Popular quotes about Stupidity! Wisdom and inspiration are here! | page 4
Those who understood, in fact, say: 'I mustn't do this, I mustn't do that,' so as not to commit some stupidity or other! Splendid! But at a certain point we realize that all life is stupidity; so tell me yourself what it means never to have done anything foolish. At the very least it means you have never lived.
Luigi PirandelloThere is more to be said for stupidity than people imagine. Personally I have a great admiration for stupidity. It is a sort of fellow-feeling, I suppose.
Oscar WildeStupidity exceeds and undercuts materiality, runs loose, wins a few rounds, recedes, gets carried home in a clutch of denial-and returns. Essentially linked to the inexhaustible, stupidity is also that which fatigues knowledge and wears down history.
Avital RonellIf you really want your films to say something that you hope is unique, then patience and stamina, thick skin and a kind of stupidity, a mule-like stupidity, is what you really need.
Terry GilliamI was blinded by stupidity for a brief moment in our life, for a flicker in the eternity in which you and I live, and I stumbled.
Paullina SimonsFirmness in decision is often merely a form of stupidity. It indicates an inability to think the same thing out twice.
H. L. MenckenCan 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 narrownessโin plain English, the stupidity which is still the average mark of our culture.
George EliotA history of civilization shares the presumptuousness of every philosophical enterprise: it offers the ridiculous spectacle of a fragment expounding the whole. Like philosophy, such a venture has no rational excuse, and is at best but a brave stupidity; but let us hope that, like philosophy, it will always lure some rash spirits into its fatal depths.
Will DurantIn fact, we will have to give up taking things for granted, even the apparently simple things. We have to learn to understand nature and not merely to observe it and endure what it imposes on us. Stupidity, from being an amiable individual defect, has become a social crime.
John Desmond BernalA rational man never distorts or corrupts his own standards and judgment in order to appeal to the irrationality, stupidity, or dishonesty of others.
Ayn RandThere are people who want to become rich; they become rich. If you persist you can fulfill any kind of stupidity
RajneeshNothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.
Martin Luther King, Jr.I was as afraid as the next man in my time and maybe more so. But with the years, fear had come to be regarded as a form of stupidity to be classed with overdrafts, acquiring a venereal disease or eating candies. Fear is a child's vice and while I loved to feel it approach, as one does with any vice, it was not for grown men and the only thing to be afraid of was the presence of true and imminent danger in a form that you should be aware of and not be a fool if you were responsible for others.
Ernest HemingwayNever fight with Russian. On your every stratagem they answer unpredictable stupidity.
Otto von BismarckAll that causes one man to differ from another is a very slight thing. What is it that is the origin of beauty or ugliness, health or weakness, ability or stupidity? A slight difference in the organs, a little more or a little less bile. Yet this more or less is of infinite importance to men; and when they think otherwise they are mistaken.
Luc de ClapiersStupidity is like bumping into a wall all the time. After a while you get tired of it and try to look the situation over and see if thereโs a doorway somewhere. I think most people eventually do look for the doorway and stop bumping into the wall
Robert Anton WilsonWe know of no spectacle more ridiculousโor more contemptibleโthan that of the religious reactionaries who dare to re-write the history of our republic. Or who try to do so. Is it possible that, in their vanity and stupidity, they suppose that they can erase the name of Thomas Jefferson and replace it with the name of some faith-based mediocrity whose name is already obscure? If so, we cheerfully resolve to mock them, and to give them the lie in their teeth.
Christopher HitchensHere's what I say: We will ignore the cult of doom and gloom and embrace the cause of zoom and boom. We will laugh at the stupidity of evil and hate, and summon the brilliance of praise and create. . . Life is crazily in love with us-wildly and innocently in love with us. The universe always gives us exactly what we need, exactly when we need it.
Rob BrezsnyWell . . . he lets it ruin his life. He gets so obsessed with going after the one thing that hurt him that he loses sight of everything else. He becomes isolated from everyone and everything. Paranoid. He feels like he can't trust anyone around him ever. In the end, he loses everything, even his life. And for what? Total stupidity, if you ask me.
Sherrilyn KenyonI think the fear of being seen as childish or crazy severely limits our enjoyment of the world around us, thus inducing a state of boredom that in turn gives rise to much of the stupidity and meanness that oftem seem to epitomize the human condtion. In fact, these ills merely signify that the dues we pay for adult respectability are far too high, and bring some 'benefits' of questionable value.
D. Patrick MillerYou could reason with someone who was halfway educated and appeal to his intelligence, but I felt helpless in the face of utter stupidity.
Robert CormierLooking at where the planet is now, we could screw things up massively or we could wise-up on a species level and actually make things better. If I had to put my money where my mouth is, I think we'll wise up globally but there will still be outbreaks of local stupidity.
Alastair ReynoldsNo matter how high are one's estimates of human stupidity, one is repeatedly and recurrently startled by the fact that:a) people whom one had once judged rational and intelligent turn out to be unashamedly stupid.b) day after day, with unceasing monotony, one is harassed in one's activities by stupid individuals who appear suddenly and unexpectedly in the most inconvenient places and at the most improbable moments.
Carlo M. CipollaWhy would you help us? (Delphine) I hear stupidity is a fatal disease. Doing my own experimentation to see if thatโs true or not. If I survive, weโll know itโs not. If I dieโฆwell, itโll suck. Bad. And I wonโt be happy. (Asmodeus)
Sherrilyn KenyonAs we come to grips with our own selfishness and stupidity, we make friends with the impostor and accept that we are impoverished and broken and realize that, if we were not, we would be God. The art of gentleness toward ourselves leads to being gentle with others -- and is a natural prerequisite for our presence to God in prayer.
Brennan ManningProgramming is a Dark Art, and it always will be. The programmer is fighting against the two most destructive forces in the universe: entropy and human stupidity. These are not things you can overcome with a "methodology" or on a schedule.
Damian ConwayHis mind scolded him for his stupidity and urged him to forget her but his heart had no justifications for its stand. It remained unmoved, its solidarity unaffected, its arrogance still holding.
Faraaz KaziThe true axis of evil in America is the brilliance of our marketing combined with the stupidity of our people.
Bill MaherWhether he likes it or not, [he] cannot remain incognito forever. He has outraged too many wise men and pleased too many fools to hide behind his too-appropriate order to assume leadership of the forces of stupidity he has marshalled, or his enemies will unmask him in order to better understand the disease that has produced such a warped and twisted mind.
Orson Scott CardI am the harvest of man's stupidity. I am the fruit of the holocaust. I prayed like you to survive, but look at me now. It is over for us who are dead, but you must struggle, and will carry the memories all your life. People back home will wonder why you can't forget.
Eugene B. SledgeThe whole dream of democracy is to raise the proletarian to the level of stupidity attained by the bourgeois.
Gustave FlaubertStupidity is a blockage in the ability to receive, integrate and transmit new signals.
Robert Anton WilsonSometimes we desire absolute nonsense because in our stupidity we see in this nonsense the easiest way of attaining some conjectural good.
Fyodor DostoevskyAvoidable human misery is more often caused not so much by stupidity as by ignorance, particularly our ignorance about ourselves.
Carl SaganAn all encompassing uncertainty on the part of any person is either a sign of utter stupidity or extreme intelligence. Only the not so dumb, or the not so smart, are ever certain about anything.
Derek R. AudetteThe country you're born in is where your passport comes from. No, not according to Donald Trump! No, not at all. I resent that kind of extremism of any kind. Left wing, right wing. Anyway at all. Anything that judges other people so harshly and across the board stupidity-wise. I got no time for that.
John LydonBoredom and stupidity and patriotism, especially when combined, are three of the greatest evils of the world we live in.
Robertson DaviesIn summary, Intelligence Intensification is desirable, because there is not a single problem confronting humanity that is not either caused or considerably worsened by the prevailing stupidity (insensitivity) of the species: badly wired robots bumping into and maiming and killing each other.
Robert Anton WilsonAfter I reached my teens I decided I didn't want to hang out with anyone. I couldn't handle the stupidity.
Kurt CobainOurs may become the first civilization destroyed, not by the power of our enemies, but by the ignorance of our teachers and the dangerous nonsense they are teaching our children. In an age of artificial intelligence, they are creating artificial stupidity.
Thomas SowellSince we proposed punctuated equilibria to explain trends, it is infuriating to be quoted again and again by creationists-whether through design or stupidity, I do not know-as admitting that the fossil record includes no transitional forms. Transitional forms are generally lacking at the species level, but they are abundant between larger groups.
Stephen Jay GouldIt is hard to imagine, but in a Maryland school, a 13- year old girl was arrested for refusing to say the pledge of allegiance. There is more at work than stupidity and a flight from responsibility on the part of educators, parents and politicians who maintain these laws, there is also the growing sentiment that young people constitute a threat to adults and that the only way to deal with them is to subject them to mind-crushing punishment.
Henry GirouxRight, and the definition of basic stupidity is to keep doing the same thing over and over again while expecting a different result. Iโm not stupid. (Xypher) I didnโt say to keep doing it. Move forward with purpose. Examine what went wrong and correct that one mistake. (Acheron)
Sherrilyn Kenyon