Quote #94598
It's an universal law-- intolerance is the first sign of an inadequate education. An ill-educated person behaves with arrogant impatience, whereas truly profound education breeds humility.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
About This Quote
This quote needs no introduction—at least for now. We're working on adding more context soon.
Interpretation
The saying contrasts two outward attitudes—intolerance and humility—as indicators of the depth of one’s learning. It argues that when education is shallow or merely credentialed, it often produces certainty without understanding, which shows up as impatience and contempt for disagreement. By calling intolerance a “first sign,” the line frames it as an early diagnostic: the less a person has grappled with complexity, the more quickly they dismiss others. “Profound education,” by contrast, is portrayed as enlarging awareness of one’s own limits and of the world’s nuance, making humility—not arrogance—the natural outcome. The quote thus treats intellectual maturity as ethical and temperamental, not just informational.




