Quotes About Stupidity

It's usually easier to rouse stupidity to action than to arouse wisdom to effort, for wisdom sees alternatives while stupidity lacks the imagination to do this. All sinister interests in a country can depend ultimately upon the strength of stupidity.

I like silly things. I think that "silly-stupid" or "stupid-smart" might be my philosophy, which is to combine a veneer of intelligence with an undercurrent of crass stupidity. Sometimes that stupidity is in the form of the actual joke that's being told, or it could be in the way the joke is told. Like, repetition is really stupid, but it's really funny. Or it could be that the punchline itself is stupid.

[I am fascinated by stupidity] because normal intelligence is boring. Two plus two makes four - finished. You have no possibilities! Stupidity is infinite. Two plus two can make billions of different numbers.

Naivete in grownups is often charming; but when coupled with vanity it is indistinguishable from stupidity.

Do you know what chaos stands for? C-H-A-O-S stands for Critical Hate And Overwhelming Stupidity.

To be stupid, selfish, and have good health are three requirements for happiness, though if stupidity is lacking, all is lost.

Can anything be more disgusting than to hear people called 'educated' making small jokes about eating ham, and showing themselves empty of any real knowledge as to the relation of their own social and religious life to the history of the people they think themselves witty in insulting? [...] The best thing that can be said of it is, that it is a sign of the intellectual narrowness—in plain English, the stupidity which is still the average mark of our culture.

Some scientists claim that hydrogen, because it is so plentiful, is the basic building block of the universe. I dispute that. I say there is more stupidity than hydrogen, and that is the basic building block of the universe.

Among the many things that profoundly impress me about the Dalai Lama, quite high up on the list is his ability to say "I don't know". I've often wished that other people in prominent positions wouldn't feel the compulsion to have an answer for everything and would feel equally free to say "I don't know." It's a sign of wisdom to know that you don't know and a sign of stupidity to think that you know everything. I admire it enormously in him, and wonder why so few people in leading positions reach that stage.

I am going to put the miners, the steel workers, and so many of our other workers that are being clobbered by the stupidity of our government's leadership - I am going to put them back to work. That includes the steel workers.

Any real New Yorker is a you-name-it-we-have-it-snob whose heart brims with sympathy for the millions of unfortunates who through misfortune, misguidedness or pure stupidity live anywhere else in the world.

Once the decision has been made, close your ear even to the best counter argument: sign of a strong character. Thus an occasional will to stupidity.

Just after they exist, all men start travelling; some towards the land of the truth, some towards the land of the stupidity! Most men are on their way to the second land!

You even called me stupid in your verse, and I'm almost agreeing, for where stupidity is involved, you are quite an expert, friend.

If all people learned to think in the non Aristotelian manner of quantum mechanics, the world would change so radically that most of what we call "stupidity" and even a great deal of what we consider "insanity" might disappear, and the "intractable" problems of war, poverty and injustice would suddenly seem a great deal closer to solution.

Most people are chained to their own fear and stupidity and haven’t the sense to level a cold eye at just what is wrong with their lives. Most people will continue on, dissatisfied but never attempting to understand why, or how they might change things for the better, and they die with nothing in their hearts but dirt and old, thin blood - weak blood, diluted - and their memories aren’t worth a goddamned thing.

Religion, a mediaeval form of unreason, when combined with modern weaponry becomes a real threat to our freedoms. This religious totalitarianism has caused a deadly mutation in the heart of Islam and we see the tragic consequences in Paris today. I stand with Charlie Hebdo, as we all must, to defend the art of satire, which has always been a force for liberty and against tyranny, dishonesty and stupidity. 'Respect for religion' has become a code phrase meaning 'fear of religion.' Religions, like all other ideas, deserve criticism, satire, and, yes, our fearless disrespect.

I think stupidity in business is really an interesting thing. What winds up happening is a disconnect between your company's strategic management and then your more applied on-the-street management. I guarantee with you that the board of directors of most companies has no idea what the costs of hiring people really is in the HR department.

Now that physics is proving the intelligence of the universe what are we to do about the stupidity of mankind? I include myself. I know that the earth is not flat but my feet are. I know that space is curved but my brain has been condoned by habit to grow in a straight line. What I call light is my own blend of darkness. What I call a view is my hand-painted trompe-l'oeil. I run after knowledge like a ferret down a ferret hole. My limitations, I call the boundaries of what can be known. I interpret the world by confusing other people's psychology with my own.

Some people have a gift for stupidity, an almost mystic ability to withstand any form of logic.

One should commit no stupidity twice, the variety of choice is, in the end, large enough.

In truth, the legitimate contention is, not of one age or school of literary art against another, but of all successive schools alike, against the stupidity which is dead to the substance, and the vulgarity which is dead to form.

Literature can be divided into two large families: the religious and the secular one. The first reveals the origin of stupidity, the second follows its evolution.

Doubt is my boon companion, the faithful St. Bernard ever at my side. Whether writing essays or just going about daily life, I am constantly second-guessing myself. My mind is filled with 'yes, buts,' 'so whats?' and other skeptical rejoinders. I am forever monitoring myself for traces of folly, insensitivity, arrogance, false humility, cruelty, stupidity, immaturity and, guess what, I keep finding examples. Age has not made me wiser, except maybe in retrospect.

To forget one's purpose is the commonest form of stupidity.

Egotism is the anesthetic that dulls the pain of stupidity.

Bad sign when the thought of your x-girlfriend sends you reeling in a search for new adjectives to describe stupidity and thoughtlessness?

Public opinion reigns in society because stupidity reigns amongst the stupid.

There are only two ways by which to rise in this world, either by one's own industry or by the stupidity of others.

Captain Crawford didn't like the idea of any kind of murder, but he went at it patiently and honestly and with none of the stupidity and bombast and rubber-hose techniques that Los Angeles crime fiction writers had led me to expect. I'd gotten the impression that unless a gifted amateur in love with the lady got himself almost beaten to a pulp and practically inside the lethal gas chamber before he unmasked the venal and brutalized constabulary, any innocent bystander they could get their hands on was a gone duck.

An intelligent man, a man who has a little meditative consciousness, can make his life a beautiful piece of art, can make it so full of love and full of music and full of poetry and full of dance that there are no limitations for it. Life is not hard. It is man's stupidity that makes it hard.

I used to think she was quite intelligent , in my stupidity. The reason I did was because she knew quite a lot about the theater and plays and literature and all that stuff. If somebody knows quite a lot about all those things, it takes you quite a while to find out whether they're really stupid or not.

I have this insane optimistic streak that the American people prevail over the stupidity that the leadership exhibits time and time again, and I think that's the truth.

Aren’t you forgetting something?” – Acheron “What?” – Artemis “Your payment.” – Acheron “The happiness on your face when first you touched him was enough. I only wish you’d been there when your daughter was born, but that was my fault. I’ve had a lifetime of joy, hugs and love from her and you missed all of that because of my stupidity and fear. His life is my gift to both of you. Let’s hope the future is much kinder to all of us than the past has been.” – Artemis

General George Patton, General Douglas MacArthur are spinning in their grave at the stupidity of what we're doing in the Middle East.

Ignorance is innocence - stupidity comes with experience

Insanity is often the logic of an accurate mind overtasked. Good mental machinery ought to break its own wheels and levers, if anything is thrust among them suddenly which tends to stop them or reverse their motion. A weak mind does not accumulate force enough to hurt itself; stupidity often saves a man from going mad.

This cures everything except stupidity, which is an epidemic on the rise.

Fame and riches are fleeting. Stupidity is eternal

One of the most stupid things to do is to pretend you are smart. When you pretend to be smart, you are at the height of stupidity.

The incomparable stupidity of life teaches us to love our parents; divine philosophy teaches us to forgive them.

The stupidity of people comes from having an answer for everything. The wisdom of the novel comes from having a question for everything. The novelist teaches the reader to comprehend the world as a question. There is wisdom and tolerance in that attitude. In a world built on sacrosanct certainties the novel is dead.

Money demands that you sell, not your weakness to men's stupidity, but your talent to their reason.

Three great forces rule the world: stupidity, fear and greed.

Only ignorance excuses stupidity

Contrary to what people may say, there's no upper limit to stupidity.

What is it you most dislike? Stupidity, especially in its nastiest forms of racism and superstition.

Stupidity trumps Machiavelli almost every time when you are looking for an explanation.