Roger Ascham Quotes

Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, and not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science.

It is a tragedy of the world that no one knows what he doesn't know - the less a man knows, the more sure it is that he knows everything.

The difference between what the most and the least learned people know is inexpressibly trivial in relation to that which is unknown.

Ignorance is bold and knowledge reserved.

To be proud of learning is the greatest ignorance.

I hate books; they only teach us to talk about things we know nothing about.

A wise man can learn more from a foolish question than a fool can learn from a wise answer.

The more we study the more we discover our ignorance.

Ask the young. They know everything.

People's ignorance really pisses me off. Stupidity is when you can't help it -ignorance is when you choose not to understand something.

I'm a meathead, man. You've got smart people, and you've got dumb people. I just happen to be dumb.

The more we know, the more we realize there is to know.

I'm not the dumbest guy that ever lived.

A little learning is not a dangerous thing to one who does not mistake it for a great deal.

It is lamentable, that many of our children go to school, from four until they are eight or ten, and sometimes fifteen years of age, and leave school knowing but a little more about the grammar of their language than a horse does about handling a musket--and not a few of them are really so ignorant, that they are unable to answer a person correctly, general questions in geography, and to hear them read, would only be to disgust a man who has a taste for reading; which, to do well as trifling as it may appear to some, (to the ignorant in particular) is a great part of learning. Some few of them, may make out to scribble tolerably well, over a half sheet of paper, which I believe has hitherto been a powerful obstacle in our way, to keep us from acquiring knowledge. An ignorant father, who knows no more than what nature has taught him, together with what little he acquires by the senses of hearing and seeing, finding his son able to write a neat hand, sets it down for granted that he has as good learning as any body; the young, ignorant gump, hearing his father or mother, who perhaps may be ten times more ignorant, in point of literature, than himself, extolling his learning, struts about, in the full assurance, that his attainments in literature are sufficient to take him through the world, when, in fact, he has scarcely any learning at all!!!!

If fathers wish to educate their daughters beyond what is customary, for want of trained older women and on account of the extreme negligence which has become women's sad lit, since well-educated older women are unavailable, they are obliged to bring in men teachers to give instruction in reading, writing, and arithmetic, playing musical instruments, and other skills…. As a result of this, many fathers prefer leaving their daughters in a barbaric, uncivilized state to exposing them to an evident danger such as familiarity with men breeds. All of which would be eliminated if there were older women of learning

Don't let your heart get big because of your knowledge. Take counsel with the ignorant as well as with the scholar.

Do not be an arrogant scholar, for scholarship cannot subsist with arrogance.

Learning will be cast into the mire, and trodden down under the hoofs of a swinish multitude.

It's hubris to think that the way we see things is everything there is.

… when we know a thing we have only scorn for other people who don’t happen to know it.

The public is too damned dumb to understand.

It is neither racist nor elitist to say publicly what every rational person believes privately - that if you don't know anything about a subject, you ought not to raise your hand or cast a ballot on the matter.

Me not finishing school - in my head, I still have this insecurity when I'm talking to someone educated.