Thomas Sowell Quotes

All that makes earlier times seem simpler is our ignorance of their complexities.

Thomas Sowell

• Ignorance
• Seems
• Complexity

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Quotes to Explore

• Suppose that we are wise enough to learn and know - and yet not wise enough to control our learning and knowledge, so that we use it to destroy ourselves? Even if that is so, knowledge remains better than ignorance.

  

  Isaac Asimov
  • Knowledge
  • Control
  • Learning

• Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance.

  

  H. L. Mencken
  • Wisdom
  • Democracy
  • Ignorance

• The worldview implied by literary fiction is complex and ambiguous, trying to be faithful to the complexity and ambiguity of life.

  

  Nancy Kress
  • Life
  • Trying
  • Complexity

• Most Muslim women know it is fear and curiosity that cause people to stare. They know it is ignorance and stereotypes that cause people to suppose that a piece of material covering the hair strips a woman of the ability to speak English, pursue a career, work a remote control.

  

  Randa Abdel-Fattah
  • People
  • Work
  • Women

• If they exert it not for good, they will for evil; if they advance not knowledge, they will perpetuate ignorance.

  

  Frances Wright
  • Good
  • Knowledge
  • Evil

• In my family, there was no celebration of ignorance. They'd come and see Chekhov or Shakespeare. I've got a sister who got a first in her degree. We don't sit around watching TV all the time.

  

  Eddie Marsan
  • Time
  • Family
  • Sister

• His ignorance is encyclopedic.

  

  Abba Eban
  • Ignorance
  • His

• The Scottish Highlands are incredible. There seems to be magic and poetry everywhere.

  

  Caitriona Balfe
  • Poetry
  • Magic
  • Seems

• Movie SF is, by definition, dumbed down - there have only been three or four SF movies in the history of film that aspire to the complexity of literary SF.

  

  Dan Simmons
  • History
  • Movie
  • Down

• I've seen 3-D movies where it seems a little crude or too in-your-face.

  

  Laura Dern
  • Movies
  • Seems
  • Where

• Expansion means complexity and complexity decay.

  

  C. Northcote Parkinson
  • Complexity
  • Decay
  • Expansion

• Vietnam is about halfway around the world from Washington. It's as large as the major European nations, with nearly 130,000 square miles... Its ancient recorded history goes back to 111 B.C... We entered (that country) with considerable ignorance.

  

  Barry Goldwater
  • World
  • Country
  • History

• Reading is the way out of ignorance, and the road to achievement.

  

  Ben Carson
  • Reading
  • Road
  • Ignorance

• Knowledge is not happiness, and science But an exchange of ignorance for that Which is another kind of ignorance.

  

  Lord Byron
  • Science
  • Knowledge
  • Ignorance

• Mystery is delightful, but unscientific, since it depends upon ignorance.

  

  Bertrand Russell
  • Ignorance

• All the perplexities, confusions, and distresses in America arise, not from defects in their constitution or confederation, not from a want of honor or virtue, so much as from downright ignorance of the nature of coin, credit, and circulation.

  

  John Adams
  • America
  • Nature
  • Honor

• Religion, n. A daughter of Hope and Fear, explaining to Ignorance the nature of the Unknowable.

  

  Ambrose Bierce
  • Nature
  • Hope
  • Fear

• Ignoring isn’t the same as ignorance, you have to work at it.

  

  Margaret Atwood
  • Work
  • Ignorance

• There is a Persian proverb: 'To test that which has been tested is ignorance.' To try to test something without the means of testing is even worse.

  

  Idries Shah
  • Ignorance
  • Test
  • Proverb

• I'd faced a lot of rejection from labels and the industry, and it was getting hard to keep believing in myself. But something wouldn't let me – inside – I had this voice that was relentlessly hopeful, and honestly, I just loved performing and writing too much to ever really quit.

  

  Rachel Platten
  • Loved
  • Rejection
  • Believing

• When you lose things like football, which is the game I love - and this is the most important thing in my life - it really puts everything in perspective.

  

  Austin Seferian-Jenkins
  • Life
  • Important
  • Game

• If an offender has committed murder, he must die. In this case, no possible substitute can satisfy justice. For there is no parallel between death and even the most miserable life, so that there is no equality of crime and retribution unless the perpetrator is judicially put to death.

  

  Immanuel Kant
  • Death
  • Justice
  • Murder

• ...expatriated Americans, even Henry James himself, have always seemed to me somewhat anchorless, rudderless, drifting before thewind.

  

  Virginia Gildersleeve
  • Wind
  • Drifting

• All that makes earlier times seem simpler is our ignorance of their complexities.

  

  Thomas Sowell
  • Ignorance
  • Seems
  • Complexity