Alternative might be: “Against stupidity, the gods themselves contend in vain.” (As for attribution, all I can remember is that Arthur C. Clark had it (as a quote?) in one of his books. Sorry. 
Asimov used it, in his book “The Gods Themselves”.
It is attributed to Johann Friedrich von Schiller, German philosopher.
And most of us here have not yet decided that the effort is in vain, just not quite as easy as initially thought.
“Ah, but a man’s reach should exceed his grasp, or what’s a heaven for?” – Robert Browning
Schiller’s actual words, translated to English, were
.
I think Cecil could get behind that.
Cool story, bro.
I’ve always found the statement ironic, as to think ignorance would be eradicated in such a short time (if ever) is itself ignorant. As far as I’m concerned, it’s taking exactly as long as I thought.
Stupidity and ignorance aren’t the same thing anyway. If you are stupid you have difficulty learning something. If you are ignorant, you don’t know about something. All of us are ignorant about many things. That doesn’t mean that we are all stupid.