Aphorisms Galore!

Wisdom and Ignorance

327 aphorisms  ·  10 comments

Aphorisms in This Category

tiny.ag/e7pa2qtv  ·  submitted 1997

Man is a rational animal who always loses his temper when he is called upon to act in accordance with the dictates of reason.

Oscar Wilde, in Science and Religion and Wisdom and Ignorance

tiny.ag/dflvnw5h  ·  submitted 1997

I was asked by the customs if I had anything to declare. I said: Yes, I'd like to declare -- I'm a genius!

Oscar Wilde, in Wisdom and Ignorance

tiny.ag/8dhiywlp  ·  submitted 1997

I am not young enough to know everything.

Oscar Wilde, in Wisdom and Ignorance

tiny.ag/1bm5oz9e  ·  submitted 1997

Education is an admirable thing, but nothing that is worth knowing can be taught.

Oscar Wilde, in Wisdom and Ignorance

tiny.ag/hevntg1m  ·  submitted 1997

Furious activity is no substitute for understanding.

H. H. Williams, in Wisdom and Ignorance and Work and Recreation

tiny.ag/iurrlmux  ·  submitted 1997

I use not only all the brains I have, but all I can borrow.

Woodrow Wilson, in Wisdom and Ignorance

tiny.ag/lt8nmg5i  ·  submitted 1997

Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe.

H. G. Wells, in Wisdom and Ignorance

tiny.ag/1teeow0f  ·  submitted 1997

Calvin and Hobbes (paperback)

Talking with you is sort of the conversational equivalent of an out of body experience.

Bill Watterson, Calvin and Hobbes, in Wisdom and Ignorance

tiny.ag/kteay1fd  ·  submitted 1997

Life happens too fast for you ever to think about it. If you could just persuade people of this, but they insist on amassing information.

Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., in Wisdom and Ignorance

tiny.ag/t9jmvbpa  ·  submitted 1997

A witty saying proves nothing.

Voltaire, in Success and Failure and Wisdom and Ignorance

tiny.ag/oujwgybq  ·  submitted 1997

Wit is educated insolence.

Aristotle, in Wisdom and Ignorance

tiny.ag/6lar7dwe  ·  submitted 1997

Those who educate children well are more to be honored than parents, for these only gave life, those the art of living well.

Aristotle, in Wisdom and Ignorance

tiny.ag/yfqykgpj  ·  submitted 1997

The Devil's Dictionary (paperback)

Education: That which discloses to the wise and disguises from the fool their lack of understanding.

Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, in Wisdom and Ignorance

tiny.ag/6kh8ljvj  ·  submitted 1997

Knowledge is the small part of ignorance that we arrange and classify.

Ambrose Bierce, in Wisdom and Ignorance

tiny.ag/hcrgr6oa  ·  submitted 1997

Anything that is too stupid to be spoken is sung.

Voltaire, in Art and Literature and Wisdom and Ignorance

tiny.ag/svogwyfm  ·  submitted 1997

Everyone is born with genius, but most people only keep it a few minutes.

Edgard Varese, in 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/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/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