Aphorisms Galore!

Wisdom and Ignorance

327 aphorisms  ·  10 comments

Aphorisms in This Category

tiny.ag/uvmow3r4  ·  submitted 1997

Wit is the only wall between us and the dark.

Mark Van Doren, in Wisdom and Ignorance

tiny.ag/byjgwlzg  ·  submitted 1997

The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who cannot read them.

Mark Twain, in Wisdom and Ignorance

tiny.ag/r0a9zwmr  ·  submitted 1997

In Paris they simply stared when I spoke to them in French; I never did succeed in making those idiots understand their language.

Mark Twain, in Wisdom and Ignorance

tiny.ag/bucadpxy  ·  submitted 1997

I was gratified to be able to answer promptly. I said, "I don't know."

Mark Twain, in Wisdom and Ignorance

tiny.ag/ahogqesm  ·  submitted 1997

I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.

Mark Twain, in Wisdom and Ignorance

tiny.ag/g8ncpo30  ·  submitted 1997

A classic is something that everybody wants to have read and nobody has read.

Mark Twain, in Art and Literature and Wisdom and Ignorance

tiny.ag/3laiwzst  ·  submitted 1997

I have found the best way to give advice to your children is to find out what they want and then advise them to do it.

Harry S Truman, in Wisdom and Ignorance

tiny.ag/dkwycxon  ·  submitted 1997

Clear writers assume, with a pessimism born of experience, that whatever isn't plainly stated the reader will invariably misconstrue.

John R. Trimble, in Wisdom and Ignorance

tiny.ag/if4vw3y9  ·  submitted 1997

Reality is nothing but a collective hunch.

Lily Tomlin, in Science and Religion and Wisdom and Ignorance

tiny.ag/jttv8uoi  ·  submitted 1997

The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.

Alvin Toffler, in Wisdom and Ignorance

tiny.ag/rupnqvyt  ·  submitted 1997

Truly great madness can not be achieved without significant intelligence.

Henrik Tikkanen, in Science and Religion and Wisdom and Ignorance

tiny.ag/e2icakpf  ·  submitted 1997

It is better to know some of the questions than all of the answers.

James Thurber, in Wisdom and Ignorance

tiny.ag/e9njxakr  ·  submitted 1997

Isn't it interesting that the same people who laugh at science fiction listen to weather forecasts and economists?

Kelvin Throop, III, in Science and Religion and Wisdom and Ignorance

tiny.ag/cu6vdywe  ·  submitted 1997

He who learns and runs away, lives to learn another day.

Edward Lee Thorndike, in Life and Death and Wisdom and Ignorance

tiny.ag/k0emebpg  ·  submitted 2011 by peter

What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one.

Neil Postman, in Wisdom and Ignorance and Law and Politics

tiny.ag/tf9fn0vv  ·  submitted 1997

True knowledge exists in knowing that you know nothing.

Socrates, in Wisdom and Ignorance

tiny.ag/jf8fhnam  ·  submitted 1997

It is characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things.

Henry David Thoreau, in Wisdom and Ignorance

tiny.ag/hk1fnrrg  ·  submitted 1997

The less you know, the more you think you know, because you don't know you don't know.

Ray Stevens, in Wisdom and Ignorance

tiny.ag/ef1mcjvo  ·  submitted 1997

Books are good enough in their own way, but they are a mighty bloodless substitute for life.

Robert Louis Stevenson, in Wisdom and Ignorance

tiny.ag/0rczsoyu  ·  submitted 1997

What information consumes is rather obvious: it consumes the attention of its recipients. Hence, a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention and a need to allocate that attention efficiently among the overabundance of information sources that might consume it.

Herbert Simon, in Wisdom and Ignorance