quotations about stupidity
The most hopelessly stupid man is he who is not aware that he is wise.
ISAAC ASIMOV
Second Foundation
The habit of common and continuous speech is a symptom of mental deficiency.
WALTER BAGEHOT
"Hartley Coleridge", The Works and Life of Walter Bagehot
If your brains were dynamite there wouldn't be enough to blow your hat off.
KURT VONNEGUT
Timequake
One day there'll be a museum of stupidity
Where we can hang ourselves and throw away the key
GRAHAM PARKER
"Museum of Stupidity"
Buffoons, buffoons! One can play any tune on them!
LUIGI PIRANDELLO
Henry IV
I'm the creator of this universe
And all that is was meant to be
So that we might learn to see
The foolishness that lives in us
And stupidity that we must suss
How to banish from our minds
If you call this living, I must be blind
HAWKWIND
"Master of the Universe"
Empathize with stupidity and you're halfway to thinking like an idiot.
IAIN M. BANKS
Consider Phlebas
The problem with educating stupid people was that they didn't know they were stupid.
CHUCK PALAHNIUK
Phoenix
English stupidity is an organism so primitive that it is apparently impossible to kill off. It reminds me of Physarum Polycephalum, the gigantic slime mould recently bred by scientists at Bonn. Bright yellow and about two millimetres thick, this monocellular creature--neither plant nor animal--grew to a size of 10 square yards before the scientists took fright and froze it. It can smell its favourite food, and move towards it at a speed of up to two centimetres an hour. This favourite food is porridge.
NEAL ASCHERSON
"The Spreading Slime", Games with Shadows
The stupider one is, the closer one is to reality. The stupider one is, the clearer one is. Stupidity is brief and artless, while intelligence wriggles and hides itself. Intelligence is a knave, but stupidity is honest and straightforward.
FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY
The Brothers Karamazov
I've always believed that a person is smart. It's people that are stupid.
MARILYN MANSON
The Long Hard Road Out of Hell
Stupid people don't always know that they're stupid. They might be aware that something is wrong, they might notice that things don't usually turn out the way they imagined, but very few of them think it's because of them. That they're the root of their own problems, so to speak. And that sort of thing can be very difficult to explain.
JONAS KARLSSON
The Room
He had just about enough intelligence to open his mouth when he wanted to eat, but certainly no more.
P. G. WODEHOUSE
Full Moon
Sometimes a man wants to be stupid if it lets him do a thing his cleverness forbids.
JOHN STEINBECK
East of Eden
You have attributed conditions to villainy that simply result from stupidity.
ROBERT A. HEINLEIN
The Green Hills of Earth
He is not only dull himself, but the cause of dullness in others.
SAMUEL JOHNSON
attributed, Life of Samuel Johnson
There's a thin line between genius and bottom-barrel stupidness. I hover delicately on a tightrope between the two, wondering where I'll land if I'll ever fall.
SUZANNE CROWLEY
The Very Ordered Existence of Merilee Marvelous
Think of how stupid the average person is, and then realize half of them are stupider than that.
GEORGE CARLIN
Doin' It Again
Stupidity would not be absolute stupidity did it not fear intelligence.
CHAMFORT
The Cynic's Breviary
We do not believe in great stupidity as a common natural gift; doubtless, it sometimes is so; but as seen among grown-up people, it is often artificial.
CHARLES DICKENS
Household Words