‘ignorance is bliss’: meaning and origin

means that, if one is unaware of an unpleasant fact or situation, one cannot be troubled by it—coined by the English poet Thomas Gray in An Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College, first published in 1747

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meaning and origin of ‘far from the madding crowd’

The phrase far from the madding crowd is used in reference to a private or secluded place. It is an allusion to An Elegy wrote in a Country Church Yard (published in 1751), by the English poet Thomas Gray (1716-71). When he composed this poem, Thomas Gray was living near St Giles’ parish church at Stoke Poges in Buckinghamshire. Meditating […]

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