49 Quotes About Knowing Nothing

It can be difficult to find a position to take when you do not know the full situation. These quotes about knowing nothing remind us not to make assumptions or be quick to judge.

“A cold-blooded, calculation, unprincipled, usurper, without a virtue, no statesman, knowing nothing of commerce, political economy, or civil government, and supplying ignorance by bold presumption.”

“A film is its own thing and in an ideal world I think a film should be discovered knowing nothing and nothing should be added to it and nothing should be subtracted from it.”

“At the same time, you don’t want to be blindsided at some point because you’ve taken too much comfort from knowing nothing.”

“Ballet is like any other art form in that we all start out knowing nothing about it.”

“Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a battle you know nothing about.”

“Do not do to others what angers you if done to you by others.”

“Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught.”

“False words are not only evil in themselves, but they infect the soul with evil.”

“He watched a catbird hopping around in an azalea that was readying itself to bloom; he envied the bird for knowing nothing of what he knew; he would have swapped souls with it in a heartbeat.”

“I am the wisest man alive, for I know one thing, and that is that I know nothing.”

“I am tired of knowing nothing and being reminded of it all the time.”

“I came to parenting the way most of us do – knowing nothing and trying to learn everything.”

“I know nothing except the fact of my ignorance.”

“I know one thing, that I know nothing.”

“I spent my childhood alone, overweight and ugly, angry at everything, and knowing nothing of a life beyond this sadness.”

“I want to be as though new-born, knowing nothing, absolutely nothing… then I want to do something modest; to work out by myself a tiny, formal motive, one that my pencil will be able to hold without technique.”

“I wanted to become the seeker, the aroused and passionate explorer, and it was better to go at it knowing nothing at all, always choosing the unmarked bottle, always choosing your own unproven method, armed with nothing but faith and a belief in astonishment.”

“If you do not know where you are going, every road will get you nowhere.”

“If you don’t know where you are currently standing, you’re dead.”

“If you don’t know where you are going, you might wind up someplace else.”

“If you don’t know where you’re going any road will do.”

“Ignorance of ignorance, then, is that self-satisfied state of unawareness in which man, knowing nothing outside the limited area of his physical senses, bumptiously declares there is nothing more to know.”

“Imagination is more important than knowledge.”

“It’s hard to get lost if you don’t know where you’re going.”

“Knowing nothing about investing might be a benefit. You won’t have to unlearn many popular beliefs propagated by Wall Street and the media that aren’t true.”

“My kids have grown up knowing nothing other than me being gone all the time and playing in golf tournaments. That’s what they know.”

“Nobody knows anything, but I, knowing nothing, am the smartest man in the world.”

“Our students wanted to know everything: but only the newest theory seemed to them worth bothering with. Knowing nothing of the intellectual achievements of the past, they kept fresh and intact their enthusiasm for ‘the latest thing’.”

“She would be a mentor and an inspiration to girls like herself, the quiet ones who’d sleepwalked their way through high school, knowing nothing except that they couldn’t possibly be happy with any of the choices the world seemed to be offering them.”

“The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance – it is the illusion of knowledge.”

“The greatest way to live with honor in this world is to be what we pretend to be.”

“The only thing I know is that I know nothing.”

“The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.”

“The sure way of knowing nothing about life is to try to make oneself useful.”

“The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why.”

“The unexamined life is not worth living.”

“There are no shortcuts to knowledge, especially knowledge gained from personal experience. Following conventional wisdom and relying on shortcuts can be worse than knowing nothing at all.”

“There is nothing so pitiful as a young cynic because he has gone from knowing nothing to believing nothing.”

“Those who know nothing of foreign languages know nothing of their own.”

“Time is not the great teacher. Experience is. A man may live a whole life, but if he never leaves his home to experience that life, he dies knowing nothing. A mere child who has suffered and lived can be the wiser of the two.”

“To find yourself, think for yourself.”

“To invest successfully, you need not understand beta, efficient markets, modern portfolio theory, option pricing or emerging markets. You may, in fact, be better off knowing nothing of these.”

“To know is to know that you know nothing. That is the meaning of true knowledge.”

“Too much openness and you accept every notion, idea, and hypothesis-which is tantamount to knowing nothing.”

“True knowledge exists in knowing that you know nothing.”

“True wisdom comes to each of us when we realize how little we understand about life, ourselves, and the world around us.”

“We are born knowing nothing and with much striving we learn but a little; yet all the while we are bound by laws that hearken to no plea of ignorance, and measure out their rewards and punishments with calm indifference.”

“We fall from womb to tomb, from one blackness and toward another, remembering little of the one and knowing nothing of the other… except through faith.”

“You begin always knowing nothing. You remain forever an amateur, a first timer.”

Not being in tune with what is going on can leave you feeling ignorant.