We live ignorant and die in errancy as we lived.

-Abu'l-'Ala¤   Al-Ma'arri
c.1000  Luzu'  miyya'  t, stanza 4 (translated by R  A Nicholson in Studies in Islamic Poetry,1921).

There is sometimes a greater judgement shewn in deviating from the rules of art, than in adhering to them; and†there ismore beauty inthe works of a great genius who is ignorant of all the rules of art, than in the works of a little genius, who not only knows but scrupulously observes them.

-Addison,Joseph
  In The Spectator, no.592,10 Sep.

Talis, inquiens, mihi videtur, rex, vita hominum praesens in terris, ad comparationem eius, quod nobis incertum est, temporis, quale cum te residente, ad caenam cum ducibus ac ministris tuis tempore brumale†adveniens unus passerum domum citissime, pervolaverit; qui cum per unum ostium ingrediens, mox per aliud exierit. Ipso quidem tempore, quo intus est, hiemis tempestate non tangitur, sed tamen parvissimo spatio serenitatis ad momentum excurso, mox de hieme in hiemem regrediens, tuis oculis elabitur. Ita haec vita hominum ad modicum apparet; quid autem sequatur, quidve praecesserit, prorsus ignoramus. 'Such,' he said,'O King, seems to me the present life of menon earth, incomparisonwiththattimewhichtousis uncertain, as if when on a winter's night you sit feasting with your ealdormen and thegnsöa single sparrow should flyswiftly intothehall, and coming inat one door, instantly flyoutthrough another.Inthattime inwhichit is indoorsit isindeed nottouched by thefuryofthewinter, and yet, this smallest space of calmness being passed almost in a flash, from winter going into winter again, it is lost to your eyes. Somewhat like this appears the life of man; but of what follows or what went before, we are utterly ignorant.'

-Bede known as  'theVenerable'
Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis  Anglorum (Ecclesiastical History of the English People, translated byB Colgrave,1969), bk.2, ch.13.

Be not ignorant of any thing in a great matter or a small.

-Bible (Apocrypha)
Ecclesiasticus 5:15.

Surely of all 'rights of man', this right of the ignorant man tobeguided by thewiser, tobe, gentlyor forcibly, held in the true course by him, is the indisputablest.

-Carlyle,Thomas
  Chartism, ch.6.

If girls aren't ignorant, they're cultured† You can't avoid suffering.

-Cooper,William pseudonym of  Harry Summerfield Hoff
  Scenes from Provincial Life, pt.3, ch.2.

   I do not consider it an insult but rather a compliment to be called an agnostic. I do not pretend to know where many ignorant men are sureöthat is all that agnosticism means.

-Darrow, Clarence Seward
  Speech in defence of  John T Scopes,15  Jul.

These two ignorant and unpolished people had guided themselves so faron in their journey of life, bya religious sense of duty and desire to do right.

-Dickens, CharlesJohn Huffam
^5  Of Mr and Mrs Boffin. Our Mutual Friend, bk.1, ch.9.

'Twonations; betweenwhomthere isnointercourseand no sympathy; who are as ignorant of each other's habits, thoughts and feelings, as if they were dwellers in different zones, or inhabitants of different planets; who are formed bya different breeding, are fed by a different 276 food, are ordered by different manners, and are not governed by the same laws.' 'You speak ofö'said Egremont, hesitatingly.'THE RICH ANDTHE POOR.'

-Disraeli, Benjamin, 1st Earl of Beaconsfield
  Sybil, bk.2, ch.5.

His eyesight has always been weak, a sort of film over the eyes. A doctor advised him not to read, but he said, 'Then I should be ignorant', and he refused an operation because there was a thousandth chance he might go blind and so remain ignorant.

-Gregory, Lady Isabella Augusta ne¤  e Persse
  Of Sean O'Casey.  Journal entry, 8  Jun.

Un sot savant est sot plus qu'un sot ignorant. A learned fool is more foolish than an ignorant fool. 590

-Molie'  re,Jean Baptiste Poquelin
  Les femmes savantes, act 4, sc.3.

The atrocious crime of being a young man, which [Walpole] has, with such spirit and decency, charged upon me, I shall neither attempt to palliate nor deny; but content myself with wishing that I may be one of those whose follies cease with their youth, and not of those who continue ignorant in spite of their age and experience.

-Pitt,William, 1st Earl of Chatham known as  the Elder
  Speech to the House of Commons, 6 Mar.

You know everybody is ignorant, only on different subjects.

-Rogers,Will
  In the NewYorkTimes, 31 Aug.

Men ignorant of letters, studious for their bellies, and ignominiously lazy.

-Sandys, George
  On the monks of Patmos. Relation of aJourney Begun An. Dom.1610. Spanish^US   philosopher,    poet   and   novelist,    Professor   of Philosophy  at  Harvard  (1907^12).  His  writing  career  began  as a   poet   with   Sonnets   and   Other  Verses   (1894),   but   he   later became  known  as  a  philosopher  and  stylist,  in  such  works  as The  Life  of  Reason  (5  vols, 1905^6),  Realms  of  Being  (4  vols, 1927^40),  and  his  novel The  Last  Puritan  (1935).  He  moved  to Europe   in  1912,   stayed   at   Oxford  during  World  War   I,   then settled in Rome.

The man whose life is spent in performing a few simple operations of which the effects too are, perhaps, always the same or very nearly the same, has no occasion to exert his understanding, or to exercise his invention. He generally becomes asstupidand ignorant asit ispossible for a human creature to become.

-Smith, Adam
  An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of theWealth of Nations, bk.5, ch.1, pt.3, article 2.

Nempe falluntur homines, quod se liberos esse putant; quae opinioinhoc soloconsistit, quodsuarum actionum sint conscii, et ignari causarum, a quibus determinantur. Haec ergo est eorum libertatis idea, quod suarum actionum nullam cognoscant causam. Men are mistaken in thinking themselves free; and this opinion consists of this alone, that theyare conscious of their actions and ignorant of the causes by which they are determined. This, therefore, is their idea of liberty, that they should know no cause of their actions.

-Spinoza, Baruch also known as Benedict de Spinoza
  Ethics, bk.2, prop.35, note.

What theydo in heaven we are ignorant of: what theydo not we aretold expressly, that they neither marry, norare given in marriage.

-Swift,Jonathan
Thoughts onVarious Subjects.

True science teaches, above all, to doubt and to be ignorant.

-Unamuno, Miguel de
  TheTragic Sense of Life (translated by P Smith,1953).