Donald Rumsfeld Quotes

You don’t know what you don’t know. That’s the nature of the intelligence business.

Intelligence always carries uncertainties. That is the nature of the beast.

We know accurately only when we know little, with knowledge doubt increases.

We don't know a millionth of one percent about anything.

The most solid piece of scientific truth I know of is that we are profoundly ignorant about nature.

What you don't know can hurt you.

Only a blind man can easily define what light is. When you do not know, you are bold. Ignorance is always bold; knowledge hesitates. And the more you know, the more you feel that the ground underneath is dissolving. The more you know, the more you feel how ignorant you are.

There are things that we know, and there are things that we don't know. Then there are the things that we don't even know that we don't know. Those are the things that are the hardest.

To be absolutely certain about something, one must know everything or nothing about it.

Of course, I don't know everything. Considering the infinite amount of knowledge that one could acquire in a virtually innumerable array of intellectual disciplines, it's probably more accurate to say that I don't know anything.

The more I see, the less I know.

In the world we live in, what we know and what we don't know are like Siamese twins, inseparable, existing in a state of confusion.

With knowledge grows doubt.

As we acquire knowledge, things do not become more comprehensible, but more mysterious.

Maybe we're the fools, for thinking we know things. Maybe humans are the only ones who can deal with the fact that nothing can ever be known at all.

Ignorance is bold and knowledge reserved.

Fortunately, nature is as generous with its problems as Nobel with his fortune. The more we know, the more aware we are of what we know not.

The greater our knowledge increases the more our ignorance unfolds.

I think the philosophy that we don't know as much as we think we know resonates throughout my work.

Doubt grows with knowledge.

We cannot wish for that we know not.

To know anything well involves a profound sensation of ignorance.

I know nothing, except the fact of my ignorance.

The difference between ignorant and educated people is that the latter know more facts. But that has nothing to do with whether they are stupid or intelligent.