Aphorisms Galore!

Wisdom and Ignorance

327 aphorisms  ·  10 comments

Aphorisms in This Category

tiny.ag/z0pv1omm  ·  submitted 1997

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

Gail Godwin, in 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

tiny.ag/juocdkwi  ·  submitted 1997

Ordinary people know little of the time and effort it takes to learn to read. I have been eighty years at it, and have not reached my goal.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 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/y5vxd29g  ·  submitted 1997

Knowledge is like money: the more he gets, the more he craves.

Josh Billings, in Wisdom and Ignorance

tiny.ag/lnv4og3o  ·  submitted 1998

The best time to hold your tongue is the time you feel you must say something or bust.

Josh Billings, in Wisdom and Ignorance

tiny.ag/lbtrv5my  ·  submitted 1997

I will tell you the truth as soon as I figure it out.

Wayne Birmingham, in Wisdom and Ignorance

tiny.ag/mrm8ujlt  ·  submitted 1998 by Marc Spierings

Knowledge and belief are two separate tracks that run parallel to each other and never meet, except in the child.

Godfried Bomans, Buitelingen II, in Science and Religion and Wisdom and Ignorance

tiny.ag/oy08nxhf  ·  submitted 1998 by Marc Spierings

To use a method is to compare the realm of mind to a stool. The true thinker walks freely.

Godfried Bomans, De avonturen van Bill Clifford, in Science and Religion and Wisdom and Ignorance

tiny.ag/kiytmq1q  ·  submitted 1999 by Erwin van Moll

I am not sure that I exist, actually. I am all the writers that I have read, all the people that I have met, all the women that I have loved; all the cities that I have visited, all my ancestors... Perhaps I would have liked to be my father, who wrote but has the decency of not publishing.

Jorge Luis Borges, in Wisdom and Ignorance

tiny.ag/bza7uu5d  ·  submitted 1999 by Erwin van Moll

My advanced age has taught me the resignation of being Borges.

Jorge Luis Borges, "El informe de Brodie", in Wisdom and Ignorance

tiny.ag/inomue9p  ·  submitted 1999 by Erwin van Moll

There is no intellectual exercise which is not ultimately useless.

Jorge Luis Borges, "Pierre Menard, Author of Don Quixote", in Art and Literature and Wisdom and Ignorance

tiny.ag/wagakfth  ·  submitted 1999

Learning to shrug is the beginning of wisdom.

Sarah Ban Breathnach, Simple Abundance, in Wisdom and Ignorance

tiny.ag/sefftpkt  ·  submitted 1997

Horse sense is the thing a horse has which keeps it from betting on people.

W. C. Fields, in Wisdom and Ignorance

tiny.ag/y0inete4  ·  submitted 1997

Education is the process of driving a set of prejudices down your throat.

Martin H. Fischer, in Wisdom and Ignorance

tiny.ag/cxkiivxs  ·  submitted 1997

The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function.

F. Scott Fitzgerald, in Science and Religion and Wisdom and Ignorance

tiny.ag/y7qkjsrf  ·  submitted 1997

Uncertainty and mystery are energies of life. Don't let them scare you unduly, for they keep boredom at bay and spark creativity.

R. I. Fitzhenry, in Wisdom and Ignorance

tiny.ag/sutptyxa  ·  submitted 1997

The only reason some people get lost in thought is because it's unfamiliar territory.

Paul Fix, in Wisdom and Ignorance

tiny.ag/chnlsua0  ·  submitted 1997

Education's purpose is to replace an empty mind with an open one.

Malcolm S. Forbes, in Wisdom and Ignorance

tiny.ag/hksesmq7  ·  submitted 1997

Education isn't how much you have committed to memory, or even how much you know. It's being able to differentiate between what you do know and what you don't.

Anatole France, in Wisdom and Ignorance