In the world, people are programmed to seek happiness, but what they really seek is satisfaction. Happiness and satisfaction are similar, but not completely the same. Satisfaction is the feeling of contentment you feel after a big meal or after a long nap on a Sunday afternoon, while happiness is a chosen factor that can only be achieved through willpower. Many try to look in the outside world for the happiness that resides only within. Clarisse asks Montag if he is happy, and if he realizes that he is not, he turns to knowledge to find it (Bradbury 10). People turn to ignorance to erase bitterness and anger from their lives, while others, like Montag, attempt to intelligently understand anger and bitterness. At first, he was entangled in the lies society fed him, but as he progresses through the novel, he realizes that he can pursue happiness through the intellect. Ultimately, Bradbury showed that knowledge and ignorance are contradictory throughout Fahrenheit 451, but that people use them both for the same reason; to find happiness. In order to have a safe world that lacks understanding, knowledge and consciousness must be destroyed. As the saying goes, ignorance is bliss and in the world Montag lives in, that is the truth, or so it seems. Montag starts off as unconscious at first. One example is when Clarisse says, “I bet I know something else that you don’t.” There is dew on the grass in the morning” and Montag thought to himself that it was a simple fact that he did not know (Bradbury 9). Captain Beatty is the promoter of the ignorance depicted in this novel. He burns the books, the knowledge they contain and believes that without knowledge there will be no suffering. He declares: “Burn everything, burn everything. Fire... middle of paper ... society believes that intellect is useless when we can do physical things that are fun and make us "happier". Works Cited Lewis, Andrew. “Stop pressing.” Ignorance is bliss: why happiness has nothing to do with knowledge ::. Np, Feb-Mar. 2013. Internet. March 12, 201 Hudson, Paul. "Knowledge is power, ignorance is bliss: happiness finds the perfect balance | Elite Daily." Elite Daily. Np, February 7, 2014. Web. March 12, 2014. Kusnst, Jennifer. “The Head Reducer’s Guide to the Galaxy.” Is ignorance bliss? Np, August 24, 2011. Web. March 12, 2014. Burkeman, Oliver. “This column will change your life: Ignorance versus Knowledge.” The Guardian. Guardian News and Media, July 25, 2009. Web. March 12, 2014.Caruso, Denise. “Knowledge is only power if you know how to use it.” The New York Times. The New York Times, March 10, 2007. Web. March 12. 2014.