This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
There is no liberty to men whose passions are stronger than their religious feelings; there is no liberty to men in whom ignorance predominates over knowledge; there is no liberty to men who know not how to govern themselves.
Isaac Asimov, born Isaak Yudovich Ozimov
If knowledge can create problems, it is not through ignorance that we can solve them."
Ibn `Arabi, full name was Abū 'Abdillāh Muḥammad ibn 'Alī ibn Muḥammad ibn `Arabī
Beyond doubt, the worshipper of God shows ignorance when he criticizes others on account of their beliefs. If he understood the saying of Junayd, “The color of the water is the color of the vessel containing it,” he would not interfere with the beliefs of others, but would perceive God in every form and in every belief.
There are truths which some men despise because they have not examined, and which they will not examine because they despise. There is one signal instance on record where this kind of prejudice was overcome by a miracle; but the age of miracles is past, while that of prejudice remains.
Age | Despise | Men | Miracles | Past | Prejudice | Will | Truths |
The whole family of pride and ignorance are incestuous and mutually beget each other.
The very essence of truth is plainness and brightness; the darkness an crookedness is our own. the wisdom of god created understanding, fit and proportionable to truth, the object and end of it, as the ye to the thing visible. If our understanding have a film of ignorance over it, or be blear with gazing on other false glitterings, what is that to truth?
Darkness | God | Ignorance | Object | Truth | Understanding | Wisdom | God |
The plea of ignorance will never take away our responsibilities.
Discourses on morality and reflection on human nature are the best means we can make use of to improve our minds, gain a true knowledge of ourselves, and recover our souls out of the vice, ignorance, and prejudice which naturally cleave to them.
Human nature | Ignorance | Knowledge | Means | Morality | Nature | Prejudice | Reflection |
A cheerful temper, joined with innocence, will make beauty attractive, knowledge delightful, and wit good natured. It will lighten sickness, poverty and affliction; convert ignorance into an amiable simplicity, and render deformity itself agreeable.
Affliction | Beauty | Good | Ignorance | Innocence | Knowledge | Poverty | Simplicity | Temper | Will | Wit | Beauty |
In the house of Ignorance there is no mirror in which to view your soul.
Karl Popper, fully Sir Karl Raimund Popper
Our knowledge can only be finite, while our ignorance must necessarily be infinite.
Why were we able to put hundreds of thousands of troops and support personnel in Saudi Arabia within a few months to fight Saddam Hussein when we are unable to mobilize hundreds of teachers or doctors and nurses and social workers for desperately underserved inner cities and rural areas to fight the tyranny of poverty and ignorance and child neglect and abuse?
Mortimer J. Adler, fully Mortimer Jerome Adler
Ultimately, there can be no disagreement between history, science, philosophy, and theology. Where there is disagreement, there is either ignorance or error.
Disagreement | Error | History | Ignorance | Philosophy | Science | Theology |