If knowledge brings unhappiness it is better to be ignorant. The proverb comes
from Thomas Gray’s _Ode an a Distant Prospect of Eton College_. The poet sadly
considers the future of the boys there:

> Alas! Regardless of their doom
> The little victims play !
> No sense have they of ills to come
> Nor care beyond the day.

The last six lines of the poem run:

> Yet, ah! Why should they know their fate,
> Since sorrow never comes too late,
> And happiness too swiftly flies?
> Thought would destroy their paradise!
> No more; – where ignorance is bliss,
> ‘Tis folly to be wise.

##### See also:

* What the eye doesn’t see, the heart doesn’t grieve over