I would far rather be ignorant than knowledgeable of evils.

The line expresses a preference for innocence over a kind of knowledge that comes through exposure to wrongdoing, suffering, or moral corruption. It suggests that some “knowledge” is not enriching but contaminating: to understand evil intimately can erode one’s peace, trust, or ethical clarity. In tragic literature, such a sentiment often stands against the hard-won insight characters gain through catastrophe—implying that wisdom purchased at the price of trauma may be too costly. Read more broadly, the quote raises a perennial tension between experience and purity: whether it is better to remain uninitiated (and perhaps safer or happier) than to become worldly through acquaintance with humanity’s worst capacities.