Faith & Spirit Quote by William Shakespeare

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.