Matthew Arnold Quotes

Almost everybody is born a genius and buried an idiot.

Because of our sacred regard for each human intellect, we consider the obtaining of an education to be a religious responsibility.

There is not anything that can so suddenly flood the mind with shame as the conviction of ignorance, yet we are all ignorant of nearly everything there is to be known.

Knowledge has value only insofar as it contributes to the all-round development of the whole nature of man.

The long-term value of amplifying the intelligence of people is a lot more important than betting on sports.

I'm not educated; I'd be a damn fool if I was (educated)!

Education, introspection, self-love and excellence are the only ways to overcome the wrath of ignorance

Nothing will divide this nation more than ignorance, and nothing can bring us together better than an educated population.

The self taught man seldom knows anything accurately, and he does not know a tenth as much as he could have known if he had worked under teachers, and besides, he brags, and is the means of fooling other thoughtless people into going and doing as he himself has done.

Do you mean ter tell me," he growled at the Dursleys, "that this boy—this boy!—knows nothin' abou'—about ANYTHING?" Harry thought this was going a bit far. He had been to school, after all, and his marks weren't bad. I know some things," he said. "I can, you know, do math and stuff.

Man is essentially ignorant, and becomes learned through acquiring knowledge.

The only real ill-doing is the deprivation of knowledge.

What we know is a drop, what we don't know is an ocean.

I said I 'liked' being half-educated; you were so much more 'surprised' at everything when you were ignorant.

A mind is a terrible thing to waste.

The wisest among us is a fool in some things.

I'm not an educated man. I only know what I'm told, and I'm not told that much; I have no frame of reference for how to place things in history be a responsible leader. All I can do is be an artist.

A man who chooses not to read is just as ignorant as a man who cannot read.

Most people know nothing about learning; many despise it. Dummies reject as too hard whatever is not dumb.

A great deal of learning can be packed into an empty head.

If you can read and don't, you're dumb.

How can people be anything but ignorant when knowledge isn't saved, isn't taught?

Either America will destroy ignorance or ignorance will destroy the United States.

Among the innumerable mortifications which waylay human arrogance on every side may well be reckoned our ignorance of the most common objects and effects, a defect of which we become more sensible by every attempt to supply it. Vulgar and inactive minds confound familiarity with knowledge and conceive themselves informed of the whole nature of things when they are shown their form or told their use; but the speculatist, who is not content with superficial views, harasses himself with fruitless curiosity, and still, as he inquires more, perceives only that he knows less.