“It was silly to suppose that trials only hardened men, automatically making them wise. He knew many who were stupid, arrogant, and mean, in spite of having suffered.”
Source: The Uplift War (1987), Chapter 10 (p. 66)
Help us to complete the source, original and additional information
David Brin 123
novelist, short story writer 1950Related quotes
Source: Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption
"A Protest about the Condition of the Bohemians," p. 5
Wu Ming Presents Thomas Müntzer, Sermon to the Princes
“The most hopelessly stupid man is he who is not aware that he is wise.”
Source: The Foundation series (1951–1993), Second Foundation (1953), Chapter 8 “Seldon’s Plan”
Closing words from his last speech, Vanderbilt University (April 1989).
Context: In the nineteen-sixties, apartheid was driven out of America. Legal segregation — Jim Crow — ended. We didn't end racism, but we ended legal segregation. We ended the idea that you can send a million soldiers ten thousand miles away to fight in a war that people do not support. We ended the idea that women are second-class citizens. Now, it doesn't matter who sits in the Oval Office. But the big battles that were won in that period of civil war and strife you cannot reverse. We were young, we were reckless, arrogant, silly, headstrong … and we were right! I regret nothing!
thoughts of Frank Chalmers
Red Mars (1992)
Iraq? They just need to think it through (2007)
Context: There isn't just one point; it takes time to learn. You don't have to be intelligent, but I think you have to be open to possibilities and willing to explore. The only stupid people are those who are arrogant and closed off.
“If men were only as wise as they are clever…”
Source: Sea Without a Shore (1996), Chapter 38 (p. 550)
Source: Guide for the Perplexed (c. 1190), Part III, Ch.12