Please explain this phrase for me.?

Question

At the end of every school assembly program, our principle use to always say, where ignorance is bliss, it is folly to be wise, someone told me that it is in the bible also. Please explain what it means.

Answer 1

No...it's NOT from the Bible. Thomas Gray wrote it.

It means: "Not knowing something is often more comfortable than knowing it."

This proverb resembles “What you don’t know cannot hurt you.”

It figures in a passage from “On a Distant Prospect of Eton College,” by the eighteenth-century English poet Thomas Gray: “Where ignorance is bliss, / ‘Tis folly to be wise.’”

Answer 2

That is actually a phrase from the poem "Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College" by Thomas Gray.

"Ignorance is bliss" means that it is sometimes more comfortable to not know something because you don't have to deal with it.

"Tis folly to be wise" means it is foolish to be wise.

So basically it's saying if you don't know something, you're better off not knowing it. It is foolish to try to find out about something ("get wise") because once you know you know - you can no longer be unaware ("ignorant") of it.

Hope this helps!


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Answer 3

Actually its from Thomas Gray's poem Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College.

To me it means when you are around knuckleheads showing you are smart is not a good idea.

Answer 4

I don't know where it comes from. but ..you can easily understand it if you look up all the words. There are probably one or two you don't understand