Pettiness of mind, ignorance and presumption are the cause of stubbornness, because stubborn people only want to believe what they themselves can imagine, and they can imagine very few things.
Even the best-natured people, if uninstructed, are always blind and uncertain. We must take pains to instruct ourselves so that ignorance makes us neither too timid nor too bold.
There are petty-minded people who cannot endure to be reminded of their ignorance because, since they are usually quite blind to all things, quite foolish, and quite ignorant, they never question anything, and are persuaded that they see clearly what in fact they never see at all, save through the darkness of their own dispositions.
Ignorance makes for weakness and fear; knowledge gives strength and confidence. Nothing surprises an intellect that knows all things with a sense of discrimination.
Study and research into truth often only serves to make us see by experience our natural ignorance.
