Russian term (edited): ���� ����, � �� ��� ���

"Learning is the eye of the mind" is a well known saying, so I thought adding something to it might help.

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Note added at 16 mins (2006-02-13 18:52:05 GMT)
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Probably 'drop behind' would be better.

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Note added at 21 mins (2006-02-13 18:57:08 GMT)
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THIS ONE IS EVEN BETTER:
learning is the eye of the mind - but lots of people are just blind

Russian term (edited): ���� ����, � �� ��� ���

Knowledge is light, but surrounded by a dark cloud of profanes

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Note added at 20 mins (2006-02-13 18:55:20 GMT)
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Knowledge is a little light among the darkness of profanes

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Note added at 21 mins (2006-02-13 18:56:15 GMT)
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Knowledgable are a tiny light among the vast darkness of profanes


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Note added at 26 mins (2006-02-13 19:01:26 GMT)
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Knowlegde illuminates but cannot dispel the darkness of ignorance

Knowledge illuminates but the dark veil of ignorance is still thicker.

Russian term (edited): ���� ����, � �� ��� ���

My humble attempt

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Note added at -33 min (2006-02-13 14:02:11 GMT)
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Another wild guess:

Learning makes people wise, but we haven't learned to make people do it.

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Note added at -29 min (2006-02-13 14:07:04 GMT)
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Or here's another one:
Some people learn and see the light, others stumble in the darkness forever.

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Note added at -27 min (2006-02-13 14:08:48 GMT)
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Also, I think Confucius said this:

Ignorance is the night of the mind, but a night without moon and star.

Perhaps you could adapt the adage for your purposes.

Russian term (edited): ���� ����, � �� ��� ���

or: knowledge is light, ignorants are dark mass

Russian term (edited): ���� ����, � �� ��� ���

Can't seem to come up with a similar pun.... maybe this will spark some ideas :)

Russian term (edited): ���� ����, � �� ��� ���

Ещё вариант.

Russian term (edited): ���� ����, � �� ��� ���

in making fun (or pan) of "...the education is a daylight, and the barbaric ignorance is a child of darkness"
вариант такой:
education is the daylight, but there's a darkness of childs of ignorance
проблема в том, что татаро-русское тьма -тысяча- в английском не реализуется.

Russian term (edited): ���� ����, � �� ��� ���

Свободные вариации =)

или
Education sheds light just to show that peoples are unenlighted

Russian term (edited): ���� ����, � �� ��� ���

Learning gives man light, still rare is bright

Sorry, no "тьма" mentioned

Russian term (edited): ���� ����, � �� ��� ���

This was an attempt to do a wrong thing - to do a "pun-for-pun" translation, but with a twist:

you can either use the same idea beneath the original pun (but you cannot do it in this case, as "тьма" means "legion" or 10,000 (or 100,000?) in Church Slavic language. So there's a wordplay involved. Cannot do :0)

Or you can try to reinvent the pun in the target language - like I tried in the heading of my answer.

Option #3 is to explain the pun - usually works poorly and rarely draws any laughs/cheers from the audience :-)

You can play around this by also saying something like:

- Scientists believe there's a constant amount of knowledge in the world. However, population of the Earth is steadily increasing...

- If "knowledge is the guiding light of life" - how come the night still falls every evening?

That would be the direction I would be moving in myself (in a written translation). If this was my interpreting "luck" to try this one for size, I would probably use the first one (in the title line of my answer). Do I have to remind you I like Woody Allen & his type of humor? :-))

By the way, at minus 50 minutes (negative fifty) that's my fastest answer so far :-)))

Good luck!

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Note added at -43 min (2006-02-13 13:53:06 GMT)
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My screen still reads -45 (and that's not the temperature outside - it's the time since the question was posted, negative forty five minutes...)

Strange...

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Note added at 1 day13 hrs (2006-02-15 08:03:50 GMT)
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Here's yet another idea:

if knowledge is a gift that keeps on giving...

and pull a pun based on that (potential topics: shortage, scarcity, etc.)

My point is - it is impossible to convey the original wordplay + the original idea (education is useful, but the ranks of the uneducated are swelling) in the same (brief) sentence or even in a one-liner stand-up type of saying - and the Russian original is just that, a Russian proverb mutilated for use in stand-up comedy. Ask anyone who lived in Rusia in mid- to late 90s about "Fomenko jokes" or "Jokes from the Russian Radio" - and you'll get the idea of how popular one-liners are in Russia.

Good luck!

Russian term (edited): ���� ����, � �� ��� ���

shame about all the people generating darkness!



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Note added at 6 days (2006-02-19 23:19:52 GMT)
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Learning is light, but many are in the dark.