Feather
Home People Charles Darwin Ignorance More Frequently Begets Confidence Than
Charles Darwin Portrait

"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge."

— Charles Darwin

Ignorance More Frequently Begets Confidence Than

Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge.

— Charles Darwin
confidence humility knowledge

About this quote

Charles Darwin wrote this in the introduction to The Descent of Man (1871), specifically in the context of human beings overestimating their own knowledge. The observation anticipated what is now called the Dunning-Kruger effect — the tendency for people with limited knowledge to overestimate their competence. Darwin applied the insight to humans' tendency to feel certain about their own uniqueness and superiority in the natural order.

Source

The Descent of Man, Introduction (1871)

It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is most adaptable to change.
— Charles Darwin
from On the Origin of Species
There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.
— Charles Darwin
from On the Origin of Species
A man who dares to waste one hour of time has not discovered the value of life.
— Charles Darwin
from On the Origin of Species
View all quotes by Charles Darwin →
A
Alfred Russel Wallace
Naturalist
Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein
Physicist
Aristotle
Aristotle
Philosopher