Aphorisms Galore!

Wisdom and Ignorance

327 aphorisms  ·  10 comments

Aphorisms in This Category

tiny.ag/jwespnab  ·  submitted 1997

No affectation of peculiarity can conceal a commonplace mind.

W. Somerset Maugham, in Wisdom and Ignorance

tiny.ag/fkuqm4vt  ·  submitted 1997

She had a pretty gift for quotation, which is a serviceable substitute for wit.

W. Somerset Maugham, in Wisdom and Ignorance

tiny.ag/3zbbml0p  ·  submitted 1997

If you think education is expensive, try ignorance.

Andy McIntyre, in Wisdom and Ignorance

tiny.ag/dwmxy2kw  ·  submitted 1997

Education is civil defense against media fallout.

Marshall McLuhan, in Wisdom and Ignorance

tiny.ag/qol2sxws  ·  submitted 1997

The human mind treats a new idea the way the body treats a strange protein -- it rejects it.

Peter Medawar, in Wisdom and Ignorance

tiny.ag/kqr3auag  ·  submitted 1997

Any man who afflicts the human race with ideas must be prepared to see them misunderstood.

Henry Louis Mencken, in Wisdom and Ignorance

tiny.ag/6hcujeiu  ·  submitted 1997

tiny.ag/klphp6u7  ·  submitted 1997

Intolerance of ambiguity is the mark of an authoritarian personality.

Theodor W. Adorno, in Wisdom and Ignorance

tiny.ag/0h8wlpui  ·  submitted 1997

In the province of the mind, what one believes to be true either is true or becomes true.

John Lilly, in Wisdom and Ignorance

tiny.ag/hfx4m7bz  ·  submitted 1998 by David Shorr

The Satyricon (paperback)

Wisdom and beauty form a very rare combination

Petronius Arbiter, The Satyricon, XCIV, in Wisdom and Ignorance

tiny.ag/ow2rizet  ·  submitted 1998

In order to keep an open mind, I am trying to avoid learning anything.

Ashleigh Brilliant, Brilliant Thoughts (copyright info: www.ashleighbrilliant.com), in Wisdom and Ignorance

tiny.ag/kl2zmoog  ·  submitted 1997 by Barry Cantor

Today's children are required to learn what most people in former times were forbidden to know.

Ashleigh Brilliant, Brilliant Thoughts (copyright info: www.ashleighbrilliant.com), 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/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/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/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/uvmow3r4  ·  submitted 1997

Wit is the only wall between us and the dark.

Mark Van Doren, in 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/t9jmvbpa  ·  submitted 1997

A witty saying proves nothing.

Voltaire, in Success and Failure and 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