Quotes about stupidity

„Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.“

—  Martin Luther King, Jr. American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement 1929 - 1968

Source: 1960s, Strength to Love (1963), Ch. 4 : Love in action, Sct. 3

„Life is tough, but it's tougher if you're stupid. “

—  John Wayne American film actor 1907 - 1979

„I can't live where I want to, I can't go where I want to go, I can't do what I want to, I can't even say what I want to. I decided I was a very stupid fool not to at least paint as I wanted to.“

—  Georgia O'Keeffe American artist 1887 - 1986

„With the lights out, it's less dangerous
Here we are now, entertain us
I feel stupid, and contagious
Here we are now, entertain us.“

—  Kurt Cobain American musician and artist 1967 - 1994

Song lyrics, Nevermind (1991)

„Correct." Kekrops sounded bitter, like he regretted his decision. "My people were the original Athenians--the gemini."
"Like your zodiac sign?" Percy asked. "I'm a Leo."
"No, stupid," Leo said. "I'm a Leo. You're a Percy.“

—  Rick Riordan, book The Blood of Olympus

Variant: Correct." Kekrops sounded bitter, like he regretted his decision. "My people were the original Athenians--the gemini."
"Like your zodiac sign?" Percy asked. "I'm a Leo."
"No, stupid. "I'm a Leo. You're a Percy.
Source: The Blood of Olympus

„The problem is that everybody treats teenagers like they're stupid.“

—  Johnny Depp American actor, film producer, and musician 1963

„For a long while I have lived with the notion that I was the most normal being that ever existed. This notion gave me the taste, even the passion for being unproductive: what was the use of being prized in a world inhabited by madmen, a world mired in mania and stupidity? For whom was one to bother, and to what end? It remains to be seen if I have quite freed myself from this certitude, salvation in the absolute, ruin in the immediate.“

—  Emil M. Cioran, book The Trouble With Being Born

The Trouble With Being Born (1973)

„Our greatest stupidities may be very wise.“

—  Ludwig Wittgenstein Austrian-British philosopher 1889 - 1951

Source: Culture and Value (1980), p. 39e

„Everything happens for a reason. But sometimes the reason is that you're stupid and make bad decisions. “

—  Томми Джо Рэтлифф 1981

„It's too bad that stupidity isn't painful.“

—  Anton LaVey Founder of the Church of Satan, author of the Satanic Bible 1930 - 1997

The Nine Satanic Sins (1987)

„Any girl can be glamorous. All you have to do is stand still and look stupid.“

—  Hedy Lamarr Austrian-American actress and co-inventor of an early technique for spread spectrum communications and frequency hopping 1914 - 2000

As quoted in The Stars (1962) by Richard Schickel

„Yet I am not more sure that my soul lives, than I am that perverseness is one of the primitive impulses of the human heart — one of the indivisible primary faculties, or sentiments, which give direction to the character of man. Who has not, a hundred times, found himself committing a vile or a stupid action, for no other reason than because he knows he should not?“

—  Edgar Allan Poe, book The Black Cat

Have we not a perpetual inclination, in the teeth of our best judgement, to violate that which is Law, merely because we understand it to be such?
The Black Cat (1843)

„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 Dostoyevsky Russian author 1821 - 1881

The Brothers Karamazov (1879–1880)

„Stupid people, people who do not know how to laugh, are always pompous and self-conceited.“

—  William Makepeace Thackeray novelist 1811 - 1863

Sketches and Travels in London; Mr. Brown's Letters to His Nephew: "On Love, Marriage, Men and Women" (1856).

„If you think your boss is stupid, remember: you wouldn't have a job if he was any smarter. “

—  John Gotti American crime boss 1940 - 2002

„A stupid man's report of what a clever man says is never accurate, because he unconsciously translates what he hears into something that he can understand.“

—  Bertrand Russell, book A History of Western Philosophy

Source: 1940s, A History of Western Philosophy (1945)

„The worst illiterate is the political illiterate, he doesn’t hear, doesn’t speak, nor participates in the political events. He doesn’t know the cost of life, the price of the bean, of the fish, of the flour, of the rent, of the shoes and of the medicine, all depends on political decisions. The political illiterate is so stupid that he is proud and swells his chest saying that he hates politics. The imbecile doesn’t know that, from his political ignorance is born the prostitute, the abandoned child, and the worst thieves of all, the bad politician, corrupted and flunky of the national and multinational companies.“

—  Bertolt Brecht German poet, playwright, theatre director 1898 - 1956

First recorded in Terra Nossa: Newsletter of Project Abraço, North Americans in Solidarity with the People of Brazil http://books.google.gr/books?id=iR68AAAAIAAJ&q=, Vols. 1–7, Resource Center for Nonviolence, 1988, p. 42. No citation to a book by Brecht is given.
Disputed

„You shouldn't believe everything you hear you're young, not stupid.“

—  Terry Brooks, The Wishsong of Shannara

Source: The Wishsong of Shannara

„The stupid neither forgive nor forget; the naïve forgive and forget; the wise forgive but do not forget.“

—  Thomas Szasz Hungarian psychiatrist 1920 - 2012

"Personal Conduct" http://books.google.com/books?id=IYOcAQAAQBAJ&q=%22The+stupid+neither+forgive+nor+forget+the+na%C3%AFve+forgive+and+forget+the+wise+forgive+but+do+not+forget%22&pg=PA177#v=onepage, p. 51. http://openlibrary.org/works/OL15151528W/The_Second_Sin
The Second Sin (1973)