participate because they allowed it, even encouraged it; after all, we were needed to legitimate the process. They did not see us as equals. And though they expected us to provide first hand accounts of black experience, they felt it was their role to decide if these experiences were authentic. Frequently, college-educated black women (even those from poor and working class backgrounds) were dismissed as mere imitators. Our presence in movement activities did not count, as white women were convinced that "real" blackness meant speaking the patois of poor black people, being uneducated, streetwise, and a variety of other stereotypes. If we dared to criticize the movement or to assume responsibility for reshaping feminist ideas and introducing new ideas, our voices were tuned out, dismissed, silenced. We could be heard only if our statements echoed the sentiments of the dominant discourse.”

Bell Hooks (1952) American author, feminist, and social activist

Source: (1984), Chapter 1: Black Women: Shaping Feminist Theory, pp. 11-12.

Love , Life , Women , People

“No doubt, too, that even his restless-minded, introspective, self-conscious children who knew him best were much too ignorant of the world and of human nature to suspect how rare and complete was the model before their eyes.”

Henry Adams (1838–1918) journalist, historian, academic, novelist

The Education of Henry Adams (1907)

Children , World , Nature

“Inside each of us dwells a more-perfect self waiting to unfold. It cries loudly for release, yet it is sometimes ignored. To answer its call, you must take time to listen.”

DeBarra Mayo (1953) American martial artist

Runner's World Yoga Book II, Anderson World Books, Inc., 1983 ISBN 0-89037-274-8

Time , Waiting , Perfection

“The fundamental importance of the inner self frees us from the conception of evolution as a purely natural process. The Spirit is not something, which evolves before our eyes, flowing as if it were a river. This is a naturalistic conception of the Spirit, which ignores the inner self as that centre through which everything passes, in whose moral conscience all reality is idealised.
If reality evolved by itself there would be no place to speak of duty and conscience. But God does not consist in being, but in choosing. We cannot define God because we can experience him only in the present and in the act which comes from our inner self.”

Aldo Capitini (1899–1968) Italian philosopher and political activist

Hymn

God , Nature , Reality

“Anti-Americanism from abroad would not be such a problem if Americans were united in standing up for their own country. But in this country itself, there are those who blame America for most of the evils in the world. On the political left, many fault the United States for a history of slavery, and for continuing inequality and racism. Even on the right, traditionally the home of patriotism, we hear influential figures say that America has become so decadent… If these critics are right, then America should be destroyed. And who can dispute some of their particulars? This country did have a history of slavery and racism continues to exist. There is much in our culture that is vulgar and decadent. But the critics are wrong about America, because they are missing the big picture. In their indignation over the sins of America, they ignore what is unique and good about American civilization.”

Dinesh D'Souza (1961) Indian-American political commentator, filmmaker, author

Articles, 10 Things to Celebrate: Why I'm an Anti-Anti-American (June 2003)

World , Home , History , Problem

“Back in the early 1960s, when I was eight or nine. Some neighborhood boys and I saw a disc-shaped, windowless object that hovered, silent, then simply vanished. My parents said, "That's very nice" and ignored it, but I knew what I'd seen, and it was life-changing.”

Steven M. Greer (1955) American ufologist

Greer describing a close encounter he had with a UFO.
Undated
Source: [Bassior, Jean-Noel, UFOs: What the Government Really Knows, Hustler, November 2005, http://nbgoku.googlepages.com/Hustlergreer.pdf, pp. 52, 2007-05-13, http://www.disclosureproject.org/bassiorinterview.htm, 2007-05-13]

Life , Boy , Parent , Change

“My young friends, you are soldiers in the battle of freedom-freedom from want, fear, ignorance, frustration and helplessness. By a dint of hard work for the country, rendered in a spirit of selfless service, may you march ahead with hope and courage.”

Bidhan Chandra Roy (1882–1962) Former Chief Minister of West Bengal, India

Fear , Hope , Courage , Freedom

“The relationship between governments and the press has always been recognized as a matter of large importance. Wherever despotism abounds, the sources of public information are the first to be brought under its control. Whereever the cause of liberty is making its way, one of its highest accomplishments is the guarantee of the freedom of the press. It has always been realized, sometimes instinctively, oftentimes expressly, that truth and freedom are inseparable. An absolutism could never rest upon anything save a perverted and distorted view of human relationships and upon false standards set up and maintained by force. It has always found it necessary to attempt to dominate the entire field of education and instruction. It has thrived on ignorance. While it has sought to train the minds of a few, it has been largely with the purpose of attempting to give them a superior facility for misleading the many. Men have been educated under absolutism, not that they might bear witness to the truth, but that they might be the more ingenious advocates and defenders of false standards and hollow pretenses. This has always been the method of privilege, the method of class and caste, the method of master and slave.”

Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) American politician, 30th president of the United States (in office from 1923 to 1929)

1920s, The Press Under a Free Government (1925)

Men , Truth , Education , Way

“A self-taught painter is one taught by a very ignorant person.”

John Constable (1776–1837) English Romantic painter

Quoted in The Quarterly Review vol. 119 (1866), p. 292.
posthumous, undated

Personality

“When I say that we owe nothing to England, I speak in regards of politics, for I am convinced, and I shall die with this conviction, that the Union of Upper and Lower Canada as well as Confederation were imposed to us with a purpose hostile to the French element and with the hope of making it disappear in a more or less distant future. I wanted to show you what our homeland could be. I have made my best to open yourselves up to new horizons and, as I let you glimpse at them, push your hearts towards the fulfilment of our national destinies. You have colonial dependence, I offer you independence; you have shame and misery, I offer you fortune and prosperity; you are but a colony ignored by the whole world, I offer you becoming a great people, respected and recognized amongst free nations. Men, women and children, the choice is yours; you can remain slaves in the state of colony, or become independent and free, amongst the other peoples that, with their powerful voices beckon you to the banquet of nations.”

Honoré Mercier (1840–1894) Canadian politician

Quand je dis que nous ne devons rien à l'Angleterre, je parle au point de vue politique car je suis convaincu, et je mourrai avec cette conviction, que l'union du Haut et du Bas Canada ainsi que la Confédération nous ont été imposées dans un but hostile à l'élément français et avec l'espérance de le faire disparaître dans un avenir plus ou moins éloigné. J'ai voulu vous démontrer ce que pouvait être notre patrie. J'ai fait mon possible pour vous ouvrir de nouveaux horizons et, en vous les faisant entrevoir, pousser vos coeurs vers la réalisation de nos destinées nationales. Vous avez la dépendance coloniale, je vous offre l'indépendance; vous avez la gêne et la misère, je vous offre la fortune et la prospérité; vous n'êtes qu'une colonie ignorée du monde entier, je vous offre de devenir un grand peuple, respecté et reconnu parmi les nations libres. Hommes, femmes et enfants, à vous de choisir; vous pouvez rester esclaves dans l'état de colonie, ou devenir indépendant et libre, au milieu des autres peuples qui, de leurs voix toutes puissantes vous convient au banquet des nations.
Speech of April 4, 1893.

Women , Men , Hostility , Children

“The Buddha appeared on earth to dispel by the illumination of knowledge the ignorance that had enveloped the human mass, to release the human soul from the prison-cell of desire into the wideness of the silence and peace of Nirvana.”

Sri Chinmoy (1931–2007) Indian writer and guru

Mother India's Lighthouse: India's Spiritual Leaders (1971)

Peace , Soul , Knowledge , Silence

“No man can fully grasp how far and how fast we have come, but condense, if you will, the 50 thousand years of man's recorded history in a time span of but a half-century. Stated in these terms, we know very little about the first 40 years, except at the end of them advanced man had learned to use the skins of animals to cover them. Then about 10 years ago, under this standard, man emerged from his caves to construct other kinds of shelter. Only five years ago man learned to write and use a cart with wheels. Christianity began less than two years ago. The printing press came this year, and then less than two months ago, during this whole 50-year span of human history, the steam engine provided a new source of power. Newton explored the meaning of gravity. Last month electric lights and telephones and automobiles and airplanes became available. Only last week did we develop penicillin and television and nuclear power, and now if America's new spacecraft succeeds in reaching Venus, we will have literally reached the stars before midnight tonight.
This is a breathtaking pace, and such a pace cannot help but create new ills as it dispels old, new ignorance, new problems, new dangers. Surely the opening vistas of space promise high costs and hardships, as well as high reward.
So it is not surprising that some would have us stay where we are a little longer to rest, to wait. But this city of Houston, this state of Texas, this country of the United States was not built by those who waited and rested and wished to look behind them. This country was conquered by those who moved forward — and so will space.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

Source: 1962, Rice University speech

History , Star , Problem , Light

“Hillary Clinton's catastrophic immigration plan will bring vastly more radical Islamic immigration into this country, threatening not only our society but our entire way of life. When it comes to radical Islamic terrorism, ignorance is not bliss. It's deadly — totally deadly. … Clinton's State Department was in charge of admissions and the admissions process for people applying to enter from overseas. Having learned nothing from these attacks, she now plans to massively increase admissions without a screening plan including a 500 percent increase in Syrian refugees coming into our country. Tell me, tell me – how stupid is that? This could be a better, bigger, more horrible version than the legendary Trojan Horse ever was. Altogether, under the Clinton plan, you'd be admitting hundreds of thousands of refugees from the Middle East with no system to vet them, or to prevent the radicalization of the children and their children. Not only their children, by the way, they're trying to take over our children and convince them how wonderful ISIS is and how wonderful Islam is and we don't know what's happening. The burden is on Hillary Clinton to tell us why she believes immigration from these dangerous countries should be increased without any effective system to really to screen. We're not screening people.”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

2010s, 2016, June, Speech about the Orlando Shooting (June 13, 2016)

Life , Children , People , Stupidity

“It could be that our longing for Revolution is like our longing for perfect love, the impulse we all have for union that was for so long met by religion. However we assign these yearnings, it is difficult to ignore the obvious need for change. Some of us will ascribe it to romantic love, some to consumerism, some to utopianism. It doesn’t really matter. What is important is that for the first time in history we have the means to implement a truly representative system, the means to globally communicate it, and the conditions that require it.”

Russell Brand book Revolution

Revolution (2014)

Love , Religion , History , Communication

“Our single greatest defense against scientific ignorance is education, and early in the life of every scientist, the child's first interest was sparked by a teacher.”

Peter Agre (1949) American chemist, recipient of Nobel Prize in Chemistry

Peter Agre's speech at the Nobel Banquet http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/chemistry/laureates/2003/agre-speech-e.html, December 10, 2003

Life , Education , Teachers

“The bourgeois, for his part, possessed neither of the inordinate ambitions of the great nor of the patience of the poor, would seem to have to remain ignorant both of the sins of whose who exalted themselves and of the merits of those who humbled themselves. Bossuet, speaking of this world, complains that the "license of great fortunes exceeds all bounds." This, he says, leads to "those prevailing sins which are not satisfied to be tolerated, or even excused, but which seek even to be applauded."”

Bernard Groethuysen (1880–1946) French literary historian, translator and writer

Source: The Bourgeois: Catholicism vs. Capitalism in Eighteenth-Century France (1927), p. 138

World , Parting , Patience

“It is undeniably easier to ignore the hardships of those who are too weak to demand their rights than to respond sensitively to their needs. To care is to accept responsibility, to dare to act in accordance with the dictum that the ruler is the strength of the helpless.”

Aung San Suu Kyi (1945) State Counsellor of Myanmar and Leader of the National League for Democracy

In Quest of Democracy (1991)

“The Government's policies of controlling local authority spending, cutting National Health spending and promoting private medicine and care for the elderly are a return to the workhouse. The only difference is that it is a capitalist workhouse rather than a discreet workhouse stuck away in the hills outside the town…Care for the elderly is an important issue. It cannot be left to volunteers, charities or to people going out with collecting boxes to see that old people are looked after properly. The issue is central to our demands for a caring society. That means an end to the cuts and an end to the policy of attacking those authorities that try to care for the elderly. Instead, there should be support for and recognition of those demands. Elderly people deserve a little more than pats on the head from Conservative Members. They deserve more than the platitudinous nonsense talked about handing the meals on wheels service over to the WRVS or any other volunteer who cares to run it. Instead, there should be a recognition that those who have worked all their lives to create and provide the wealth that the rest of us enjoy deserve some dignity in retirement. They do not deserve poverty, or to be ignored in their retirement, having to live worrying whether to put on the gas fire, or boil the kettle for a cup of tea, or whether they can afford a television licence or a trip out. They should not have to wonder whether the home help who has looked after them so long will be able to continue. The issue is crucial. The motion says clearly that care for the elderly comes before the promotion of policies that merely increase the wealth of those who are already the wealthiest in our society.”

Jeremy Corbyn (1949) British Labour Party politician

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1984/feb/22/care-of-the-elderly in the House of Commons (22 February 1984).
1980s

People , Health , Home , Support

“The D. C. career crowd just keeps on doing the same old thing, And you know, the system works pretty well for them – they’re connected. But here in Missouri, we know too many people who can’t get a job. Or if they’ve got a job they can’t get a raise. Farmers are hurting and that means farm kids can’t come home. And as for healthcare and taxes – they just keep going up. Erin and I have decided we have to do something about it. And that’s why next year I’m going to run for the United States Senate. This isn’t something we were planning to do. But we believe we have to do all we can to win a better future for our country. Senator McCaskill – she’s been in D. C. forever. She’s turned her back on farmers. She’s ignored working families. She’s been wrong on every Supreme Court nominee for the last 11 years. She doesn’t represent us. It’s time to do something new. America is an exceptional place, and it’s still a young country. Its future is worth fighting for. So let’s get ready and do our part.”

Josh Hawley (1979) United States Senator from Missouri

Here in Missouri https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6E1AWV3zXCk (October 9, 2017)

People , Family , Home , Time

“There will always be people who have power over me, who can destroy my spirit and drain my soul. My best defense is to behave as if I have no soul, to act as if my spirit has already been crushed. Perhaps then, I will be left alone or ignored.”

John S. Hall (1960) Poet, author, singer, lawyer

June 11
Quotes from Daily Negations (2007)

People , Soul

“There are two ways of confronting the country's problems. One is through a management style based on adventurism, instability, play-acting, exaggerations, wrongdoing, being secretive, self-importance, superficiality and ignoring the law. The second way is based on realism, respect, openness, collective wisdom and avoiding extremism.”

Mir-Hossein Mousavi (1941) Iranian politician and architect

As quoted in "Ahmadinejad lashes out at Iran's ex-presidents", CNN (4 June 2009) http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/meast/06/03/iran.election.debate/index.html

Wisdom , Secret , Law , Way

“We know all their gods; they ignore ours. What they call our sins are our gods, and what they call their gods, we name otherwise.”

Natalie Clifford Barney (1876–1972) writer and salonist

In "Gods", ADAM International Review, No. 299 (1962)

God

“A car coughed, starting. Morning softly
Melting the air, lifted the half-covered chair
From underseas, kindled the looking-glass,
Distinguished the dresser and the white wall.
The bird called tentatively, whistled, called,
Bubbled and whistled, so! Perplexed, still wet
With sleep, affectionate, hungry and cold. So, so,
O son of man, the ignorant night, the travail
Of early morning, the mystery of the beginning
Again and again,
while history is unforgiven.”

Delmore Schwartz (1913–1966) American poet

"In the Naked Bed, in Plato's Cave" http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/in-the-naked-bed-in-plato-s-cave/
Selected Poems: Summer Knowledge (1959)

Cars , History , Bird , Sleep

“The enemy had achieved in South Vietnam neither military nor psychological victory. For the South Vietnamese the Tet offensive served as a unifying catalyst, a Pearl Harbor. Had it been the same for the American people, had President Johnson discerned the same support behind him that Thieu did behind him, and had he acted with forcefulness, the enemy could have been induced to engage in serious and meaningful negotiations. Unfortunately, the enemy scored in the United States the psychological victory that eluded him in Vietnam, so influencing President Johnson and his civilian advisors that they ignored the maxim that when the enemy is hurting, you don't diminish the pressure, you increase it.”

William Westmoreland book A Soldier Reports

Source: A Soldier Reports (1976), p. 334.

People , Support , Victory , Hurt

“Keeping people neurotic and depressed and ignorant and self-doubting is oppressive.”

Susie Bright (1958) American writer and feminist

People

“A Dialogue between two Infants in the womb concerning the state of this world, might handsomely illustrate our ignorance of the next, whereof methinks we yet discourse in Plato's Den, and are but Embryon Philosophers.”

Thomas Browne book Hydriotaphia, Urn Burial

Source: Hydriotaphia, Urn Burial (1658), Chapter IV

World

“At a certain point I came to the conclusion that one of the murderous aspects of the AIDS crisis was that people were used to not talking about sexual experiences in detail. Gay sex for instance does not cause AIDS. There are certain acts that transmit a virus and there are certain other acts that don’t transmit a virus. If you don’t talk about what goes on in sexuality, so that you know what particular acts you’re dealing with, then I think you're, possibly in an indirect way but never-the-less in a very real way, contributing to an atmosphere of ignorance which the result is people die.”

Samuel R. Delany (1942) American author, professor and literary critic

Spoken Arts interview on WBFO 88.7, 20th April 2000.

People , Sex , Way , Thinking

“To the ignorant and bawling fanatics who stun you with their pother about liberty, political or civil liberty seems to be the principal end for which government ought to exist. But the final cause or purpose for which government ought to exist, is the furtherance of the common weal to the greatest possible extent.”

John Austin (legal philosopher) (1790–1859) legal philosopher

Source: The Province of Jurisprudence Determined (1832), p. 224

“When students' language, culture and experience are ignored or excluded in classroom interactions, students are immediately starting from a disadvantage. Everything they have learned about life and the world up to this point is being dismissed as irrelevant to school learning; there are few points of connection to curriculum materials or instruction and so students are expected to learn in an experiential vacuum. Students' silence and nonparticipation under these conditions have frequently been interpreted as lack of academic ability or effort, and teachers’ interactions with students have reflected a pattern of low expectations which become self-fulfilling.”

Jim Cummins (professor) (1949) professor at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the University of Toronto

Negotiating Identities: Education for Empowerment in a Diverse Society (1996), pp. 2-3

Life , World , School , Effort

“Everyone was muttering about Bill Clinton's philanderings before he came to visit, but once he walked into the room none of the women - or men - could get enough of him. He rather ignored me: my hair wasn't big enough.”

Ruth Deech (1943) British academic, lawyer and bioethicist

Interview in the Guardian http://education.guardian.co.uk/higher/profile/story/0,11109,1092253,00.html

Women , Men

“Condoleezza Rice: I think that these historical circumstances require a very detailed and sober look from historians and what we've encouraged the Turks and the Armenians to do is to have joint historical commissions that can look at this, to have efforts to examine their past and, in examining their past, to get over their past.
Adam Schiff:… you come out of academia… is there any reputable historian you're aware of that takes issue with the fact that the murder of 1.5 million Armenians constituted genocide?
Condoleezza Rice: Congressman, I come out of academia, but I'm secretary of state now and I think that the best way to have this proceed is for the United States not to be in the position of making this judgment, but rather for the Turks and the Armenians to come to their own terms about this.
Adam Schiff:… Why is it only this genocide? Is it because Turkey is a strong ally? Is that an ethical and moral reason to ignore the murder of 1.5 million people? Why is it we don't say, "Let's relegate the Holocaust to historians" or "relegate the Cambodian genocide or Rwandan genocide?" Why is it only this genocide that we should let the Turks acknowledge or not acknowledge?
Condoleezza Rice: Congressman, we have recognized and the president recognizes every year in a resolution that he himself issues the historical circumstances and the tragedy that befell the Armenian people at that time…
Adam Schiff:… You recognize more than anyone, as a diplomat, the power of words. And I'm sure you supported the recognition of genocide in Darfur, not calling it tragedy, not calling it atrocity, not calling it anything else, but the power and significance of calling it genocide. Why is that less important in the case of the Armenian genocide?
Condoleezza Rice: Congressman, the power here is in helping these people to move forward… And, yes, Turkey is a good ally and that is important. But more important is that like many historical tragedies, like many historical circumstances of this kind, people need to come to terms with it and they need to move on.
Adam Schiff:… Iran hosts conferences of historians on the Holocaust. I don't think we want to get in the business of encouraging conferences of historians on the undeniable facts of the Armenian genocide.”

Condoleezza Rice (1954) American Republican politician; U.S. Secretary of State; political scientist

Appropriations hearing before the Subcommittee on State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs http://schiff.house.gov/news/press-releases/schiff-presses-secretary-of-state-rice-on-armenian-genocide-recognition, March 21, 2007.

People , Way , Business , Support

“In the final analysis, the rich must not ignore the poor because both rich and poor are tied in a single garment of destiny. All life is interrelated, and all men are interdependent. The agony of the poor diminishes the rich, and the salvation of the poor enlarges the rich. We are inevitably our brothers' keeper because of the interrelated structure of reality.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

1960s, The Quest for Peace and Justice (1964)

Life , Men , Reality

“Ignorance is the mother of Devotion: A maxim that is proverbial, and confirmed by general experience. Look out for a people, entirely destitute of religion: If you find them at all, be assured, that they are but few degrees removed from brutes. What so pure as some of the morals, included in some theological system? What so corrupt as some of the practices, to which these systems give rise?”

David Hume The Natural History of Religion

Part XV - General corollary
The Natural History of Religion (1757)

People , Religion

“There are in fact four very significant stumbling blocks in the way of grasping the truth, which hinder every man however learned, and scarcely allow anyone to win a clear title to wisdom, namely, the example of weak and unworthy authority, longstanding custom, the feeling of the ignorant crowd, and the hiding of our own ignorance while making a display of our apparent knowledge.”

Roger Bacon (1220–1292) medieval philosopher and theologian

Cited in: John H. Woodburn, Ellsworth Scott Obourn (1965) Teaching the pursuit of science. p. 70

Wisdom , Truth , Way , Feeling

“Donald Trump has built his campaign on prejudice and paranoia. He’s taking hate groups mainstream and helping a radical fringe take over one of America’s two major political parties. His disregard for the values that make our country great is profoundly dangerous. In just the past week, under the guise of "outreach" to African Americans, Trump has stood up in front of largely white audiences and described black communities in insulting and ignorant terms.”

Hillary Clinton (1947) American politician, senator, Secretary of State, First Lady

Presidential campaign (April 12, 2015 – 2016), Speech in (August 25, 2016)

Hate , Communication , Past , Help

“Recent governments emphasize the merits of a multicultural society and ignore the dangers. And yet the evidence is clear that many multicultural societies have failed and that the human cost of the failure has been high.”

Geoffrey Blainey book All for Australia

All for Australia (1984)

Failure

“A ship is alive, and he is like a man, with a true man’s heart. Treat him well and care for him properly, and he will fight for you against the worst sea. He will fight to keep you alive even after the sea has long since given him his own deathstroke. Neglect him, though, ignore the small warnings he gives of danger, and he will drown you in a flat sea beneath a cloudless sky.”

Robert Jordan (1948–2007) American writer

Jorin din Jubai White Wing
(15 September 1992)

Heart , Fight , Sea

“To ignore the true God is in fact only half an evil; atheism is worth more than the piety bestowed on mythical gods.”

Emmanuel Levinas (1906–1995) French philosopher

A Religion for Adults (1957)

God , Evil

“Vegetarianism is a link to perfection and peace. But it's a small link. There are lots of other issues: apartheid, vivisection, political prisoners, the arms race. There's so much going on in this world today, so much ignorance among people. That's not to say I'm not standing amongst everybody. But the point is, what can we do now? That's the thing about vegetarianism; it's an individual's decision and it's something you have control over. How many things do we really have control over?”

River Phoenix (1970–1993) American actor, musician, and activist

Vegetarian Times (1988)

People , World , Peace , Decision

“In fact, their contempt for the native converts was deeper than that for their Hindu subjects. They had all along looked down upon the native converts as Ajlãf (low-born) and Arzãl (base-born) as compared to the Ashrãf (exalted) which distinctive designation they had reserved for themselves….. It was at this critical juncture that the frustrated fraternity of foreign Muslims took a very strategic step. They started swearing by a solidarity with the native Muslims whom they had despised so far. They let loose on the native Muslims an army of mercenary Mullahs recruited, mostly from their own ranks. These Mullahs went about broadcasting the message that ‘Islam was in danger’, and that ‘Hindus were out to enslave and exploit the Muslim minority’. It was in this manner that the residues of Islamic imperialism managed to ‘merge’ themselves with the native converts, and to present themselves at the head of a strong phalanx pitted against whatever historical forces threatened their unjust privileges. Hitherto, the haughty Ashrãf had stood strictly aloof from the abject Ajlãf and the despised Arzãl. Now all of a sudden the latter became the former’s ‘brothers in faith’. This was a tremendous transformation of the political scene in the second decade of the 20th century. … The British never attached more than a nuisance value to this noisy fraternity which had to be befriended or ignored according to the needs of British policy at any time. It was the national leadership which was impressed by this mobilisation of the ‘Muslim masses’ and the pathos of ‘Muslim plight’. They accepted not only separate electorates but also weightages for the ‘Muslim minority’ in many provinces.”

Sita Ram Goel (1921–2003) Indian activist

Muslim Separatism – Causes and Consequences (1987)

Faith , Strong , Time

“One who shows signs of mental aberration is, inevitably, perhaps, but cruelly, shut off from familiar, thoughtless intercourse, partly excommunicated; his isolation is unwittingly proclaimed to him on every countenance by curiosity, indifference, aversion, or pity, and in so far as he is human enough to need free and equal communication and feel the lack of it, he suffers pain and loss of a kind and degree which others can only faintly imagine, and for the most part ignore.”

Charles Cooley (1864–1929) American sociologist

Source: Human Nature and the Social Order, 1902, p. 259 (1964)

Pain , Feeling , Imagination , Communication

“Foolish critics often betray their ignorance by saying that a painter or a writer "only copies what he has seen, or puts down what he has known." They forget that no man imagines what he has not seen or known, and that it is in the selection of the characteristic details that the artistic power is manifested.”

George Henry Lewes (1817–1878) British philosopher

The Principles of Success in Literature (1865)

Imagination , Forgetting

“Theobald ignored him. He could be deaf when he chose; he seemed to find it particularly difficult to hear the word “No.””

Robert A. Heinlein book Beyond This Horizon

Source: Beyond This Horizon (1948; originally serialized in 1942), Chapter 14, “—and beat him when he sneezes”, p. 132

“Each element in the system is ignorant of the behaviour of the system as a whole, it responds only to information that is available to it locally… If each element 'knew' what was happening to the system as a whole, all of the complexity would have to be present in that element.”

Paul Cilliers (1956–2011) South African philosopher

Source: Complexity and Postmodernism (1998), p. 4-5; as cited in: Peter Buirski, ‎Amanda Kottler (2007) New Developments in Self Psychology Practice http://books.google.nl/books?id=PinroXBLDkIC&pg=PA9, p. 9

“The born-yesterday French-besotted faddists, addicted sniffers of wet printer’s ink, think they’re starting on the ground floor; so they’re condemned to another hundred years of trial and error. The rest of us can safely ignore them.”

Camille Paglia (1947) American writer

Source: Sex, Art and American Culture : New Essays (1992), Junk Bonds and Corporate Raiders : Academe in the Hour of the Wolf, p. 202

Error , Thinking

“Religion is all profit. They have no merchandise to buy, no commissions to pay, and no refunds to make for unsatisfactory service and results….
Their commodity is fear. They blackmail their parishioners with threats of hell and damnation. These poor deluded people give them their hard earned money to save them from a hell that does not exist, and from eternal torment that was invented by the perverted minds of priests to rob the living and in addition, they are exempt from taxation! Insult to injury!
Let me tell you that religion is the cruelest fraud ever perpetrated upon the human race. It is the last of the great scheme of thievery that man must legally prohibit so as to protect himself from the charlatans who prey upon the ignorance and fears of the people.
The penalty for this type of extortion should be as severe as it is of other forms of dishonesty.”

Joseph Lewis (1889–1968) American activist

Ingersoll the Magnificent (Memorial Dedication Address, August 11, 1954)

Money , People , Fear , Religion

“Thus for each blunt-faced ignorant one
The great grey rigid uniform combined
Safety with virtue of the sun.
Thus concepts linked like chainmail in the mind.”

Thom Gunn (1929–2004) English poet

Considering the Snail (l. 5-10)
Collected Poems by Thom Gunn (1994)

Sun

“We live in a golden age of ignorance, and Trump and Brexit are part of that.”

Robert N. Proctor (1954) American historian

Robert N. Proctor, quotes in: Tim Harford, " The problem with facts https://www.ft.com/content/eef2e2f8-0383-11e7-ace0-1ce02ef0def9," FT Magazine, March 9, 2017

Age , Parting

“People die. That’s true in novels, and it’s true in life. Dying is one of the very few things we all do. To deny or ignore the omnipresent reality of death seems to me a disservice to human beings. That said, acknowledging in my novels that death exists does not make me a murderer any more than acknowledging that cancer can be treated makes me an oncologist.”

John Green (1977) American author and vlogger

Hey, some people on tumblr are wondering if writers feel upset or get a thrill when they kill their characters. Care to enlighten us?, John Green's tumblr, Tumblr, January 1, 2013, July 15, 2014 http://fishingboatproceeds.tumblr.com/post/39363824562/hey-some-people-on-tumblr-are-wondering-if-writers,

Life , Death , People , Reality

“In writing about India, it is all too common to starkly ignore the Hindu voice. …. The only Hinduism which they like is museum Hinduism; any Hinduism that displays a will to survive is treated with the same horror that would be aroused if a mummy were to show signs of life.”

Koenraad Elst (1959) orientalist, writer

Source: 2000s, Decolonizing the Hindu Mind (2001), p. 73-74

Life

“I closed my eyes, put blinders on, and ignored what was too painful to think about. I tried to view my troubles less seriously, and worry less. I tried to curb my temper. Things said in embarrassment and anger are seldom the truth, but are said to hurt and wound the other person. Once said, they can never be taken back.”

Lucille Ball (1911–1989) American actress and businesswoman

Page 141
Love, Lucy (1996)

Pain , Truth , Thinking , Hurt

“We wouldn't have been able to handle the fame if it would've hit us all of the sudden. When I was young I always dreamed of having a group that was adored by few and ignored by the rest of the world, like Nick Drake. Fortunately, when we became famous, I had no time to reflect upon anything anymore. (De Standaard newspaper 2001)”

Robert Smith (musician) (1959) English singer, songwriter and musician

World , Dreams , Time

“I can never quite decide whether the anti-Columbus movement is merely risible or faintly sinister…. It is sinister, though, because it is an ignorant celebration of stasis and backwardness, with an unpleasant tinge of self-hatred.”

Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) British American author and journalist

"Minority Report", The Nation, October 19, 1992. Also quoted in Steven Salaita, The Holy Land in Transit:Colonialism And the Quest for Canaan. Syracuse University Press, 2006.(p. 68).
1990s

“Our true enemies are: ignorance and limitation.”

Vanna Bonta (1958–2014) Italian-American writer, poet, inventor, actress, voice artist (1958-2014)

The Impact of Space Activities Upon Society (ESA Br) European Space Agency (2005)

“You wilfully ignore the small, gentle observations in life which you know are the most important.”

Douglas Coupland book Shampoo Planet

Shampoo Planet (1992)

Life

“While in London I became interested in speaking in public. I lectured at Hyde Park Corner when the Simon Commission was being boycotted in India as no Indian was a member. I stood the heckling well and even indulged in a little ridicule. People completely ignorant of India and Indian conditions would heckle me. One fellow claimed that he had lived in India and Kabul which he asserted was the capital of India.”

Mohammad Hidayatullah (1905–1992) 11th Chief Justice of India

Source: Law in the Scientific Era, P.47-48.

People

“For the first few seconds, she was afraid he would throw her out because of the crude noises she was making, but then he put his arms around her. She was grateful to him for ignoring her rumbles, and she kissed him passionately, her eyes misting.”

Milan Kundera book The Unbearable Lightness of Being

Pg 50
The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1984), Part Two: Soul and Body

Kiss , Passion

“Self-destructive addiction is merely the medium for desperate people to internalize their frustration, resistance, and powerlessness. In other words, we can safely ignore the drug hysteria that periodically sweeps through the United States. Instead we should focus our ethical concerns and political energies on the contradictions posed by the persistence of inner-city poverty in the midst of extraordinary opulence. In the same vein, we need to recognize and dismantle the class- and ethnic-based apartheids that riddle the U. S. landscape.”

Philippe Bourgois (1956) American anthropologist

Source: In Search of Respect: Selling Crack in El Barrio (1995), Ch. 9: Conclusion (p. 319)

People

“The use of computers shouldn’t ignore the objectives of graphics, that are:”

Jacques Bertin (1918–2010) French geographer and cartographer

Treating data to get information.
Communicating, when necessary, the information obtained.
Computers are able to multiply useless images without taking into account that, by definition, every graphic corresponds to a table. This table allows you to think about three basic questions that go from the particular to the general level. When this last one receives an answer, you have answers for all of them. Understanding means accessing the general level and discovering significant grouping (patterns). Consequently, the function of a graphic is answering the three following questions:
Which are the X,Y, Z components of the data table? (What it’s all about?)
What are the groups in X, in Y that Z builds? (What the information at the general level is?
What are the exceptions?
These questions can be applied to every kind of problem. They measure the usefulness of whatever construction or graphical invention allowing you to avoid useless graphics.
About the role of computers in Information Visualisation.
Interview with Jacques Bertin (2003)

“Twin-sister of Religion, Selfishness!
Rival in crime and falsehood, aping all
The wanton horrors of her bloody play;
Yet frozen, unimpassioned, spiritless,
Shunning the light, and owning not its name,
Compelled by its deformity to screen
With flimsy veil of justice and of right
Its unattractive lineaments that scare
All save the brood of ignorance; at once
The cause and the effect of tyranny;
Unblushing, hardened, sensual and vile;
Dead to all love but of its abjectness;
With heart impassive by more noble powers
Than unshared pleasure, sordid gain, or fame;
Despising its own miserable being,
Which still it longs, yet fears, to disenthrall.”

Percy Bysshe Shelley Queen Mab

Canto V
Queen Mab (1813)

Love , Pleasure , Fear , Religion

“The cure for poverty has a name, in fact: it's called the empowerment of women. If you give women some control over the rate at which they reproduce, if you give them some say, take them off the animal cycle of reproduction to which nature and some doctrine—religious doctrine condemns them, and then if you'll throw in a handful of seeds perhaps and some credit, the floor of everything in that village, not just poverty, but education, health, and optimism will increase. It doesn't matter; try it in Bangladesh, try it in Bolivia, it works—works all the time. Name me one religion that stands for that, or ever has. Wherever you look in the world and you try to remove the shackles of ignorance and disease stupidity from women, it is invariably the clericy that stands in the way, or in the case of—now, furthermore, if you are going to grant this to Catholic charities, say, which I would hope are doing a lot of work in Africa, if I was a member of a church that had preached that AIDS was not as bad as condoms, I'd be putting some conscience money into Africa too, I must say.”

Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) British American author and journalist

Debate vs. Tony Blair, "Be it Resolved, Religion is a Force for Good in the World" (November 26, 2010), Roy Thomson Hall, Toronto, Ontario.
2010s, 2010

Women , Money , Health , Stupidity

“And you, my fine poet, who thought that the earth
To another such minstrel could never give birth,
Already your works are all thrown on the shelf,
And their author condemn'd as an ignorant elf.—
Yes; look thro' the world, and this truth you will find
That, once out of sight, you are soon out of mind.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist

Fable (Imitated from the French of La Motte.)
The Fate of Adelaide (1821)

Truth , World , Birth

“There were times when Robert actually envied his ancestors, who had lived in dark ignorance, before the twenty-first century, and seemed to have spent most of their time making up weird, ornate explanations of the world to fill the yawning gap of their ignorance. Back then, one could believe in anything at all.
Simple, deliciously elegant explanations of human behavior—it apparently never mattered whether they were true or not, as long as they were incanted right. "Party lines" and wonderful conspiracy theories abounded. You could even believe in your own sainthood if you wanted. Nobody was there to show you, with clear experimental proof, that there was no easy answer, no magic bullet, no philosopher's stone. Only simple, boring sanity.
How narrow the Golden Age looked in retrospect.”

David Brin book The Uplift War

Source: The Uplift War (1987), Chapter 53 (pp. 324-325)

Age , World , Behavior , Time

“We argued, as did the security services in this country, that the attacks on Afghanistan and Iraq would increase the threat of terrorist attack in Britain. Tragically Londoners have now paid the price of the Government ignoring such warnings.”

George Galloway (1954) British politician, broadcaster, and writer

Statement on the London bombings by George Galloway on behalf of Respect http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/article.php4?article_id=6929, July 7, 2005.

Country

“All scientific work is incomplete – whether it be observational or experimental. All scientific work is liable to be upset or modified by advancing knowledge. That does not confer upon us a freedom to ignore the knowledge we already have, or to postpone the action that it appears to demand at a given time.”

Austin Bradford Hill (1897–1991) English epidemiologist and statistician

“The Environment and Disease: Association or Causation?,” Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine, 58 (1965), 295-300

Knowledge , Freedom , Appearance , Time

“Your attitude measures up to the two requirements of love. You want to go to bed with her and can't, and you don't know her very well. Ignorance of the other person topped up with deprivation, Jim. You fit the formula all right, and what's more you want to go on fitting it.”

Kingsley Amis book Lucky Jim

Lucky Jim (1954)

Love , Personality

“In Iran, no-one can ignore the tragic record of the revolution. Over the past three decades some six million Iranians have fled their homeland. The Iran-Iraq war claimed almost a million lives on both sides. During the first four years of the Khomeinist regime alone 22,000 people were executed, according to Amnesty International. Since then, the number of executions has topped 80,000. More than five million people have spent some time in prison, often on trumped-up charges. In terms of purchasing power parity, the average Iranian today is poorer than he was before the revolution. De-Khomeinization does not mean holding the late ayatollah solely responsible for all that Iran has suffered just as Robespierre, Stalin, Mao, and Fidel Castro shared the blame with others in their respective countries. However, there is ample evidence that Khomeini was the principal source of the key decisions that led to tragedy… Memoirs and interviews and articles by dozens of Khomeini’s former associates—including former Presidents Abol-Hassan Banisadr and Hashemi Rafsanjani and former Premier Mehdi Bazargan—make it clear that he was personally responsible for some of the new regime’s worst excesses. These include the disbanding of the national army, the repression of the traditional Shi’ite clergy, and the creation of an atmosphere of terror, with targeted assassinations at home and abroad. Khomeini has become a symbol of what went wrong with Iran’s wayward revolution. De-Khomeinization might not spell the end of Iran’s miseries just as de-Stalinization and de-Maoization initially produced only minimal results. However, no nation can plan its future without coming to terms with its past.”

Amir Taheri (1942) Iranian journalist

"Opinion: Iran must confront its past to move forwards" http://www.aawsat.net/2015/02/article55341173, Ashraq Al-Awsat (February 6, 2015).

War , People , Home , Decision

“Most often, our messing around and meddling in the affairs of other countries have unintended consequences. Sometimes just over in those countries that we mess with. We might support one faction, and it doesn't work, and it's used against us. But there's the blowback effect, that the CIA talks about, that it comes back to haunt us later on. For instance, a good example of this is what happened in 1953 when our government overthrew the Mossadegh government and we installed the Shah, in Iran. And for 25 years we had an authoritarian friend over there, and the people hated him, they finally overthrew him, and they've resented us ever since. That had a lot to do with the taking of the hostages in 1979, and for us to ignore that is to ignore history… Also we've antagonized the Iranians by supporting Saddam Hussein, encouraging him to invade Iran. Why wouldn't they be angry at us? But the on again off again thing is what bothers me the most. First we're an ally with Osama bin Laden, then he's our archenemy. Our CIA set up the madrasah schools, and paid money, to train radical Islamists, in Saudi Arabia, to fight communism… But now they've turned on us… Muslims and Arabs have long memories, Americans, unfortunately, have very short memories, and they don't remember our foreign policy that may have antagonized… The founders were absolutely right: stay out of the internal affairs of foreign nations, mind our own business, bring our troops home, and have a strong defense. I think our defense is weaker now than ever.”

Ron Paul (1935) American politician and physician

Interview by Laura Knoy on NHPR, June 5, 2007 http://info.nhpr.org/node/13016
2000s, 2006-2009

Money , Hate , People , School

“O mother! hear thy country's plea:
Nurture thy sons with spirits strong
Led by the torch of truth whose flame
Will banish ignorance and wrong.”

Ilia Chavchavadze (1837–1907) Georgian poet and politician; a saint of Georgian Orthodox Church

Source: Anthology of Georgian Poetry (1948), Lines to a Georgian Mother, p. 59

Truth , Strong , Country

“I believe that the Bengalis have never at any period held sway over a particle of land. They are altogether ignorant of the method by which a foreign race can maintain its rule over other races.”

Syed Ahmed Khan (1820–1898) Indian educator and politician

Quoted from After a Century it is time to revisit Sir Syed Ahmad Khan’s legacy https://www.myind.net/Home/viewArticle/after-a-century-it-is-time-to-revisit-sir-syed-ahmad-khans-legacy Avatans Kumar Jan 27, 2018. Also quoted in The Great Speeches of Modern India by Rudranghsu Mukherjee

“Most of us, shrinking from the difficulties and dangers which beset the seeker after original answers to these riddles, are contented to ignore them altogether, or to smother the investigating spirit under the featherbed of respected and respectable tradition. But, in every age, one or two restless spirits, blessed with that constructive genius, which can only build on a secure foundation, or cursed with the mere spirit of scepticism, are unable to follow in the well-worn and comfortable track of their forefathers and contemporaries, and unmindful of thorns and stumbling-blocks, strike out into paths of their own.”

Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–1895) English biologist and comparative anatomist

Source: 1860s, Evidence as to Man's Place in Nature (1863), Ch.2, p. 71

Age

““You aren’t doing much for morale, Sidewise.”
Sidewise shot back, “And what about my morale? It does me no damn good to ignore what’s blindingly obvious all around us.””

Stephen Baxter book Evolution

Source: Evolution (2002), Chapter 17 “A Long Shadow” section II (p. 539)

“I have a very bad relationship with the future. We don't get on. We just ignore each other.”

Pete Doherty (1979) English musician, writer, actor, poet and artist

Definitions and objects

Future

“We completely ignore the human value of the information. A selection of 100 letters is given a certain information value, and we do not investigate whether it makes sense in English, and, if so, whether the meaning of the sentence is of any practical importance. According to our definition, a set of 100 letters selected at random (according to the rules of Table 1.1), a sentence of 100 letters from a newspaper, a piece of Shakespeare or a theorem of Einstein are given exactly the same informational value.”

Léon Brillouin (1889–1969) French physicist

[Léon Brillouin, Science and Information Theory, second edition, Academic Press, New York, 1962, 0-48643-918-6, 9]

Sense

“Look, these were none of them supermen. In fact, they were either weaklings who’d been assigned civilian-type jobs, or warriors as ignorant and superstitious as brutal. Aside from what specialized training fitted them for Wallis’s purposes, he’d never tried to get them properly educated. If nothing else, that might have led to questioning of his righteousness and infallibility.”

Poul Anderson book There Will Be Time

Source: There Will Be Time (1972), Chapter 15 (p. 165)

Education , Question , Training

“Once a sage asked why scholars always flock to the doors of the rich, whilst the rich are not inclined to call at the doors of scholars. "The scholars" he answered, "are well aware of the use of money, but the rich are ignorant of the nobility of science."”

Al-Biruni (973–1048) Persian scholar and polymath

Quoted in: A.L. Mackay Dictionary of Scientific Quotations (London 1994).

Money , Science

“Spiral's views are so enchanting that when I heard them, I cleared off to Australia, strolled up Ayres Rock to the meditating Aborigines, pulled down my trousers and pants, polished my dinkle 'til it was as stiff as a pipe, prised its end open and shouted, "Lads, who wants a blow of my didgeridoo?!" They said they faced this ignorance from the white man on an almost daily basis.”

Russell Brand (1975) British comedian, actor, and author

Big Brother's Big Mouth (2004–2007)

“It is a great difficulty and great necessity to have to start with the smallest. I want to be as though new-born, knowing nothing, absolutely nothing, about Europe; ignoring poets and fashions, to be almost primitive. Then I want to do something very modest; to work out by myself a tiny, formal motive, one that my pencil; will be able to hold without any technique. One favorable moment is enough. The little thing is easily and concisely set down. It's already done! It was a tiny but real affair, and someday, through the repetition of such small but original deeds, there will come one work upon which I can really build.”

Paul Klee (1879–1940) German Swiss painter

Quote (June 1902), as cited in Artists on Art, from the 14th – 20th centuries, ed. Robert Goldwater and Marco Treves; Pantheon Books, 1972, London, p. 442
1895 - 1902

Motivation , Fashion