an ignorance which to conceive requires no less knowledge than to conceive knowledge itself.
 Michel de Montaigne, The Essays of Michel de Montaigne (1580). copy citation

add
Author Michel de Montaigne
Source The Essays of Michel de Montaigne
Topic ignorance self-knowledge
Date 1580
Language English
Reference
Note Translated by Charles Cotton
Weblink http://www.gutenberg.org/files/3600/3600-h/3600-h.htm

Context

“admiration is the foundation of all philosophy, inquisition the progress, ignorance the end. But there is a sort of ignorance, strong and generous, that yields nothing in honour and courage to knowledge; an ignorance which to conceive requires no less knowledge than to conceive knowledge itself. I read in my younger years a trial that Corras, [A celebrated Calvinist lawyer, born at Toulouse; 1513, and assassinated there, 4th October 1572.] a councillor of Toulouse, printed, of a strange incident, of two men who presented themselves the one for the other.” source