“It was an ignorant perception of the past at which most scoffed, but those who were wiser simply shook their heads in embarrassment knowing similar fears and ignorance confronted them in different forms now.”

“All political theories assume, of course, that most individuals are very ignorant. Those who plead for liberty differ from the rest in that they include among the ignorant themselves as well as the wisest. Compared with the totality of knowledge which is continually utilized in the evolution of a dynamic civilization, the difference between the knowledge that the wisest and that the most ignorant individual can deliberately employ is comparatively insignificant.”

“For the fear of death is indeed the pretense of wisdom, and not real wisdom, being a pretense of knowing the unknown; and no one know whether death, which men in their fear apprehend to be the greatest evil, may not be the greatest good. Is not this ignorance of a disgraceful sort, the ignorance which is the conceit that a man knows that he does not know? And in this respect only I believe myself to differ from men in general, and may perhaps claim to be wiser than they are: that whereas I know but little of the world below, I do not suppose that I know...”

“The ideas which now pass for brilliant innovations and advances are in fact mere revivals of ancient errors, and a further proof of the dictum that those who are ignorant of the past are condemned to repeat it.”

“Every person wishes to know of the proposals, the learned, and the ignorant. The learned understands the work proposed-he understands at least something, partly, or fully-but the ignorant and inexperienced understand nothing, not even when things are explained to them. Their ignorance moves them promptly to anger. They remain in ignorance because they want to show themselves learned, which they are not, and they move the other ignorant crowd to insistence on its own poor waysand to scorn for those who know.”

“Those who blamed aggression formed Amity.’…‘Those who blamed ignorance became the Erudite.’…‘Those who blamed duplicity created Candor.’…‘Those who blamed selfishness made Abnegation.’…‘And those who blamed cowardice were the Dauntless.”