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About this quote

What does it mean?
True ignorance is not lacking knowledge but failing to realize that you lack it.
In plain terms
Not knowing you don't know is worse than not knowing.
What can you take from it?
Recognize what you don't know to learn.

Where it applies

  • education
  • self improvement
  • leadership

Putting it to work

  • ask questions
  • admit gaps
  • stay open

Questions to consider

  • What don't you know you don't know?
  • How do you spot ignorance?

Another view

Expertise often narrows focus rather than revealing total ignorance.

More from Alfred North Whitehead

  1. There remains the final reflection, how shallow, puny, and imperfect are efforts to sound the depths in the nature of things. In philosophical discussion, the …

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  2. We think in generalities, but we live in details.

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  3. Life is an offensive, directed against the repetitious mechanism of the Universe.

    Permalink to quote #72

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