Famous proverb in English. "Ignorance is Bliss"
But Why ignorance is called bliss?
This Question was asked in the Miss world contest.
All young contestants came up with some stupid answers.
‘Ignorance is bliss because it's easier to support something blindly than exploring all the options.’
‘If you don't know something, it can't hurt you.’
But the real meaning is very different.
‘Ignorance is bliss’ does not mean that you're happier not knowing some particular thing. It does not mean that you will feel better not getting the bad news.
So what does it mean? Where did it come from?
It was written in the Poem ‘Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College’ by Thomas Gray.Thomas Gray is an English poet who lived in 1742. Gray is basically a pessimist. He saw sorrow in everything around him.When he saw a couple of college boys playing, he wrote this poem and unintentionally added a proverb to the language.
".Yet ah! why should they know their fate?
Since sorrow never comes too late,
And happiness too swiftly flies.
Thought would destroy their paradise.
No more; where ignorance is bliss, '
Tis folly to be wise."
It has been observed that Gray didn't mean it is better to be ignorant than wise at all times, for he makes an important qualification by using the word where. But a reading of the whole poem shows that he did mean it is better for man to be blissfully ignorant of his fate."
-- Dear! Jap Evans
