"Have the courage to be ignorant of a great number of things, in order to avoid the calamity of being ignorant of everything"

This quote by Sydney Smith encourages us to be selective in what we pick to discover and comprehend. He recommends that it is much better to be ignorant of a variety of things, rather than to be oblivious of whatever. This is since having a broad understanding of lots of subjects can be frustrating and can result in a lack of understanding of any one topic. By having the guts to be oblivious of a great number of things, we can focus our attention on the subjects that are most important to us and get a deeper understanding of them. This will help us to prevent the catastrophe of being ignorant of whatever. In other words, it is much better to be a specialist in a few things than to be a novice in lots of.