Henry David Thoreau Quotes

Ignorance is preferable to error, and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing than he who believes what is wrong.

Humility and knowledge in poor clothes excel pride and ignorance in costly attire.

Getting rid of a delusion makes us wiser than getting hold of a truth.

It is well for the heart to be naive and the mind not to be.

Knowledge rests not upon truth alone, but upon error also.

He who knows nothing is closer to the truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods and errors.

It's one thing to be innocent and another thing to be naive or willfully ignorant.

Ah! how little knowledge does a man acquire in his life. He gathers it up like water, but like water it runs between his fingers, and yet, if his hands be but wet as though with dew, behold a generation of fools call out, 'See, he is a wise man!' Is it not so?

Sincere words are not fine; fine words are not sincere. Those who are skilled (in the Tao) do not dispute (about it); the disputatious are not skilled in it. Those who know (the Tao) are not extensively learned; the extensively learned do not know it.

The truth is perilous never to the true, Nor knowledge to the wise; and to the fool, And to the false, error and truth alike, Error is worse than ignorance.

Whenever any one informs us that he has found a man who knows all the arts, and all things else that anybody knows, and every single thing with a higher degree of accuracy than any other man - whoever tells us this, I think that we can only imagine him to be a simple creature who is likely to have been deceived by some wizard or actor whom he met, and whom he thought all-knowing, because he himself was unable to analyse the nature of knowledge and ignorance and imitation.

Trustable words are not beautiful; beautiful words are not trustable.

If you dissemble sometimes your knowledge of that you are thought to know, you shall be thought, another time, to know that you know not.

What men call knowledge, is the reasoned acceptance of false appearances. Wisdom looks behind the veil and sees.

A wise man among the ignorant is as a beautiful girl in the company of blind men.

Humans believe so many lies because we aren't aware. We ignore the truth or we just don't see the truth. When we are educated, we accumulate a lot of knowledge, and all that knowledge is just like a wall of fog that doesn't allow us to perceive the truth, what really is.

My parents wouldn't have sent me out into the world with wool over my eyes. You have to be aware, or you'll be swallowed.

The opposite of a correct statement is a false statement. But the opposite of a profound truth may well be another profound truth.

It is harder to conceal ignorance than to acquire knowledge.

Education, n.: That which discloses to the wise and disguises from the foolish their lack of understanding.

Reality seems so simple. We just open our eyes and there it is. But that doesn't mean it is simple.

Not when truth is dirty, but when it is shallow, does the enlightened man dislike to wade into its waters.

The first point of wisdom is to discern that which is false; the second, to know that which is true.

I was wise enough to never grow up while fooling most people into believing I had.

Facts are many, but the truth is one.