Aphorisms Galore!

Wisdom and Ignorance

327 aphorisms  ·  10 comments

Aphorisms in This Category

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/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/wagakfth  ·  submitted 1999

Learning to shrug is the beginning of wisdom.

Sarah Ban Breathnach, Simple Abundance, 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/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/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/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/lbtrv5my  ·  submitted 1997

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

Wayne Birmingham, 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/y5vxd29g  ·  submitted 1997

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

Josh Billings, 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/yfqykgpj  ·  submitted 1997

The Devil's Dictionary (paperback)

Education: That which discloses to the wise and disguises from the fool their lack of understanding.

Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, in Wisdom and Ignorance

tiny.ag/wirqwxvl  ·  submitted 1997

Brain: an apparatus with which we think we think.

Ambrose Bierce, in Wisdom and Ignorance

tiny.ag/viymqgdo  ·  submitted 1997

Cogito cogito ergo cogito sum -- "I think that I think, therefore I think that I am."

Ambrose Bierce, in Wisdom and Ignorance

tiny.ag/mchnry1s  ·  submitted 1997

A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep.

Saul Bellow, in Wisdom and Ignorance

tiny.ag/z91tc0go  ·  submitted 1997

It's better to keep your mouth shut and give the impression that you're stupid than to open it and remove all doubt.

Unknown, in Wisdom and Ignorance

tiny.ag/hurfcg6j  ·  submitted 1997

Time is a great teacher, but unfortunately it kills all its pupils.

Hector Berlioz, in Life and Death and Wisdom and Ignorance

tiny.ag/l0kufav6  ·  submitted 1997

If you come to a fork in the road, take it.

Yogi Berra, in Wisdom and Ignorance

tiny.ag/b3ohbca1  ·  submitted 1998

He who spends his time reading aphorisms of another to have one of his own, has no time or brains to have any of his own.

M. Bernheisel, in Wisdom and Ignorance