“Never argue with stupid people, they will drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience.”
Variant: Never argue with an idiot. They will drag you down to their level and beat you with experience.
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Mark Twain 637
American author and humorist 1835–1910Related quotes
“Never keep up with the Joneses. Drag them down to your level. It's cheaper.”
Source: The Naked Civil Servant (1968), Ch. 1
Context: Keeping up with the Joneses was a full-time job with my mother and father. It was not until many years later when I lived alone that I realized how much cheaper it was to drag the Joneses down to my level.
“A drawing is always dragged down to the level of its caption.”
The New Yorker (2 August 1930)
From other writings
Variant: There’s a real bonding in someone beating the crap out of you. - Rolly
Source: Just Listen
“You cannot argue stupidity, you just have to accept it patiently as one of those things.”
Source: Round the Bend
Imagine, they have violated President Zelaya's’s rights. They have invented accusations of crimes against him, when they never presented any order of arrest. They took him out, tied up, transferred him to another country, and now they sit him down to negotiate with the criminals.
Quoted in “A Moment of Hope”: Xiomara Castro’s Likely Win in Honduran Election Ends Years of Right-Wing Rule After Coup https://www.democracynow.org/2021/11/30/xiomara_castro_first_woman_president_honduras, Democracy Now!, November 30, 2021 (Speaking in 2009 on the Honduran-Nicaraguan border after the coup against Manuel Zelaya)
“Don't let them drag you down by rumors just go with what you believe in.”
Source: I Can't Accept Not Trying: Michael Jordan on the Pursuit of Excellence
(10 January 2005)
Unfit for Mass Consumption (blog entries), 2005
Context: The writing of a novel or short story or poem or whatever should elevate the audience, not drag the writer down to some level beneath herself. And she — the author — should fight always to prevent that dragging down, especially when the only possible benefit of allowing it to happen is monetary.
