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 satisfaction you get after a big meal or a long nap on a Sunday afternoon, while happiness is a chosen factor that can only be achieved through willpower. Many try to search the outside world for the happiness that can only be found within themselves. Clarisse asks Montag if he is happy, and when she realizes that he is not, she turns to knowledge to find him (Bradbury 10). People turn to ignorance to erase bitterness and anger from their lives, while others, like Montag, try to intelligently understand anger and bitterness. At first he was trapped in the lies fed to him by society, but as he progresses through the novel, he realizes that he could seek happiness through intellect. Ultimately, Bradbury demonstrated that knowledge and ignorance are contradictory in Fahrenheit 451, but that people use both for the same reason; to find happiness. To have a safe world devoid of understanding, knowledge and awareness would have to be destroyed. As they say, ignorance is a blessing and in the world Montag lives in, that's the truth, or so it seems. Montag starts off as unaware at first. An example is when Clarisse says, “I bet I know something else that you don't know. There is dew on the grass in the morning” and Montag thinks to himself that that was a simple fact he didn't know (Bradbury 9). Captain Beatty is the promoter of the ignorance portrayed in this novel. He burns the books, the knowledge within them and believes that without knowledge there will be no suffering. He states: “Burn everything, burn everything. Fire… middle of paper… Society believes that intellect is unnecessary when you could be doing physical things that are fun and make you “happier”. Works Cited Lewis, Andrew. "Stop pressing." Ignorance is happiness: because happiness has nothing to do with knowledge ::. Np, February-March 2013. Web. 12 March 201 Hudson, Paul. "Knowledge is power, ignorance is bliss: happiness is achieving the perfect balance | Elite Daily." Elite newspaper. Np, 7 February 2014. Web. 12 March 2014. Kusnst, Jennifer. "A Shrink's Guide to the Galaxy." Is ignorance a blessing? Np, August 24, 2011. Web. March 12, 2014. Burkeman, Oliver. “This column will change your life: Ignorance vs. Knowledge.” The Guardian. Guardian News and Media, 25 July 2009. Web. 12 March 2014. Caruso, Denise. "Knowledge is power only if you know how to use it." The New York Times. The New York Times, March 10, 2007. Web. March 12. 2014.