Originally Posted by
Maelochs
The true poison is ignorance---"Against ignorance, the gods themselves strive in vain," said some self-absorbed and wholly delusional pseudo-philosopher who didn't live the life he preached ..... and willful ignorance is the most toxic ... I call it 'The American Disease."
Close. Not a philosopher, pseudo- or otherwise, but the playwright Friedrich Schiller, in his 1802 play Maid Of Orleans, and not "ignorance" but "stupidity":
Folly, thou conquerest, and I must yield!
Against stupidity the very gods
Themselves contend in vain.
(Nietzsche's clever Bike Forums-like riposte: “
Against boredom the gods struggle in vain.”) (From "The Anti-Christ," 1895.)
Schiller again, addressing the topic of Shimano pricing differentials:
Don't let your heart depend on things
That ornament life in a fleeting way!
He who possesses, let him learn to lose,
He who is fortunate, let him learn pain.