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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

Cultural  

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

Abrahams: Maybe we should have called the book "Ignorance is Bliss."

From Salon • Oct. 3, 2023

The list is rounded out by "Ignorance is Bliss" from "House," "Belly Full of Turkey" from "How I Met Your Mother" and "Pilgrim Rick" from "This Is Us."

From Fox News • Nov. 20, 2021

It was presented eleven years ago, under the name of Where Ignorance is Bliss, with William Courtleigh and Rita Jolivet.

From Time Magazine Archive

Where Ignorance is Bliss, 'Tis Folly to be Wise When by myself, I fretted so constantly that the traces it left upon me became evident even to the dull comprehension of Mrs M'Swat.

From My Brilliant Career by Franklin, Miles