Aphorisms Galore!

Wisdom and Ignorance

327 aphorisms  ·  10 comments

Aphorisms in This Category

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/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/hcrgr6oa  ·  submitted 1997

Anything that is too stupid to be spoken is sung.

Voltaire, in Art and Literature and Wisdom and Ignorance

tiny.ag/t9jmvbpa  ·  submitted 1997

A witty saying proves nothing.

Voltaire, in Success and Failure 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/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/mgn8bwur  ·  submitted 1997

With stupidity the gods themselves struggle in vain.

Friedrich von Schiller, in Wisdom and Ignorance

tiny.ag/4mch5yty  ·  submitted 1997

I'm always fascinated by the way memory diffuses fact.

Diane Sawyer, in Wisdom and Ignorance

tiny.ag/gbo6vshj  ·  submitted 1997

An expert is someone who knows some of the worst mistakes that can be made in his subject and how to avoid them.

Werner Heisenberg, in Wisdom and Ignorance

tiny.ag/s0wemj5y  ·  submitted 1997

A large brain, like large government, may not be able to do simple things in a simple way.

Donald O. Hebb, in Wisdom and Ignorance

tiny.ag/ldizacqu  ·  submitted 1997

Foundation (paperback)

Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.

Isaac Asimov, Foundation (Salvor Hardin), in War and Peace and Wisdom and Ignorance

tiny.ag/6qzazlkw  ·  submitted 1997

Silence is argument carried out by other means.

Ernesto "Che" Guevara, in Wisdom and Ignorance

tiny.ag/ccrfqs3v  ·  submitted 1997

I'm more like I am now than I ever was before.

Greg, in Wisdom and Ignorance

tiny.ag/wh6qtopk  ·  submitted 1997

I improve on misquotation.

Cary Grant, in Wisdom and Ignorance

tiny.ag/5jqhurzz  ·  submitted 1997

Look to the past for guidance into the future.

Robert Jacob Goodkin, in Wisdom and Ignorance

tiny.ag/z0pv1omm  ·  submitted 1997

Good teaching is one-fourth preparation and three-fourths theater.

Gail Godwin, in Wisdom and Ignorance

tiny.ag/1bbjwdu7  ·  submitted 1997

No idea is so antiquated that it was not once modern; no idea is so modern that it will not someday be antiquated.

Ellen Glasgow, in Science and Religion and Wisdom and Ignorance

tiny.ag/ufko7fwv  ·  submitted 1997

I do not know myself and God forbid that I should.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, in Wisdom and Ignorance