“It is often idle to attempt to oppose ignorance and absurdity by such feeble instruments as truth and reason, and the wisest managers of mankind have generally been most successful when their plan has been to counteract one folly by means of the influence of another.”

Jacob Abbot
Success Wisdom Wisdom

Explore This Quote Further

Quote by Jacob Abbot: “It is often idle to attempt to oppose ignorance … - Image 1

Similar quotes

“To produce a valuable observation, one has first to have an idea of what to observe, a preconception of what is possible. Scientific advances often come from uncovering a hitherto unseen aspect of things as a result, not so much of using new instruments, but rather of looking at objects from a different angle. This look is necessarily guided by a certain idea of what this so-called reality might be. It always involves a certain conception about the unknown, that is, about what lies beyond that which one has logical or experimental reasons to believe.”


“Has there ever been a society which has died of dissent? Several have died of conformity in our lifetime.” Jacob Bronowski in Science and Human Values”


“He may have been a trifle wild.”


“For it is the young tree grown out of the old root which shall illuminate what the old tree has been in its wonders.”


“Man must have results, real results, in his inner and outer life. I do not mean the results which modern people strive after in their attempts at self-development. These are not results, but only rearrangements of psychic material, a process the Buddhists call 'samsara' and which our Holy Bible calls 'dust'.”


“How often when we are comfortable, we begin to long for something new! ”