Faith & Spirit Quote by William Shakespeare

"Ignorance is the curse of God; knowledge is the wing wherewith we fly to heaven"

William Shakespeare, Dramatist

About this Quote

Shakespeare loads this line with the kind of cosmic swagger his tragedies love: ignorance is not just a personal flaw, it is a damnation, a condition that pins you to the mud. Knowledge, by contrast, isn’t mere information or bookishness. It’s propulsion. The metaphor does the heavy lifting: wings imply lift, distance, risk, and a view that changes what you thought was real. Heaven isn’t only theology here; it’s the promise of a higher register of living, a mind unshackled from superstition, manipulation, and self-deceit.

The subtext is pointedly political. In Shakespeare’s world, ignorance is useful to people in power and lethal to the people under it. A populace that can’t read motives, laws, scripture, or history is easier to steer; characters in his plays are constantly undone by what they don’t know, or by what they refuse to know. Calling ignorance “the curse of God” is especially shrewd because it borrows religious authority to argue against the lazy comfort of religious certainty. If ignorance is divine curse, then seeking knowledge becomes not rebellion but duty.

There’s also a theatrical intent: Shakespeare is defending drama itself as a technology of knowledge. His stage is a lab where audiences practice perception - watching ambition, jealousy, propaganda, and desire form their plots. The line flatters the listener, but with teeth: if you stay ignorant, you’re choosing the fall. Knowledge is the only miracle on offer, and you have to earn your wings.

Quote Details

Topic	Knowledge
Source	Verified source: Henry VI, Part 2 (William Shakespeare, 1594) Text match: 95.00% Provider: Cross-Reference Evidence: And seeing ignorance is the curse of God, Knowledge the wing wherewith we fly to heaven, (Act IV, Scene VII (Lord Say’s speech) , in the 1594 quarto (first print appearance of this play-text)). This line is from Shakespeare’s play commonly titled Henry VI, Part 2 (spoken by Lord Say). The earliest known PRINT publication connected to this play is the 1594 quarto printed under the title The First part of the Contention betwixt the two famous Houses of Yorke and Lancaster... (often treated as an early/variant text of Henry VI, Part 2). Folger’s introduction to the text explicitly states the play was first printed in 1594 in that quarto form. The quote is often modernized/punctuated in quotation collections as: “Ignorance is the curse of God; knowledge is the wing wherewith we fly to heaven.” A readily verifiable primary-text witness for the wording is the play text at Act IV, Scene VII (e.g., the scene text reproduced here: https://shakespearenetwork.net/works/play/henry6p2?act_id=4&scene_id=7&scope=scene&toline=2713). For bibliographic confirmation of the 1594 first edition/quarto (including imprint details), see Folger’s Shakespeare Documented entry: https://shakespearedocumented.folger.edu/resource/document/henry-vi-part-2-first-edition . Other candidates (1) Reign of the Essence (Dr. Feridoun Shawn Shahmoradian, 2022) compilation95.0% ... Ignorance is the curse of God; knowledge is the wing wherewith we fly to heaven” (William Shakespeare). Occasiona...
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