Samuel Johnson Quotes

What's the point of doing something good if nobody's watching.

You cannot expect people to react to information they don't have.

Be straight with yourself just to maybe save a few more people from being stupid and being ignorant.

The agnostic does not simply say, "l do not know." He goes another step, and he says, with great emphasis, that you do not know. He insists that you are trading on the ignorance of others, and on the fear of others. He is not satisfied with saying that you do not know, -- he demonstrates that you do not know, and he drives you from the field of fact -- he drives you from the realm of reason -- he drives you from the light, into the darkness of conjecture -- into the world of dreams and shadows, and he compels you to say, at last, that your faith has no foundation in fact.

The majority of people have no understanding of the things with which they daily meet, nor, when instructed, do they have any right knowledge of them, although to themselves they seem to have.

You don't know anything, but I know even less.

Ignorance, if recognized, is often more fruitful than the appearance of knowledge.

Belief is in ignorance. If you know, you know. And it is good that if you don’t know, know that you don’t know — the belief can deceive you. The belief can create an atmosphere in your mind, where, without knowing, you start thinking that you know. Belief is not trust, and the more strongly you say that you believe totally, the more you are afraid of the doubt within you.

Acknowledging what you don't know is the dawning of wisdom.

The secret is not to betray your ignorance. Just maneuver, avoid the quicksands and obstacles, and the rest can be found in a dictionary.

The more a man knows, the more willing he is to learn-the less a man knows, the more positive he is that he knows everything.

Man is an ignoramus athirst for knowledge.

Only the very ignorant are perfectly satisfied that they know. To the common man the great problems are easy. He has no trouble in accounting for the universe. He can tell you the origin and destiny of man and the why and wherefore of things.

We endeavor more that men should speak of us, than how and what they speak, and it sufficeth us that our name run in men's mouths, in what manner soever. It stemma that to be known is in some sort to have life and continuance in other men's keeping.

Even great spirits have only their five-fingers' breadth of experience - just beyond it their thinking ceases and their endless empty space and stupidity begins.

Fear and realisation of ignorance, strong medicines against stupid pride.

Every man of sound brain whom you meet knows something worth knowing better than yourself. A man, on the whole, is a better preceptor than a book. But what scholar does not allow that the dullest book can suggest to him a new and a sound idea?

I envy no man that knows more than myself, but pity them that know less.

It would be the height of absurdity to label ignorance tempered by humility "faith"! (Institutio III.2.3)

...not everyone is willing to defend a position of 'not knowing.' There is no virtue in ignorance for its own sake.

Ask yourself whether you have earned the right to have an opinion. Opinions are easy to produce, so bad ones abound. Knowing that you don't know something is nearly as valuable as knowing it. The worst situation is thinking you know something when you don't.

He who thinks he knows, doesn't know. He who knows that he doesn't know, knows.

The only thing I know for sure is how much I do not know.

I am the wisest man alive, for I know one thing, and that is that I know nothing.

And any man who knows a thing, knows he knows not a damn, damn thing at all.