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The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance. It is the illusion of knowledge.

— Stephen Hawking Misattributed

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Source, in full

Sometimes attributed to Hawking without a source, but originally from historian Daniel J. Boorstin. It appears in different forms in The Discoverers (1983), Cleopatra's Nose (1995), and introduction to The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1995)

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Knowledge

More quotes by Stephen Hawking

Although September 11 was horrible, it didn't threaten the survival of the human race, like nuclear weapons do.

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I still believe there are grounds for cautious optimism that we may now be near the end of the search for the ultimate laws of nature.

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Disorder increases with time because we measure time in the direction in which disorder increases.

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In a world that is in chaos politically, socially and environmentally, how can the human race sustain another 100 years?

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Men are born ignorant, not stupid; they are made stupid by education.

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Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Stephen Hawking (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.