Lord Chesterfield Quotes About Ignorance
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Absolute power can only be supported by error, ignorance and prejudice.
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The most ignorant are the boldest conjecturers.
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Nothing convinces persons of a weak understanding so effectually, as what they do not comprehend.
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A weak mind is like a microscope, which magnifies trifling things but cannot receive great ones.
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A seeming ignorance is very often a most necessary part of worldly knowledge. It is, for instance, commonly advisable to seem ignorant of what people offer to tell you; and when they say, Have not you heard of such a thing? to answer No, and to let them go on, though you know it already.
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The herd of mankind can hardly be said to think; their notions are almost all adoptive; and, in general, I believe it is better that it should be so; as such common prejudices contribute more to order and quiet, than their own separate reasonings would do, uncultivated and unimproved as they are.
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Our conjectures pass upon us for truths; we will know what we do not know, and often, what we cannot know: so mortifying to our pride is the base suspicion of ignorance.
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Young men are apt to think themselves wise enough, as drunken men are apt to think themselves sober enough.
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A learned parson, rusting in his cell at Oxford or Cambridge, will reason admirably well upon the nature of man; will profoundly analyze the head, the heart, the reason, the will, the passions, the senses, the sentiments, and all those subdivisions of we know not what ; and yet, unfortunately, he knows nothing of man... He views man as he does colours in Sir Isaac Newton's prism, where only the capital ones are seen; but an experienced dyer knows all their various shades and gradations, together with the result of their several mixtures.
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Lord Chesterfield
- Born: September 22, 1694
- Died: March 24, 1773
- Occupation: British Statesman