“I am ignorant of how I was formed and how I was born. Through a quarter of my lifetime I was absolutely ignorant of the reasons for everything I saw and heard and felt, and was merely a parrot prompted by other parrots... When I sought to advance along that infinite course, I could neither find one single footpath or fully discover one single object, and from the upward leap I made to contemplate eternity I fell back into the abyss of my ignorance.”

“How I hate ignorance! Caliban’s ignorance, my ignorance, the world’s ignorance! Oh, I could learn and learn and learn and learn. I could cry, I want to learn so much.”

“I AM IGNORANT of absolute truth. But I am humble before my ignorance and therein lies my honor and my reward.”

“I wish I was ignorant, so I didn't know how ignorant I am”

“Was I ignorant, then, when I was seventeen? I think not. I knew everything. A quarter-century's experience of life since then has added nothing to what I knew. The one difference is that at seventeen I had no 'realism'.”

“In happy ignorance, I sighed for a world I did not know, where I hoped to find every pleasure and enjoyment which my heart could desire; and now, on my return from that wide world... how many disappointed hopes and unsuccessful plans have I brought back!”