Ignorance and Bliss Quotes

“Some people just are naturally curious about how things got to be the way they are; they like puzzles, they like to search things out, they enjoy learning why. Others are indifferent to learning and see no particular advantage to asking questions that seem unnecessary for just carrying on. And”
― Mark Lilla, Ignorance and Bliss: On Wanting Not to Know

“Εκτός από το φόβο, οι πιο απείθαρχες δυνάμεις στον ανθρώπινο ψυχισμό είναι ίσως η υπερηφάνεια και η ντροπή, γι’αυτό και η ταπείνωση πυροδοτεί τόσο βίαια πάθη.”
― Mark Lilla, Ignorance and Bliss: On Wanting Not to Know

“Η υπεκφυγή του εαυτού μέσα στο κεφάλι μας είναι στην πραγματικότητα μια άσκηση που μας εκπαιδεύει για την υπεκφυγή του κόσμου έξω από το κεφάλι μας.”
― Mark Lilla, Ignorance and Bliss: On Wanting Not to Know

“Αποτελούμε αναγκαστικά μυστήριο για τον εαυτό μας, και κάθε ιδέα ότι μπορούμε να γίνουμε πλήρως ενιαίοι, μια για πάντα, είναι μια φαντασίωση που μοιάζει με το αστικό ιδεώδες του τέλεια περιποιημένου γκαζόν.”
― Mark Lilla, Ignorance and Bliss: On Wanting Not to Know

“The Russians were first to go through a political-intellectual cycle that has become familiar elsewhere in the world: a nation or culture encounters the modern West and, at first, feels backward and humiliated, so begins to slavishly imitate its ways. When the expected benefits of modernization do not materialize—or when they do, with unpalatable consequences—the new knowledge suddenly appears poisoned and is resisted. At that moment there arises from the depths of the imagination the idea of returning to a simpler past unburdened by this knowledge.”
― Mark Lilla, Ignorance and Bliss: On Wanting Not to Know

“But it is false: the more good one wants to do in the world, the more knowledge of evil one needs.”
― Mark Lilla, Ignorance and Bliss: On Wanting Not to Know

“friends, and they decided to steal some pears from an orchard. They weren’t hungry and threw the pears away immediately. Why? I had no motive for my wickedness except wickedness itself … I loved the self-destruction, I loved my fall, not the object for which I had fallen but my fall itself. That was radically evil, and he was just a boy.”
― Mark Lilla, Ignorance and Bliss: On Wanting Not to Know

“When Saint Paul idealized the fool who empties himself of worldly wisdom to be filled with the spirit, he did not let on that this might be a risky operation.”
― Mark Lilla, Ignorance and Bliss: On Wanting Not to Know

“One sees it at work in the fallacy, precious to anti-science fanatics, that the more ignorant a believer’s opinions and ideas might appear in the eyes of the educated world, the more likely they are to be correct and of divine origin.”
― Mark Lilla, Ignorance and Bliss: On Wanting Not to Know

“His writings became the petri dish in which a distinctive strain of anti-intellectualism developed within Christendom and thrives in our secular age.”
― Mark Lilla, Ignorance and Bliss: On Wanting Not to Know

“They are desperate to hear a voice from beyond that intervenes in the here and now, reveals what cannot be seen or understood, and promises mastery over it. Which is why a prophecy that runs against the grain of reason, delivered by someone who has abandoned his rational faculties, might strangely seem the more authentic voice of God. In those moments, the bagpipe has a clear advantage over the sage.”
― Mark Lilla, Ignorance and Bliss: On Wanting Not to Know

“For the simpleminded, it offers a way of appearing thoughtful without expending effort.”
― Mark Lilla, Ignorance and Bliss: On Wanting Not to Know

“as an epiphany but then must become an activity that Christians undertake their entire lives, examining their souls and avowing the sin they find there. This labor and divine grace are the necessary, if insufficient, conditions of human happiness.”
― Mark Lilla, Ignorance and Bliss: On Wanting Not to Know

“then there are people who, for whatever reason, have developed a particular antipathy toward the search for knowledge, whose inner doors are fastened tight against anything that might cast doubt on what they believe they already know. We have all met people with these basic attitudes. Most of us have also fallen into moods where they emerge in ourselves, however uncharacteristically.”
― Mark Lilla, Ignorance and Bliss: On Wanting Not to Know

“The faintest of all human passions is the love of truth. —A. E. Housman”
― Mark Lilla, Ignorance and Bliss: On Wanting Not to Know