“Arrogance is ignorance matured”
“Arrogance is ignorance matured” means that from ignorance (a person who doesn’t know things) one can develop or mature into arrogance (a person who is overconfident of his or her knowledge). “Arrogance is simply ignorance matured” was credited to the actor Martin Sheen in 1987. Sheen has frequently used the saying; in October 2012, Sheen called it an “old phrase.” It’s not known if Sheen picked up the saying from any source.
Wikipedia: Martin Sheen
Ramón Antonio Gerardo Estévez (born August 3, 1940), better known by his stage name Martin Sheen, and also RAGE (his initials), is an American actor known by younger television viewers for his performance as President Josiah Bartlet in the television series The West Wing (1999–2006). He achieved fame with roles in the films Badlands (1973) and Apocalypse Now (1979) and has made notable appearances in films including Wall Street (1987), Gettysburg (1993), The Departed (2006), The Amazing Spider-Man (2012), and in the Mass Effect video game trilogy.
14 February 1987, Frederick (MD) Post, pg. 1, right masthead:
“Arrogance is simply ignorance matured.”
—Martin Sheen
11 March 1987, Boston (MA) Globe, “From Silence to Activism” by Marian Christy, Living, pg. 78:
“Arrogance is ignorance matured. I’m arrogant. I’m arrogant enough to think I know the truth, that I can make a difference.” Now that’s arrogance.
(Martin Sheen—ed.)
Google News Archive
25 July 1995, The Ledger (Lakeland, FL), “Get proper perspective on Wal-Mart proposal,” Letters, pg. 6A, col. 3:
The letter reeks of arrogance, which is ignorance matured.
BILL RICHTER
Winter Haven
Google Books
The Omega Deception:
A Novel
By John Bayer
Nashville, TN: Broadman & Holman Publishers
2000
Pg. 53:
He loved to exploit the Gestapo agent’s arrogance. “After all,” he liked to tell his friends, “arrogance is nothing more than ignorance matured.”
Google Books
Seal Wars:
Twenty-five years on the front lines with the harp seals
By Paul Watson
Buffalo, NY: Firefly Books
2003
Pg. 9:
Despite a clear understanding that such arrogance is only ignorance matured, or perhaps even nurtured by it, year after year, Watson returns to the hunt and continues to risk his life confronting it.
Dave Matthews Band Forums
What’s your favorite quote(s)?
Cathy W
11-29-2008, 09:26 AM
“arrogance is ignorance matured”
I don’t know who said it - I just remember my high school psych teacher quoting it one day in class and it has always stuck with me.
Sue’s News
SATURDAY, JUNE 30, 2012
ARROGANCE IS IGNORANCE MATURED
(...)
Introduced by Senator Brown, Sheen gave a rousing speech. My favorite quote from his speech: “Arrogance is ignorance matured.” [Later, rushing home to the computer, to check the source of the quote, I expected that the quote was borrowed, but I was enormously pleased to learn that it is an original quote of Sheen’s.]
POLITICO
Martin Sheen: Romney is stupid, arrogant
By CAITLIN MCDEVITT | 10/29/12 9:37 AM EDT
Martin Sheen is thoroughly unimpressed with Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney.
(...)
Sheen used another “old phrase” to describe Romney’s performance in the second presidential debate.
“Mr. Romney really showed his ass there, and how stupid he is and arrogant,” the actor said. “There’s an old phrase, arrogance is ignorance matured, and that’s what we saw.”