Jean de la Bruyere Quotes

Profound ignorance makes a man dogmatic. The man who knows nothing thinks he is teaching others what he has just learned himself; the man who knows a great deal can't imagine that what he is saying is not common knowledge, and speaks more indifferently.

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.

No one is so wrong as the man who knows all the answers.

He knows so little and knows it so fluently.

Ask the young. They know everything.

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.

Beware of anyone who says they know. Trust me, they don't, or they wouldn't have to say they did.

Folly always knows the answer.

The longer I'm alive, the more I realize how little I know. Pretending that you know everything about every topic, and being very vocal about it? That's an instant turnoff.

I do not pretend to know where many ignorant men are sure - that is all that agnosticism means.

People who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.

The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt.

The fundamental cause of the trouble is that in the modern world the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt. Even those of the intelligent who believe that they have a nostrum are too individualistic to combine with other intelligent men from whom they differ on minor points.

Incompetence is certainty in the absence of expertise. Overconfidence is certainty in the presence of expertise.

I can always tell how stupid someone is by how certain they are about what they're saying.

Ignorance and confidence are constant companions

You may have noticed that the less I know about a subject the more confidence I have, and the more new light I throw on it.

When a man tells you that he knows the exact truth about anything you are safe in inferring that he is an inexact man.

IGNORAMUS, n. A person unacquainted with certain kinds of knowledge familiar to yourself, and having certain other kinds that you know nothing about.

If there is one class of person I have never quite trusted, it is a man who knows no doubt.

The most ignorant are the boldest conjecturers.

Ignorance is bold and knowledge reserved.

The surest way to lose truth is to pretend that one already wholly possesses it.

I wish I was as cocksure of anything as Tom Macaulay is of everything.

The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts.