Quotes & Sayings About Ignorance And Enlightenment

As soon as the injured classes have recovered their political rights, their first thought is not to abolish plunder (this would suppose them to possess enlightenment, which they cannot have), but to organize against the other classes, and to their own detriment, a system of reprisals - as if it was necessary, before the reign of justice arrives, that all should undergo a cruel retribution - some for their iniquity and some for their ignorance. — Frederic Bastiat

It is my sincere desire that my research and hard work will help create a world where we all learn to walk this Earth, safe, enlightened and free from the perils of cruelty, ignorance, and all the other dark and sinister forces, which make assholes possible. — Alexei Maxim Russell

But karma is not in fact a material accumulation, and does not depend on externals; rather its power to condition us depends on the obstacles that impede our knowledge. If we compare our karma and the ignorance that creates it to a dark room, knowledge of the primordial state would be like a lamp, which, when lit in the room, at once causes the darkness to disappear, enlightening everything. In the same way, if one has the presence of the primordial state, one can overcome all hindrances in an instant. — Namkhai Norbu

Be - don't try to become. Being is enlightenment, becoming is ignorance. — Rajneesh

Is the basic teaching of Buddhism - on ignorance, deliverance and enlightenment - really life-denying, or is it rather the same kind of life-affirming liberation that we find in the Good News of Redemption, the Gift of the Spirit, and the New Creation? — Thomas Merton

He tapped into the Zen of ignorance, the enlightenment of absurdity. — Christopher Moore

You will eventually face a greater truth, willingly or unwillingly. Those who willingly choose to see a greater truth now are given potential freedom through enlightenment, while those who choose to blind themselves are resigned to slavery through ignorance. — Derek Doepker

Ignorance has always been the weapon of tyrants; enlightenment the salvation of the free. — Bill Richardson

Do not feel that you are destined to enlightenment in this life. You have no idea. This is an illusion of selfhood. It's gross ignorance and egotism. — Frederick Lenz

Enlightenment is not about becoming divine. Instead it's about becoming more fully human ... It is the end of ignorance. — Lama Surya Das

To be ignorant is to be in the dark;
to be wise is to be in the light.
An illiterate person is disabled intellectually;
an unenlightened person is handicapped spiritually. — Matshona Dhliwayo

Mind is the master-weaver, both of the inner garment of character and the outer garment of circumstance, and that, as they may have hitherto woven in ignorance and pain they may now weave in enlightenment and happiness. — James Allen

One only passes from the darkness of ignorance to the enlightenment of science if one re-reads with ever-increasing love the works of the ancients. Let the dogs bark, let the pigs grunt! I will nonetheless be a disciple of the ancients. All my care will be for them and the dawn will see me studying them. — Peter Of Blois

There is only one calamity: ignorance. And there is only one solution: enlightenment. — Jaggi Vasudev

Confusion is a good state to be in. It means you are looking, constantly looking. People ask me, "Why do you confuse us like this?" I want you to understand, if you can be confused by anybody, it means you do not know. If you are fanatical, you cannot be confused. Or if you are realized, you cannot be confused. Between ignorance and enlightenment is a very thin line. But they are worlds apart. — Jaggi Vasudev

Your enlightenment is more powerful than your ignorance. — Swami Nithyananda

Ignorance causes pain, but awareness creates happiness. Therefore, look for enlightenment every day. — Linda Alfiori

Can't you understand? That if you take a law like evolution and you make it a crime to teach it in the public schools, tomorrow you can make it a crime to teach it in the private schools? And tomorrow you may make it a crime to read about it. And soon you may ban books and newspapers. And then you may turn Catholic against Protestant, and Protestant against Protestant, and try to foist your own religion upon the mind of man. If you can do one, you can do the other. Because fanaticism and ignorance is forever busy, and needs feeding. And soon, your Honor, with banners flying and with drums beating we'll be marching backward, BACKWARD, through the glorious ages of that Sixteenth Century when bigots burned the man who dared bring enlightenment and intelligence to the human mind
-Henry Drummond, a character in Inherit The Wind — Jerome Lawrence

We do not learn for the benefit of anyone, we learn to unlearn ignorance. — Michael Bassey Johnson

I Dream I am from a clash of Color, From an idea of love, modeled for others' perception. I see me as I am, but am hidden from others' views. I am who I am, but a living contradiction to my peers. I see life as a blessing, a gift granted to me. Why should my tint describe me? Why should my culture degrade me? Why should the ignorance of another conjure my presence? Too many times I've been disappointed by the looks, By the sneers and misconceptions of the people who don't get me, Who don't understand why it hurts. I dream of a place of glory and freedom, Of losing the weight of oppression on my back. I dream of the enlightenment of people, Of the opening of their eyes. I dream for acceptance, And for the blessing of feeling special just once. One moment of glory . . . for the true virtue in my life. For the glimmer of freedom, and a rise in real pride. — Glenn E. Singleton

I am often impressed with those that admit their ignorance, for it is the first step towards breaking out of the prison called freedom. — Lionel Suggs

To learn, you must be humble. You must be prepared to admit your ignorance. You must allow yourselves to be filled with the vital information presented to you via the skills and dedication of those who have gone before you down the long path to enlightenment. — Paula Brackston

Many books have been written to show that Christianity has emasculated the world, that it shoved aside the enlightenment and wisdom of Hellas for a doctrine of superstition and ignorance. — Edgar Lee Masters

As a boy I was saved from a life of ignorance by my little hometown library.
As a college student I was educated in the
stacks of the Swarthmore library. And as an adult I use libraries daily in my search for the facts and the enlightenment I use in writing my books.
In fact, I like libraries so much that I
married a librarian. — James A. Michener

That which you call the devil is part of you. The myth of the devil and of evil is imposed on us by our ignorance. The human mind is a great wonder and magician. It can assume the form of both a devil and a divine being any time it wishes. It can be a great enemy or a great friend, creating either hell or heaven for us. There are many tendencies hidden in the unconscious mind which must be uncovered, faced, and transcended before one intends to tread the path of enlightenment. — Swami Rama

Each being in the universe, therefore, inhabits a private world. It is as if the universe were populated by countless cinemas, each occupied by a single person, each eternally viewing a different film projected by consciousness, each eternally suspending disbelief. For the Yogacara, ignorance and suffering result from believing the movie to be real, from mistaking the projections to be an external world, from thinking that what appear to be external objects are independent of consciousness, and then running after them, desiring some and hating others. For the Yogacara, wisdom is the insight that everything is of the nature of consciousness and the product of one's own projections. With this insight, desire and hatred, attachment and aversion, naturally cease, for their objects are seen to be illusions. With the achievement of enlightenment, the substratum consciousness is transformed into the mirror like wisdom of a buddha. — Donald Lopez

Light was the symbol I tried to give them...The Cross was the symbol they adopted. The pain of self-sacrifice was obvious to them. The subjective reward--incomprehensible. Thus they changed it all. I told them of many mansions. They chose this mansion or that--scoured each other off the earth, to set one heaven in place of the heaven of those they defeated. Holy wars! Is such a thing conceivable to God as a holy war? Alas. The words--the images--the effort is still uncomprehended. I said Light. I said truth. I said Freedom. I meant enlightenment. Yet nearly every church that uses my name is a wall against light and a rampart against enlightenment, using fear, not love, to chain the generations in terror and pain and ignorance . . . And now--this is called civilization, and in my name, also! — Philip Wylie

The secrets of alchemy exist to transform mortals from a state of suffering and ignorance to a state of enlightenment and bliss. — Deepak Chopra

Ignorance is bliss, but Enlightenment is nirvana — Alejandro C. Estrada

Seeing the Way is like going into a dark room with a torch; the darkness instantly departs, while the light alone remains. When the Way is attained and the truth is seen, ignorance vanishes and enlightenment abides forever. — Gautama Buddha

Everyone is afraid of enlightenment, knowledge, completion. People are afraid of being exposed. — Frederick Lenz

For the tyranny of ignorance, of fear, of superstitious priests, of arbitrary kings, of all the bogies fought by eighteenth-century enlightenment it substitutes another tyranny, a technological tyranny, a tyranny of reason, which, however, is just as inimical to liberty, just as inimical to the notion that one of the most valuable things in human life is choice for the sake of choice, not merely choice of what is good, but choice as such. — Anonymous

Sometimes it's good to let people swim in ocean of ignorance and let them struggle to the shores of enlightenment. — Uzoma Nnadi

For Bulgakov, however, the greatest underlying source of unease, amounting at times to despair, was something less tangible though very real to him, since it occurs as an ever-present refrain throughout these stories. This was the sense of being a lone soldier of reason and enlightenment pitted against the vast, dark, ocean-like mass of peasant ignorance and superstition... [in] the fearsome, pre-literate, mediaeval world of the peasantry — Michael Glenny

Teachers must be celebrated for moving civilization from ignorance to enlightenment, from apathy to responsibility. — Sharon M. Draper

This is something I consider Enlightenment to be - and that is to give intellectual or spiritual understanding and to be free of ignorance, false beliefs or prejudice. Able to honor each person as they walk their own path and not infringe our own personal beliefs onto them but to accept what ever form that carries truth for them — Jane Seymour

If ignorance is bliss, than knowledge is blissful enlightenment or a serious pain in the butt - depends on how I feel on any particular day! — M.P. Sharma

Mankind's biggest blunder, ignorance. Mankind's second, infallible. — M.T. Dismuke

Reality is not the world as you perceive it. Reality is the world perceived through enlightenment. It's the same world; but it's not the same world. — Frederick Lenz

They [his readers, whom he asks to be his friends] will find that I have always loved truth so passionately that I have often resorted to lying as a way of first introducing it into minds which were ignorant of its charms (Casanova, p.34, Vol 1 Preface). — Giacomo Casanova

In the spiritual search doubt is beneficial, a closed mind is not. Doubt used wisely assists enlightenment; a closed mind assists ignorance. — Ian Gardner

Ignorance of each other is what has made unity impossible in the past. Therefore we need enlightenment. We need more light about each other. Light creates understanding, understanding creates love, love creates patience, and patience creates unity. Once we have more knowledge (light) about each other, we will stop condemning each other and a United front will be brought about. — Malcolm X

There are those who know and those who don't know. And for every ten thousand who don't know there's only one who knows. That's the miracle of all time
the fact that these millions know so much but don't know this. — Carson McCullers

There are about 15 million Muslims in the EU. They face ignorance, insult and even persecution. They cannot be wished away. To impose Enlightenment freedoms is self-defeating. Anyway, the Muslims have their own enlightenment. — James Buchan

If you have attained something, this is the surest proof that you have gone astray. Therefore, not to have is to have, silence is thunder, ignorance is enlightenment. — D.T. Suzuki

An enlightened person doesn't know it all. Enlightenment simply means walking beyond this and all worlds into nirvana, which is beyond knowledge and ignorance. — Frederick Lenz

They were in a position of total ignorance and people in that position often died without being enlightened. — Eoin Colfer

The present age has witnessed an extraordinary increase of a thinking public, by the facilities afforded to the diffusion of reading; the former happy resignation to ignorance begins to make way for a state of half-enlightenment, and few persons are willing to remain in the condition in which their birth has placed then. — Friedrich Schiller

There exist three poisons in life: desire, anger, and ignorance. One poison is the root of the other two. To attain enlightenment, you must swallow the root of your poisons, so that you die. You die many times to attain the enlightenment of Buddha. — H.S. Kim

Knowing your own ignorance is the first step to enlightenment. — Patrick Rothfuss

Innocence is the beginning of ignorance. Experience is the end of stupidity. — Michael Bassey Johnson