A little learning is a dangerous thing

Cultural  

1. People who know only a little do not understand how little they know and are therefore prone to error. First said by Alexander Pope.

---

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

A little learning is a dangerous thing

Pope says, very truly, in his "Essay on Criticism":— A little learning is a dangerous thing; Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring.

From Complete Project Gutenberg Earl of Chesterfield Works by Philip Dormer Stanhope, Earl of Chesterfield

A little learning is a dangerous thing, but a little patronage is more so; the three Miss Browns appointed all the old maids, and carefully excluded the young ones. 

From Sketches by Boz, illustrative of everyday life and every-day people by Charles Dickens

A better poet than Boileau, and at least as good a scholar as Mr. de Sévigné, has said, "A little learning is a dangerous thing."

From Byron's Poetical Works, Volume 1 by Ernest Hartley Coleridge

But as Pope says,— "A little learning is a dangerous thing; Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring: There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain, And drinking largely sobers us again."

From Architects of Fate or, Steps to Success and Power by Orison Swett Marden

A little learning is a dangerous thing; Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring; There shallow drafts intoxicate the brain, And drinking largely sobers us again.

From Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 353, March 1845 by Various