I indeed haven't read the original. In context, it may make sense, but certainly pulled out of context like this, it's romantic twaddle.
Whenever I hear a person say that 'we really know nothing', it always reminds me of Insane Clown Posse being angry that science has an explanation for how magnets work... as in, finding comfort in expressing ignorance :)
Well, what's true is that these particular sentences were often not only used out of the context but even particularly modified to the significantly different "I know that I know nothing."
"Evidence that Socrates does not actually claim to know nothing can be found at Apology 29b-c, where he claims twice to know something. See also Apology 29d, where Socrates indicates that he is so confident in his claim to knowledge at 29b-c that he is willing to die for it."
So he was what we'd today call "a scientist" being ready to admit the changing but the finite limits of the knowledge while acquiring the new knowledge, not "an ignorant."
But it's also not surprising that not everybody even understood what was that about.
Whenever I hear a person say that 'we really know nothing', it always reminds me of Insane Clown Posse being angry that science has an explanation for how magnets work... as in, finding comfort in expressing ignorance :)