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• Ignorance is bliss
  Ignorance is bliss

  Not knowing something is often more comfortable than knowing it.
• ignorance is bliss
  ignorance is bliss

  What you don't know won't hurt you. For example, She decided not to read the critics' reviews—ignorance is bliss. Although its truth may be dubious at best, this idea has been expressed since ancient times. The actual wording, however, comes from Thomas Gray's poem, “Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College” (1742): “Where ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise.”

Ignorance is bliss

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1. Not knowing something is often more comfortable than knowing it.

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ignorance is bliss Idioms  

1. What you don't know won't hurt you. For example, She decided not to read the critics' reviews—ignorance is bliss. Although its truth may be dubious at best, this idea has been expressed since ancient times. The actual wording, however, comes from Thomas Gray's poem, “Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College” (1742): “Where ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise.”

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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.’”

Example Sentences

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Ignorance is bliss ignorance is bliss

"I still don’t think it’s hit me a little bit. Ignorance is bliss at this point where you don’t really realize what’s going on yet, but it felt good," Ingram said.

From Fox News ● Oct. 24, 2021

“I still don’t think it’s hit me a little bit. Ignorance is bliss at this point where you don’t really realize what’s going on yet, but it felt good,” Ingram said.

From Seattle Times ● Oct. 24, 2021

So this week I learned the true meaning of "Ignorance is bliss."

From US News ● Oct. 22, 2014

Ignorance is bliss for Ernests Gulbis on tour.

From BBC ● Aug. 28, 2014

I have quoted the old adage, that "Ignorance is bliss;" but alas! is it not to trifle with the most solemn considerations?

From Forty Years in the Wilderness of Pills and Powders Cogitations and Confessions of an Aged Physician by Alcott, William A. (William Andrus)

And for those of us who watch compulsively and wouldn’t know a dossier from a dog pound, ignorance is bliss.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 16, 2025

David Zucker: You are quoted as saying that "ignorance is bliss."

From Salon ● Oct. 3, 2023

It’s terrible to say, but part of me did think that ignorance is bliss.

From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 10, 2022

To all the commentators with their sarcasm and snark: ignorance is bliss.

From New York Times ● Sep. 10, 2017

No more;—where ignorance is bliss,     'Tis folly to be wise.

From Select Poems of Thomas Gray by Carruthers, Robert