“It would be possible to say without exaggeration that the miners' leaders were the stupidest men in England if we had not frequent occasion to meet the owners.”

Statement of 1925, as quoted in Britain between the Wars (1955) by C. L. Mowat, p. 300.

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F. E. Smith, 1st Earl of Birkenhead27

British politician 1872–1930

Bernard Hollowood (1910–1981) English cricketer

Cricket on the Brain (1970)

“A writer should get as much education as possible, but just going to school is not enough; if it were, all owners of doctorates would be inspired writers.”

Gwendolyn Brooks (1917–2000) American writer

Report From Part One (1972)

“Great as our differences are, all of us—professors, politicians, preachers—would no doubt find that we had much in common after all if it were possible to meet in the flesh some distinguished representatives from a former age.”

Carl L. Becker (1873–1945) American historian

The Heavenly City of the Eighteenth-century Philosophers (1932)

“Only the wisest and stupidest of men never change.”

Confucius (-551–-479 BC) Chinese teacher, editor, politician, and philosopher

“my good qualities are under your protection, and you are to exaggerate them as much as possible; and, in return, it belongs to me to find occasion for teasing and quarreling with you as often as may be…”

Jane Austen book Pride and Prejudice

Source: Pride and Prejudice

“From across the Earth, Americans are drawn to this place as though it were a part of our very soul. We come not only because of what they did here, we come because of who they were. They were young men with their entire lives before them. They were husbands who said goodbye to their young brides and took their duty as their fate. They were fathers who would never meet their infant sons and daughters because they had a job to do. And with God as their witness, they were going to get it done. They came wave after wave, without question, without hesitation, and without complaint.”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

2010s, 2019, June, Remarks on the 75th Anniversary of D-Day in Colleville-sur-Mer, France

“One of the first interesting experiences I had in this project at Princeton was meeting great men. I had never met very many great men before. But there was an evaluation committee that had to try to help us along, and help us ultimately decide which way we were going to separate the uranium. This committee had men like Compton and Tolman and Smyth and Urey and Rabi and Oppenheimer on it. I would sit in because I understood the theory of how our process of separating isotopes worked, and so they'd ask me questions and talk about it. In these discussions one man would make a point. Then Compton, for example, would explain a different point of view. He would say it should be this way, and he was perfectly right. Another guy would say, well, maybe, but there's this other possibility we have to consider against it.

So everybody is disagreeing, all around the table. I am surprised and disturbed that Compton doesn't repeat and emphasize his point. Finally at the end, Tolman, who's the chairman, would say, "Well, having heard all these arguments, I guess it's true that Compton's argument is the best of all, and now we have to go ahead."

It was such a shock to me to see that a committee of men could present a whole lot of ideas, each one thinking of a new facet, while remembering what the other fella said, so that, at the end, the decision is made as to which idea was the best -- summing it all up -- without having to say it three times. These were very great men indeed.”

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from the First Annual Santa Barbara Lectures on Science and Society, University of California at Santa Barbara (1975)

“After 1994, we did many things. We had Fiuggi, there was a confrontation. I'd say that today one cannot say it for sure. Today, I would not say it again [that Mussolini was the greatest political leader of the century. ]”

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La Stampa http://archivio.lastampa.it/LaStampaArchivio/main/History/tmpl_viewObj.jsp?objid=3435107, 23 January 2002, p. 7.

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Jimmy Carter (1924) American politician, 39th president of the United States (in office from 1977 to 1981)

Presidency (1977–1981), Farewell Address (1981)
Context: Acknowledging the physical realities of our planet does not mean a dismal future of endless sacrifice. In fact, acknowledging these realities is the first step in dealing with them. We can meet the resource problems of the world — water, food, minerals, farmlands, forests, overpopulation, pollution — if we tackle them with courage and foresight.

“We are apt to form romantic and exaggerated notions about the moral innocence of our ancestors. Ages of ignorance and simplicity are thought to be ages of purity. The direct contrary, I believe, is the case…In the middle ages, not only the most flagrant violations of modesty were frequently practised and permitted, but the most infamous vices. Men are less ashamed as they are less polished.”

Thomas Warton book The History of English Poetry

The History of English Poetry (1774-81) vol. 1, p. 431.

“It would be possible to say without exaggeration that the miners' leaders were the stupidest men in England if we had not frequent occasion to meet the owners.”

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F. E. Smith, 1st Earl of Birkenhead27

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