Friendship and Ignorance

And not in a half-ass way, like some posts. A significant connection.

First, two for ignorance, cause I like to find out who I was on the same page as.

"O atoms of a day! O my companions in infinite littleness, born like me to suffer everything and to be ignorant of everything, are there enough madmen among you to believe that they know all these things? No, there are not; no, at the bottom of your hearts you feel your nonentity as I render justice to mine. But you are arrogant enough to want people to embrace your vain systems; unable to be tyrants over our bodies, you claim to be tyrants over our souls." Voltaire, Philosophical Dictionary

"Oh, happy he who still hopes that he can
Emerge from Error's boundless sea!
What man knows not, is needed most by man,
And what man knows, for that no use has he."
Goethe, Faust

Error's boundless sea. I am caught in Error's boundless sea.

And two for friendship.

"Almost every man we meet requires some civility--requires to be humored; he has some fame, some talent, some whim of religion or philanthropy in his head that is not to be questioned, and which spoils all conversation with him. But a friend is a sane man who exercises not my ingenuity, but me. My friend gives me entertainment without requiring any stipulation on my part." Emerson, "Friendship"

"I set it down as a fact that if all men knew what each said of the other, there would not be four friends in the world." Pascal, "Pensees"

So, it's a good thing we're all so ignorant, or we wouldn't have any friends...