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/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/aj3tzjw2  ·  submitted 1997

Sometimes a whisper speaks volumes.

Scott Sheddan, in Wisdom and Ignorance

tiny.ag/7vrvn3zw  ·  submitted 1997

Common sense is instinct. Enough of it is genius.

George Bernard Shaw, in Wisdom and Ignorance

tiny.ag/gbu74gqh  ·  submitted 1997

Crude classifications and false generalizations are the curse of organized life.

George Bernard Shaw, in Wisdom and Ignorance

tiny.ag/zsy8hdo3  ·  submitted 1997

My father must have had some elementary education, for he could read and write and keep accounts inaccurately.

George Bernard Shaw, in Wisdom and Ignorance

tiny.ag/tde4qweo  ·  submitted 1997

The longer I live the more I see that I am never wrong about anything, and that all the pains that I have so humbly taken to verify my notions have only wasted my time.

George Bernard Shaw, in Wisdom and Ignorance

tiny.ag/spdfyk43  ·  submitted 1997

Advice is like kissing. It costs nothing and is a pleasant thing to do.

H. W. Shaw, in Wisdom and Ignorance

tiny.ag/yzyptgt2  ·  submitted 1997

The world's greatest heroes are the world's greatest fuck-ups.

Stacy Shaw, in Wisdom and Ignorance

tiny.ag/inmjkhxu  ·  submitted 1997

If you hear a wise sentence or an apt phrase, commit it to your memory.

Sir Henry Sidney, 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

tiny.ag/tf9fn0vv  ·  submitted 1997

True knowledge exists in knowing that you know nothing.

Socrates, 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/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/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