Quotes About Stupidity

Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity. Never underestimate the power of human stupidity.

It is not always easy to diagnose. The simplest form of stupidity - the mumbling, nose-picking, stolid incomprehension - can be detected by anyone. But the stupidity which disguises itself as thought, and which talks so glibly and eloquently, indeed never stops talking, in every walk of life is not so easy to identify, because it marches under a formidable name, which few dare attack. It is called Popular Opinion.

Complete masculinity and stupidity are often indistinguishable.

Most people are so frightened of the name of mathematics that they are ready, quite unaffectedly, to exaggerate their own mathematical stupidity.

Never be a spectator of unfairness or stupidity. Seek out argument and disputation for their own sake; the grave will supply plenty of time for silence.

You can't legislate stupidity.

Stupidity is sufficient unto itself. Wisdom can never learn enough.

I've been on the other side of the table many times, trying to get people to be sympathetic to projects, and I've been the victim of that kind of intense kindness masking extreme stupidity.

To think better, to think like the best humans, we are probably going to have to learn again to judge a person's intelligence, not by the ability to recite facts, but by the good order or harmoniousness of his or her surroundings. We must suspect that any statistical justification of ugliness and violence is a revelation of stupidity. (pg.192-193, People, Land, and Community)

There is a limit to human intelligence, but there is no limit to human stupidity

Whoever looks at America will see: the ship is powered by stupidity, corruption, or prejudice.

I am not a perfect being. . . . I have more faults than I know what to do with. I have a naughty temper. I am stubborn, impatient of hindrances and of stupidity. I have not in the truest sense a Christian spirit. I am naturally a fighter. I am lazy. I put off till tomorrow what I might better do today. I do not feel that I have been compensated for the two senses I lack. I have worked hard for all the senses I have got, and always I beg for more.

All happiness is a work of art: the smallest error falsifies it, the slightest hesitation alters it, the least heaviness spoils it, the slightest stupidity brutalizes it.

Of all creatures on earth, we humans have the highest level of stupidity.

In its more authoritarian forms, religion punishes questioning and rewards gullibility. Faith is not a function of stupidity, but a frequent cause of it.

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

The line between confidence and arrogance is very fine, Josh,” Flamel said quietly. “And the line between arrogance and stupidity even finer. Sophie,” he added, without looking at her.

Unless we maintain correctional institutions of such character that they create respect for law and government instead of breeding resentment and a desire for revenge, we are meeting lawlessness with stupidity and making a travesty of justice.

There's an element of paradox there - that at least you know where you stand with the fundamentalists. I mean, they're absolutely clear in their error and their stupidity, and so you can really go after them.

Just as the results of inebriety are most painful to the habitually sober, and just as the greatest saints have often been the greatest sinners, so, when the first class brain does something stupid, the stupidity of that occasion is colossal.

I'm a joker who has understood his epoch and has extracted all he possibly could from the stupidity, greed and vanity of his contemporaries.

Everything depends on whether we have for opponents those French tricksters or those daring rascals, the English. I prefer the English. Frequently their daring can only be described as stupidity. In their eyes it may be pluck and daring.

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.

People just relate to me. They know I'm a regular person brought up in a hardworking, poor family, that I've had all the struggles that people have. I'm just a friendly person. And I hopefully have a good sense of humor. People get a kick out of my stupidity.

The media and their journalists are merely megaphones for stupidity, the verb par excellence.

Never underestimate the power of human stupidity.

No, I'm too busy trying to deflect your Power of Stupidity. But I don't think I'm strong enough.

I giggled out loud at his stupidity. If anyone knew how to make a bed, it was a faggot.

Did you get your money by fraud? By pandering to men's vices or men's stupidity? By catering to fools, in the hope of getting more than your ability deserves? By lowering your standards? By doing work you despise for purchasers you scorn? If so, then your money will not give you a moment's or a penny's worth of joy. Then all the things you buy will become, not a tribute to you, but a reproach; not an achievement, but a reminder of shame.

By an increase in anger, warfare arises. By an increase of greed, famine arises. By an increase of stupidity, pestilence arises. Because these three calamities occur, the people's earthly desires grow all the more intense, and their false views thrive and multiply.

The whole dream of democracy is to raise the proletarian to the level of stupidity attained by the bourgeois.

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

There is among doctors, in acute hospitals at least, a presumption of stupidity in their patients.

I think all of us are agreed that war is probably man's greatest stupidity and I think peace is the dream that lives in the heart of everyone wherever he may be in the world, but unfortunately, unlike a family quarrel, it doesn't take two to make a war. It only takes one, unless the other one is prepared to surrender at the first hint of force.

Only ignorance excuses stupidity

You know the typical crowd, Wow, it’s Friday night, what are you going to do? Just sit there? Well, yeah. Because there’s nothing out there. It’s stupidity. Stupid people mingling with stupid people. Let them stupidify themselves. I’ve never been bothered with the need to rush out into the night. That’s all. Sorry for all the millions, but I’ve never been lonely. I like myself. I’m the best form of entertainment I have.

You asked my opinion and I gave it. Of course you have to remember that if I’d been on the island with Gilligan, he’d have been killed ten minutes into the first episode. Where I come from, incompetence and stupidity are reasons for justifiable homicide. (Varyk)

If you want to understand suffering you must look into the situation at hand. The teachings say that wherever a problem arises it must be settled right there. Where suffering lies is right where non-suffering will arise, it ceases at the place where it arises. If suffering arises you must contemplate right there, you don't have to run away. You should settle the issue right there. One who runs away from suffering out of fear is the most foolish person of all. He will simply increases his stupidity endlessly.

Avoidable human misery is more often caused not so much by stupidity as by ignorance, particularly our ignorance about ourselves.

Two things are universal: Hydrogen and stupidity

We are ourselves the stumbling-blocks in the way of our happiness. Place a common individual - by common, I mean with the common share of stupidity, custom, and discontent - place him in the garden of Eden, and he would not find it out unless he were told, and when told, he would not believe it.

We (ultra runners) alternate between depression and stupidity.

When I want to be reminded of stupidity, especially my own, I turn on the TV.

Over a third of the Newenhan population was under eighteen,which didn't make his job any easier, the hormonally challenged being terminally and all too often fatally prone to acts of stupidity.

The jury system puts a ban upon intelligence and honesty and a premium upon ignorance, stupidity and perjury.

Most people don't believe something can happen until it already has. That's not stupidity or weakness, that's just human nature.

Never underestimate the potential for human stupidity when wealth and power are at stake.

...it's just another one of those things I don't understand: everyone impresses upon you how unique you are, encouraging you to cultivate your individuality while at the same time trying to squish you and everyone else into the same ridiculous mould. It's an artist's right to rebel against the world's stupidity