Daily Inspiration Quote by Molly Ivins

Ivins takes a familiar moral slogan and snaps it in half. “Ignorance is the root of all evil” sounds like civic sermonizing, the kind of line politicians love because it flatters the audience: if we just educate people, decency follows. Then she adds the blade: “And that no one knows the truth.” The second sentence cancels the first sentence’s comfort. If ignorance causes evil, but “truth” is unreachable, then the cure is never finished, never pure, never owned. That’s Ivins in miniature: a columnist’s impatience with sanctimony, paired with a reporter’s skepticism about anyone claiming final answers.

The subtext is a warning about power. In American politics, “truth” is often a credential worn by the loudest voice in the room, not the most honest. Ivins spent her career watching officials launder self-interest through certainty, especially in the culture wars and the posturing of Texas-and-Washington machismo. By insisting that “no one knows the truth,” she punctures the rhetorical weapon of absolute conviction. She’s not arguing for nihilism; she’s arguing for humility as a democratic virtue.

The intent, then, is less philosophical than practical: keep your mind open, keep your BS detector calibrated, and treat moral certainty as a red flag. Evil, in Ivins’s world, isn’t usually gothic villainy. It’s everyday damage done by people who are sure they’re right, insulated from consequences, and incurious about what they don’t know.