6 Socrates Quotes on Ignorance

Socrates quotes on ignorance

6. When I left him, I reasoned thus with myself: I am wiser than this man, for neither of us appears to know anything great and good; but he fancies he knows something, although he knows nothing; whereas I, as I do not know anything, so I do not fancy I do. In this trifling particular, then, I appear to be wiser than he, because I do not fancy I know what I do not know.

7. And how is not this the most reprehensible ignorance, to think that one knows what one does not know? But I, O Athenians! in this, perhaps, differ from most men; and if I should say that I am in any thing wiser than another, it would be in this, that not having a competent knowledge of the things in Hades, I also think that I have not such knowledge.

21. I know nothing except the fact of my ignorance.

24. There is only one good, knowledge, and one evil, ignorance.

28. As for me, all I know is that I know nothing.

86. True knowledge exists in knowing that you know nothing.