Quotes about stupidity (1621 quotes, page 16)

“We are not getting our ulcers being chased by Saber-tooth tigers, we're inventing our social stressors — and if some baboons are good at dealing with this, we should be able to as well. Insofar as we're smart enough to have invented this stuff and stupid enough to fall for it, we have the potential to be wise enough to keep the stuff in perspective.”

Robert M. Sapolsky (1957) American endocrinologist

Stress, Neurodegeneration and Individual Differences (2001)
Context: We are not getting our ulcers being chased by Saber-tooth tigers, we're inventing our social stressors — and if some baboons are good at dealing with this, we should be able to as well. Insofar as we're smart enough to have invented this stuff and stupid enough to fall for it, we have the potential to be wise enough to keep the stuff in perspective. <!-- Timecode 1:18:58

“Like most of the others, I was a seeker, a mover, a malcontent, and at times a stupid hell-raiser. I was never idle long enough to do much thinking, but I felt somehow that my instincts were right.”

Hunter S. Thompson (1937–2005) American journalist and author

1990s, The Rum Diary (1998)
Context: Like most of the others, I was a seeker, a mover, a malcontent, and at times a stupid hell-raiser. I was never idle long enough to do much thinking, but I felt somehow that my instincts were right. I shared a vagrant optimism that some of us were making real progress, that we had taken an honest road, and that the best of us would inevitably make it over the top. At the same time, I shared a dark suspicion that the life we were leading was a lost cause, that we were all actors, kidding ourselves along on a senseless odyssey. It was the tension between these two poles — a restless idealism on one hand and a sense of impending doom on the other — that kept me going.

Hell , Thinking , Time

“He had this nasty habit of pulling out a little notebook in the middle of a conversation and jotting down, as he said, “story ideas.” Later on, after I’d transferred to S.F. State and taken his writing course, he asked me if I wanted to read his first draft of Wake Up, Stupid! I kept it for a week and returned it to him at the next short story seminar. I only read the first paragraph. After that, I was no longer afraid of the intellectuals. I knew I could tell a better story.”

Oscar Zeta Acosta book Autobiography of a Brown Buffalo

Source: Autobiography of a Brown Buffalo (1972), p. 100.
Context: Since I was about ten years younger than this crew of alcoholics, I just listened and filled their cups with cheap wine. After they’d had enough, I’d tell them of my escapades in Riverbank and in Panama where I’d worked with the Southern Baptist Convention and Jesus Christ to save the black souls of niggers, spics and Indians. I used to keep my eye on Harris when I told my stories. He had this nasty habit of pulling out a little notebook in the middle of a conversation and jotting down, as he said, “story ideas.” Later on, after I’d transferred to S. F. State and taken his writing course, he asked me if I wanted to read his first draft of Wake Up, Stupid! I kept it for a week and returned it to him at the next short story seminar. I only read the first paragraph. After that, I was no longer afraid of the intellectuals. I knew I could tell a better story.

Idea , Reading

“I think my target was not so much evil, but benign stupidity people doing stupid things without realising or, instead, thinking they were doing good.”

Tom Lehrer (1928) American singer-songwriter and mathematician

Quotes from interviews, Sydney Morning Herald interview (2003)
Context: You can make fun with Saddam Hussein jokes … but you can't make fun of, say, the concentration camps. I think my target was not so much evil, but benign stupidity people doing stupid things without realising or, instead, thinking they were doing good.

People , Thinking , Evil

“No matter how stupid they were, they could not be more stupid than the average legislator under the present system.”

H.L. Mencken (1880–1956) American journalist and writer

329
1940s–present, Minority Report : H.L. Mencken's Notebooks (1956)
Context: My old suggestion that public offices be filled by drawing lots, as a jury box is filled, was probably more intelligent than I suspected. It has been criticized on the ground that selecting a man at random would probably produce some extremely bad State governors. [... ] But I incline to believe that it would be best to choose members of the Legislature quite at random. No matter how stupid they were, they could not be more stupid than the average legislator under the present system. Certainly, they'd be measurably more honest, taking one with another. Finally, there would be the great advantage that all of them had got their jobs unwillingly, and were eager, not to spin out their sessions endlessly, but to get home as soon as possible.

“I admire anyone who can come up with something original. But not originality alone, because there can be originality in stupidity, with no musical description of any emotion or any beauty the man has seen, or any kind of life he has lived.”

Charles Mingus (1922–1979) American jazz double bassist, composer and bandleader

What Is A Jazz Composer? (1971)
Context: Now, whether there is feeling or not depends upon what your environment or your association is or whatever you may have in common with the player. If you feel empathy for his personal outlook, you naturally feel him musically more than some other environmental and musical opposite who is, in a way. beyond you.
I, myself, came to enjoy the players who didn't only just swing but who invented new rhythmic patterns, along with new melodic concepts. And those people are: Art Tatum, Bud Powell, Max Roach, Sonny Rollins, Lester Young, Dizzy Gillespie and Charles Parker, who is the greatest genius of all to me because he changed the whole era around. But there is no need to compare composers. If you like Beethoven, Bach or Brahms, that's okay. They were all pencil composers. I always wanted to be a spontaneous composer. I thought I was, although no one's mentioned that. I mean critics or musicians. Now, what I'm getting at is that I know I'm a composer. I marvel at composition, at people who are able to take diatonic scales, chromatics, 12-tone scales, or even quarter-tone scales. I admire anyone who can come up with something original. But not originality alone, because there can be originality in stupidity, with no musical description of any emotion or any beauty the man has seen, or any kind of life he has lived.

Life , Beauty , Music

“Don't you stupid Aussies get it? Australia is doomed!”

Fred Phelps (1929–2014) American pastor and activist

2000s, God Hates Australia (2009)
Context: Don't you stupid Aussies get it? Australia is doomed! Nothing, and nobody, can help you. You have sinned willfully after you have received knowledge of the truth.

“Anybody who says these people are "free" is lying or stupid. You are what you do. If you do boring, stupid monotonous work, chances are you'll end up boring, stupid and monotonous.”

Bob Black book The Abolition of Work

The Abolition of Work (1985)
Context: The demeaning system of domination I've described rules over half the waking hours of a majority of women and the vast majority of men for decades, for most of their lifespans. For certain purposes it's not too misleading to call our system democracy or capitalism or — better still — industrialism, but its real names are factory fascism and office oligarchy. Anybody who says these people are "free" is lying or stupid. You are what you do. If you do boring, stupid monotonous work, chances are you'll end up boring, stupid and monotonous. Work is a much better explanation for the creeping cretinization all around us than even such significant moronizing mechanisms as television and education. People who are regimented all their lives, handed off to work from school and bracketed by the family in the beginning and the nursing home at the end, are habituated to heirarchy and psychologically enslaved. Their aptitude for autonomy is so atrophied that their fear of freedom is among their few rationally grounded phobias. Their obedience training at work carries over into the families they start, thus reproducing the system in more ways than one, and into politics, culture and everything else. Once you drain the vitality from people at work, they'll likely submit to heirarchy and expertise in everything. They're used to it.

People , Lying , Chance

“Fashion as king is sometimes a very stupid ruler.”

Eric Temple Bell (1883–1960) mathematician and science fiction author born in Scotland who lived in the United States for most of his li…

Source: Mathematics: Queen and Servant of Science (1938), p. 146
Context: Fashion as king is sometimes a very stupid ruler. As was observed a little way back, the kernel of Plücker's theory of geometric dimensionality is that the dimensionality of a given space is not an absolute constant, but depends upon the elements, accepted as irreducible, in terms of which the space is described.

Fashion

“Shelley was a young fool; so are these cocksparrow revolutionaries. But it is better to be a fool than to be dead. It is better to emit a scream in the shape of a theory than to be entirely insensible to the jars and incongruities of life and take everything as it comes in a forlorn stupidity.”

Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–1894) Scottish novelist, poet, essayist, and travel writer

Crabbed Age and Youth.
Virginibus Puerisque and Other Papers (1881)
Context: All error, not merely verbal, is a strong way of stating that the current truth is incomplete. The follies of youth have a basis in sound reason, just as much as the embarrassing questions put by babes and sucklings. Their most antisocial acts indicate the defects of our society. When the torrent sweeps the man against a boulder, you must expect him to scream, and you need not be surprised if the scream is sometimes a theory. Shelley, chafing at the Church of England, discovered the cure of all evils in universal atheism. Generous lads irritated at the injustices of society, see nothing for it but the abolishment of everything and Kingdom Come of anarchy. Shelley was a young fool; so are these cocksparrow revolutionaries. But it is better to be a fool than to be dead. It is better to emit a scream in the shape of a theory than to be entirely insensible to the jars and incongruities of life and take everything as it comes in a forlorn stupidity. Some people swallow the universe like a pill; they travel on through the world, like smiling images pushed from behind. For God’s sake give me the young man who has brains enough to make a fool of himself! As for the others, the irony of facts shall take it out of their hands, and make fools of them in downright earnest, ere the farce be over. There shall be such a mopping and a mowing at the last day, and such blushing and confusion of countenance for all those who have been wise in their own esteem, and have not learnt the rough lessons that youth hands on to age. If we are indeed here to perfect and complete our own natures, and grow larger, stronger, and more sympathetic against some nobler career in the future, we had all best bestir ourselves to the utmost while we have the time. To equip a dull, respectable person with wings would be but to make a parody of an angel.

Life , Fools , Dead

“Go to any elite university and you are usually speaking to very disciplined people, people who have been selected for obedience. And that makes sense. If you've resisted the temptation to tell the teacher, "You're an asshole," which maybe he or she is, and if you don't say, "That's idiotic," when you get a stupid assignment, you will gradually pass through the required filters. You will end up at a good college and eventually with a good job.”

Noam Chomsky (1928) american linguist, philosopher and activist

interview by Charles M. Young in Rolling Stone, May 28, 1992 http://www.chomsky.info/interviews/19920528.htm.
Quotes 1990s, 1990-1994
Context: If you quietly accept and go along no matter what your feelings are, ultimately you internalize what you're saying, because it's too hard to believe one thing and say another. I can see it very strikingly in my own background. Go to any elite university and you are usually speaking to very disciplined people, people who have been selected for obedience. And that makes sense. If you've resisted the temptation to tell the teacher, "You're an asshole," which maybe he or she is, and if you don't say, "That's idiotic," when you get a stupid assignment, you will gradually pass through the required filters. You will end up at a good college and eventually with a good job.

People , Sense , Teachers , Universe

“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.”

Edward de Bono (1933) Maltese physician

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.

People , Intelligence , Thinking

“The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits. ”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

Funny

“People are just gonna hate you for really stupid reasons sometimes. And you just gotta power over it. You just gotta brush it off. Be yourself. Be happy with who you are. And stop trying to please everybody else. Just be happy, don't take haters seriously.”

Шол МакЛохлин (JackSepticEye) (1990)

Hate , People , Happiness

“The history of culture shows that foolishness is a twin sister of wisdom. It does not flourish on the fields of pure ignorance but on the fields tirelessly plowed by doctors and professors. Great absurdities do not flourish where one is busy with everyday life. No wonder that sometimes most vigorous thinkers come up with utmost stupidities.”

Witold Gombrowicz (1904–1969) Polish writer

Life , Wisdom , History , Business

“There is no patch for stupidity. ”

Kevin Mitnick (1963–2023) American computer security consultant, author, convicted criminal, and hacker

“Ignorance means you didn’t have the necessary knowledge. A person can hardly be blamed for that. Stupidity is the result of knowing what to do but not acting upon that knowledge.”

John C. Maxwell (1947) American author, speaker and pastor

Book Sometimes you win Sometimes you Learn

Knowledge , Personality

“When you are young, you do a lot of stupid things.”

Pelé (1940–2022) Brazilian association football player

“Sometime those who don't socialize much aren't actually anti-social. They just have no tolerance for drama, stupidity, and fake people.”

Ralph Smart

facebook

People

“That element of tragedy which lies in the very fact of frequency, has not yet wrought itself into the coarse emotion of mankind; and perhaps our frames could hardly bear much of it. If we had a keen vision and feeling of all ordinary human life, it would be like hearing the grass grow and the squirrel’s heart beat, and we should die of that roar which lies on the other side of silence. As it is, the quickest of us walk about well wadded with stupidity.”

George Eliot book Middlemarch

Middlemarch (1871)

Silence , Grass , Heart , Life

“Joseph Heller knew how the need to belong, and the need for security, can make people accept lethal and stupid conditions, and then act as if they had imposed them on themselves.”

Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) British American author and journalist

2000s, 2001, Letters to a Young Contrarian (2001)

Making love , People

“I had this cliché moment of a Russian émigré abroad: I really missed black bread. I know it’s stupid, but I really missed it.”

Alexey Navalny (1976) Russian anti-corruption activist

Source: As quoted in "Net Impact: One man's cyber-crusade against Russian corruption" http://archive.is/FGqQE (4 April 2011), by Julia Ioffe, The New Yorker

“The horse is a stubborn, dirty, stupid animal that reminds me of a sheep. Its only use is to embody the wings a man feels within him, and to do this it lathers and sweats, defecates and steps in badger holes.”

Algis Budrys book Michaelmas

Source: Michaelmas (1977), Chapter 11 (p. 184)

Animals , Horse , Feeling

“We keep acting without thinking and you think the solution is to do it one more time. You have allied yourself with stupid, violent men, and you are trying to convince yourself that being stupid and violent will work. That makes you stupid too. I will never help you. I’ll fight you now.”

Daniel Abraham (1969) speculative fiction writer from the United States

Source: Abaddon's Gate (2013), Chapter 39 (p. 404)

Time , Help , Thinking , Fight

“The soldiers on the Eastern Front fight far better. The reason they give in so easily in the West is simply the fault of that stupid Geneva convention which promises them good treatment as prisoners. We must scrap the idiotic thing.”

Adolf Hitler (1889–1945) Führer and Reich Chancellor of Germany, Leader of the Nazi Party

Remarks to General Guderian (March 1945), quoted in Heinz Guderian, Panzer Leader (1952), p. 427
1940s

Fight

“I guess I was the most unbohemian of all bohemians. My bohemianism consisted of not wanting to get involved with the stupid stuff that I thought people wanted you to get involved with — … namely America…”

Amiri Baraka (1934–2014) African-American writer

On his bohemian status in “Remembering Activist Poet Amiri Baraka” https://www.npr.org/2014/01/10/261379770/fresh-air-remembers-activist-poet-amiri-baraka in NPR (2014 Jan 10)

People

“Fascism begins with the rhetoric of dehumanization, humiliation, and reification, right? It starts with the language of brutality, which it normalizes. It legitimates hatred and racism and violence. It views certain groups through rhetoric as enemies of the American people. It operates off of the rhetoric of war, anti-intellectualism, and white supremacy. It operates off of the language of disposability. That language doesn’t just simply normalize increasingly the notions of white nationalism, white supremacy, racism, and xenophobia; it also enacts policies and it creates a culture of utter stupidity, a culture of ignorance. And, unfortunately, it functions so as to enable violence against groups labeled as dangerous, other, excess, and a threat to the whitewashed notion of citizenship.”

Henry Giroux (1943) American academic

Interview with Media For Us, 2019

War , People

“Jack Chick was a graphic artist who lived his delusional life in lies, prejudice and paranoia, promoting racist, sexist credo-specific bigotry against everyone smarter than him, or who understood things better than he did: which is pretty much everyone since he was really impressively fucking stupid -even compared to other creationists. He was so bad that Chick Publications is recognized as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. So now I hear that this creepy old dogmatic fucktard has finally stopped breathing at 92 years old. I’m unapologetically glad about that. His death makes our world a better place. I think that everyone who believes the way that he did should show solidarity by burying their faces in the sand and holding their breath until Jack Chick breathes again. Because our world just doesn’t need anyone like that -making life irritating for everyone capable of rational or compassionate thought.”

Aron Ra (1962) Aron Ra is an atheist activist and the host of the Ra-Men Podcast

"Rest in oblivion, Jack Chick" http://www.patheos.com/blogs/reasonadvocates/2016/10/25/rest-oblivion-jack-chick/, Patheos (October 25, 2016)
Patheos

Hate , Law , Making love , Bad luck

“Criminology, the study of crime and its causes, has a fundamental weak spot: it studies that proportion of the criminal population who are stupid or unlucky enough to get caught. The perfect criminal, should he or she exist, would be the one who is never apprehended—indeed, the one whose crimes may be huge but unnoticed, or indeed miscategorized as not crimes at all because they are so powerful they sway the law in their favor, or so clever they discover an immoral opportunity for criminal enterprise before the legislators notice it. Such forms of criminality may be indistinguishable, at a distance, from lawful business; the criminal a paragon of upper-class virtue, a face-man for Forbes.”

Charles Stross The Laundry Files

Afterword, “The Golden Age of Spying” (pp. 388-389)
The Laundry Files, The Jennifer Morgue (2006)

Study , Law , Business , Perfection

“I love that Camilla is trying to figure it out. We tell kids there are no stupid questions. But when you throw race in the mix, there are a lot of questions — some are painful to ask, some are painful to answer and we all say stupid things sometimes. I hope readers feel after reading Cammi’s story that it’s not about one moment or interaction, it’s about staying heart strong and moving forward. Like Maya Angelou used to say, when you know better, you do better.”

Veronica Chambers (1970) writer

On the character arc of Camilla in “Author Interview: Veronica Chambers questions Mexican immigrant stereotypes in ‘The Go-Between’” https://www.hypable.com/author-interview-veronica-chambers-the-go-between/ in Hypable (2017 May 9)

Pain , Reading , Question , Strong

“This refusal to listen was a form of stupidity that Martha especially abhorred, and she considered Miles well punished for it. If he had ever taken seriously her passionate desire to leave him, she might not (she now believed) have been driven in practice to show him how little indeed he knew. To pay attention, for Martha, was the prime human virtue; without it, there could be no dignity and no reciprocity.”

Mary McCarthy book A Charmed Life

Source: A Charmed Life (1955), Ch. 5, p. 594

Passion

“We are set irrevocably, I believe, on a path that will take us to the stars—unless in some monstrous capitulation to stupidity and greed, we destroy ourselves first.”

Carl Sagan book Broca's Brain

Source: Broca's Brain (1979), Chapter 25, “The Amniotic Universe” (p. 368)

Star

“The entire evolutionary record on our planet, particularly the record contained in fossil endocasts, illustrates a progressive tendency toward intelligence. There is nothing mysterious about this: smart organisms by and large survive better and leave more offspring than stupid ones.”

Carl Sagan (1934–1996) American astrophysicist, cosmologist, author and science educator

Source: The Dragons of Eden (1977), Chapter 9, “Knowledge is Our Destiny: Terrestrial and Extraterrestrial Intelligence” (p. 240)

Intelligence

“Rod…were you born that stupid? Or did you have to study?”

Robert A. Heinlein book Tunnel in the Sky

Source: Tunnel in the Sky (1955), Chapter 6, “I Think He Is Dead” (p. 104)

Study

“Apparently she believes she is safe. Evil is essentially stupid, Joe; despite her brilliance, she believes what she wishes to believe. Or it may be that she is willing to risk her own death against the tempting prize of absolute power.”

Robert A. Heinlein book Gulf

Gulf (p. 559)
Short fiction, Off the Main Sequence (2005)

Death , Evil

“Taking a close look at what is around us, there is some sort of a harmony. It is the harmony of overwhelming and collective murder. And we in comparison to the articulate vileness and baseness and obscenity of all this jungle, we in comparison to that enormous articulation, we only sound and look like badly pronounced and half-finished sentences out of a stupid suburban novel, a cheap novel. And we have to become humble in front of this overwhelming misery and overwhelming fornication, overwhelming growth, and overwhelming lack of order. Even the stars up here in the sky look like a mess. There is no harmony in the universe. We have to get acquainted to this idea that there is no harmony as we have conceived it. But when I say this all full of admiration for the jungle. It is not that I hate it, I love it, I love it very much, but I love it against my better judgment.”

Werner Herzog (1942) German film director, producer, screenwriter, actor and opera director

Burden of Dreams (1982)

Hate , Star , Universe , Idea

“Everything you have done, my nobles, has been stupid. You have been cruel, greedy, careless of others’ lives and wills. You have been blind, thoughtless, provincial and unimaginative. It seems to me that a government so careless of anything but its own gratification should be at very least replaced.”

Michael Moorcock (1939) English writer, editor, critic

Book 3, Chapter 4 “Certain Matters Resolved in Quarzhasaat” (p. 280)
The Elric Cycle, The Fortress of the Pearl (1989)

“Well, everybody got stupid now and then, especially in war.”

Poul Anderson book The Boat of a Million Years

Source: The Boat of a Million Years (1989), Chapter 17 “Steel” (p. 306)

War

“The outlook had become still more threatening since the Pact of Munich. So far from that notorious surrender purchasing appeasement, it had encouraged the dictators to a greater display of insolence. … Three years ago we discovered that our armaments in essentials for our defence had fallen far behind those of Germany, Italy, and Japan. It was a piece of criminal negligence. … During the past two years the dictators had, through our lack of foresight, through the gross stupidity of our national leaders, cleverly but relentlessly succeeded in placing the British Empire and France in the most dangerous strategical position which they had ever been situated.”

David Lloyd George (1863–1945) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech in Llandudno (19 January 1939), quoted in The Times (20 January 1939), p. 14
Later life

Past

“Let the first rule of right prayer then be, to have our heart and mind framed as becomes those who are entering into converse with God. This we shall accomplish in regard to the mind, if, laying aside carnal thoughts and cares which might interfere with the direct and pure contemplation of God, it not only be wholly intent on prayer, but also, as far as possible, be borne and raised above itself. … When I say it must be raised above itself, I mean that it must not bring into the presence of God any of those things which our blind and stupid reason is wont to devise, nor keep itself confined within the little measure of its own vanity, but rise to a purity worthy of God.”

John Calvin book Institutes of the Christian Religion

Book 3, Chapter 20, Section 4
Institutes of the Christian Religion (1536; 1559)

God , Heart

“Well. You were allowed to be young and stupid, when you were young and stupid, and if it didn’t do you in, you might get older and wiser.”

Steve Perry (1947) American writer

Source: The Vastalimi Gambit (2013), Chapter 11

“I think that this stupid Polish society, this fucking bunch of imbeciles who voted for these whores cockroaches from PiS is some fucking misunderstanding!”

Zbigniew Stonoga (1974) Polish businessman, video blogger, social and political activist

On YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n--mf4fGfkg, about the results of the parliamentary elections in October 2015 in Poland.

Whore , Thinking

“Harvey was not especially introspective, but this didn’t mean he was stupid. He was moral, within his lights; he understood the value of subtlety even if he wasn’t much for it himself, and one of the reasons he could get away with being loud and obnoxious was that he was a fair stick at strategy and logistics. Give him a job and he’d do it, usually in the most entropy-producing way possible, yes, but also in a way that achieved exactly the aim it was supposed to. One of Harvey’s guiding lights in terms of strategies was simplicity; all things being equal, Harvey preferred the course of action that let him get into the middle of things and then just buckle down. When asked about it, Harvey called it his Occam’s razor theory of combat: The simplest way of kicking someone’s ass was usually the correct one.”

John Scalzi book The Ghost Brigades

Source: The Ghost Brigades (2006), Chapter 14 (p. 315)

Way , Light

“Ron Paul may be the wackiest candidate in the GOP field. But for pure, blind stupidity, nobody beats Santorum. In my 20 years in the Senate, I never met a dumber member, which he reminded me of today.”

Rick Santorum (1958) American politician

Mark Salter, aide of John McCain, Facebook, 2011-05-17, quoted in * Greg
Sargent
Happy Hour Roundup
2011-05-17
The Plum Line
Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/post/happy-hour-roundup/2011/03/03/AF2ad25G_blog.html
2011-05-19
referring to Santorum's 2011-05-17 statement that John McCain "doesn't understand how enhanced interrogation works"

“Words can hurt, you stupid bitch.”

Bill Allred

Radio From Hell (March 28, 2007)

Hurt , Bitch

“Whenever anyone has called me a bitch, I have taken it as a compliment. To me, a bitch is assertive, unapologetic, demanding, intimidating, intelligent, fiercely protective, in control — all very positive attributes. But it’s not supposed to be a compliment, because there’s that stupid double standard: When men are aggressive and dominant, they are admired, but when a woman possesses those same qualities, she is dismissed and called a bitch.These days, I strive to be a bitch, because not being one sucks. Not being a bitch means not having your voice heard. Not being a bitch means you agree with all the bullshit. Not being a bitch means you don’t appreciate all the other bitches who have come before you. Not being a bitch means since Eve ate that apple, we will forever have to pay for her bitchiness with complacence, obedience, acceptance, closed eyes, and open legs.”

Margaret Cho (1968) American stand-up comedian

[Foreword, Bitchfest: Ten Years of Cultural Criticism from the Pages of Bitch Magazine, Lisa Miya-Jervis, Andi Zeisler, New York, Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 9780374113438, 7422990M, xv, http://books.google.com/books?id=tmgYKGjl9BcC&pg=PR15]

Bitch , Intelligence , Men

“This is what you shall do: Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to every one that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of men, go freely with powerful uneducated persons and with the young and with the mothers of families, read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life, re examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul, and your very flesh shall be a great poem and have the richest fluency not only in its words but in the silent lines of its lips and face and between the lashes of your eyes and in every motion and joint of your body.... The poet shall not spend his time in unneeded work. He shall know that the ground is always ready ploughed and manured.... others may not know it but he shall. He shall go directly to the creation. His trust shall master the trust of everything he touches.... and shall master all attachment.”

Walt Whitman (1819–1892) American poet, essayist and journalist

From the Preface to the 1855 edition of <i>Leaves of Grass</i>

School , Family , God , Soul

“It's as if someone were out there making up pointless jobs just for the sake of keeping us all working.... Hell is a collection of individuals who spend their time working on a task they don't like and are not especially good at.... Give them a few drinks, and they will launch into tirades about how pointless and stupid their job really is.... Nurses, garbage collectors, mechanics, it's obvious were they to vanish, results would be catastrophic.... A world without teachers or dock-workers would soon be in trouble.... It's not clear how humanity would suffer were all private equity CEOs, lobbyists, PR researchers, actuaries, telemarketers, bailiffs or legal consultants to similarly vanish.... Real productive workers are squeezed and exploited. The remainder are unemployed and a larger stratum paid to do nothing.”

David Graeber (1961) American anthropologist and anarchist

Dr. David Graeber, "Bullshit Jobs," Aug 2013

Hell , Drink , Time , Suffering

“You have no business to be an unbeliever. You ought to stand for all the things these stupid people call superstitions. Come now, don't you think there's a lot in those old wives' tales about luck and charms and so on, silver bullets included? What do you say about them as a Catholic?'
'I say I'm an agnostic,' replied Father Brown, smiling.
'Nonsense,' said Aylmer impatiently. 'It's your business to believe things.”

G. K. Chesterton (1874–1936) English mystery novelist and Christian apologist

'Well, I do believe some things, of course,' conceded Father Brown; 'and therefore, of course, I don't believe other things.' .
The Dagger with Wings (1926)

Business , Smile , Bad luck , People

“My continent is in distress and has been since the beginning of slavery. Leadership is a big problem. My hope is that things will change in Africa. Europe fought endlessly with itself in past centuries; now they have a European Union, not just in name, like the African Union. I hope that someday all the stupid wars on the African continent will end. I am amazed at the endurance of people, whether in Asia or Latin America or Africa, caught up in harsh situations.”

Uwem Akpan (1971) Nigerian Jesuit priest and writer

On his hopes for Africa in “Uwem Akpan” https://www.bookbrowse.com/author_interviews/full/index.cfm/author_number/1576/uwem-akpan in Book Browse

Past , War , People , Hope

“Education is not a shield against stupidity, much less against brutality. Indeed, one might almost define an intellectual as someone who can witness a massacre and see a principle.”

Theodore Dalrymple (1949) English doctor and writer

"The Great Hate Debate" https://www.takimag.com/article/the-great-hate-debate, Taki's Magazine (July 13, 2019).

Education

“But the mighty computer is stupid. Thinking with the speed of light but unable to cross the gaps of intuition.”

Robert Silverberg book The World Inside

Source: The World Inside (1971), Chapter 7 (p. 483)

Light , Thinking , Speed

“Calvin: Somewhere in Communist Russia, I'll bet there's a little boy who has never known anything but censorship and oppression. But maybe he's heard of America, and he dreams of living in this land of freedom and opportunity! Someday, I'd like to meet that little boy…and tell him the awful TRUTH ABOUT THIS PLACE!!
Calvin's Dad: Calvin, be quiet and eat the stupid Lima beans.”

Bill Watterson Calvin and Hobbes

p70
Calvin & Hobbes

Freedom , Dreams , Boy , Truth

“Perfume is a good example of a product gone all wrong. When I was a child, it was a semi-exotic thing and it was called something stupid like "Fleur de Fleur" and you would give it to your mother or aunty at Christmas and it was advertised by some dopey looking woman in a field of sunflowers and she looked like she'd been hit by a tractor because she was going *flails with arms*. She couldn’t just get over how nice she smelled. Now, because we’re so jaded, we’ve consumed so much, our attention can only be grabbed in a violent way. So it’s always advertised by these constipated, exo-keletal bitches who are sneering at you and it’s called something horrible like "Homicide"! "Dysentery!"”

Dylan Moran (1971) Irish actor and comedian

"Urban Dysentery" for boys and girls!

On consumerism.
What It Is (2009)

Way , Christmas , Bitch

“My first goal was, I didn’t want to be a cook or a steward … So I went to aircraft-mechanic school. I still had to prove to people that thought I was genetically inferior that I wasn’t too stupid to drain the oil out of an airplane.”

Bill Withers (1938–2020) American singer-songwriter and musician

On entering the US Navy in 1956.
Rollingstone interview (2015)

School , Cooking , People

“Through failures one becomes intelligent; but the one who has trained himself in this subject so that he can make others wise through their own failures, has used his intelligence. Ignorance is not stupidity.”

Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) German philosopher

Kant, Immanuel (1996), page 100
Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View (1798)

Intelligence , Training , Making love , Failure

“Shooting people was such a stupid activity, why should everybody—anybody!—be so impressed? Silver wondered irritably. You would think she had done something truly great, like discover a new treatment for black stem-rot.”

Lois McMaster Bujold Vorkosigan Saga

Source: Vorkosigan Saga, Falling Free (1988), Chapter 14 (p. 266)

Thinking , People

“You can talk! You can talk! You can talk! You're brave now, motherfucker! Throw his ass out! He's a nigger! He's a nigger! He's a nigger! A nigger, look, there's a nigger! Ooh! Ooh! All right, ya see? It shocks you, it shocks you, to see what's buried beneath, you stupid mother fuckers!”

Michael Richards (1949) American actor

Laugh Factory incident (2006)

“[Brexit] is stupidity for a country with 53 percent of its exports going to the Continent and to the rest of Europe. It’s even so stupid that Britain’s best friends, the U.S., don’t understand it all.”

Guy Verhofstadt (1953) former prime minister of Belgium

Guy Verhofstadt’s 7 best Brexit burns https://www.politico.eu/article/european-parliament-negotiator-guy-verhofstadts-7-best-brexit-burns/ (Quoted in August 2016; Said in January 2013)
2013

Country , Understanding

“Bloody and hideous facts; acts of revolting superstition, arrests, and executions of stupid ferocity. "Burn every body!" the Inquisition seemed to say — God will easily sort out His own! Poor fools, hysterical women, and idiots were roasted alive, without mercy, for the crime of "magic."”

Eliphas Levi book Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie

But, at the same time, how many great culprits escaped this unjust and sanguinary justice! This is what Bodin makes us fully appreciate.

Quoted in Isis Unveiled, by H.P. Blavatsky, Vol. II, Chapter III (1877)
Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie (1856)

Fools , God , Women

“What the devil do you come to me for? And burst into tears? And then tell me thanks very much for your suggestion but I shall continue to attempt the impossible? The arrogance, the unreasonableness—no, I can endure all that—but the stupidity, the absolute stupidity of artists, I cannot stand it any longer!”

Ursula K. Le Guin (1929–2018) American writer

An die Musik (pp. 159-160; first published in The Western Humanities Review (1961) Vol. 15, No. 3)
Short fiction, Orsinian Tales (1976)

Tear

“Stupidity, yes, but not unilateral stupidity. Something this screwed up had to have taken a committee.”

Lois McMaster Bujold Vorkosigan Saga

Source: Vorkosigan Saga, Barrayar (1991), Chapter 10 (p. 411)

“Keep your stupid rules
I don't know how to use it
Keep your bad news
I won't read itǃ”

Mara Balls (1983) Finnish musician

Bad luck , Reading

“Keep your stupid war
I don't want it, I don't need it
keep your stupid god
I don't believe itǃ”

Mara Balls (1983) Finnish musician

War , God

“There is so much stupid information, misinformation around. You can’t really get anywhere until you get out from under all that.”

Buckminster Fuller (1895–1983) American architect, systems theorist, author, designer, inventor and futurist

From 1980s onwards, Buckminster Fuller Talks Politics (1982)

“I can be gloriously stupid, but if it helps to divert peoples attentions from the grimness of life, I’m happy.”

Rik Mayall (1958–2014) British comedian and actor

Daily Mail, September 2003 https://rikmayallinterviews.wordpress.com/2012/07/17/deadlier-than-the-mayall/

Happiness , Help , People , Life

“I know they can’t help being young, but isn’t there something they can do about being so stupid?”

Robert Sheckley (1928–2005) American writer

“I reckon not, Mr. Washburn,” Curly says.

The Never-Ending Western Movie (p. 119)
Short fiction, The Robot Who Looked Like Me (1978)

Help

“Have you ever heard of anything more stupid than 'abstraction-abstraction?'”

Joan Miró (1893–1983) Catalan painter, sculptor, and ceramicist

and they ask me into their deserted house [probably Miro meant the group 'Abstraction-Création', founded by a. o. Jean Arp and André Breton; both coined Miro's art in 1931 as 'mobile' and 'stabile'] as if the marks I put on a canvas did not correspond to a concrete representation of my mind, did not possess a profound reality, were not a part of the real itself.
1930s
Source: 'Où allez-vous Miró?', art critic Georges Duthuit in Cahiers d'Art 261, nos. 8-10, 1936

“Upon the Road the hidden stands revealed. Each sees and knows the villainy of each. (I can find no other word, my brother, to translate the ancient word which designates the unrevealed stupidity, the vileness and crass ignorance, and the self-interest which are distinguishing characteristics of the average aspirant.) And yet there is, with that great revelation, no turning back, no spurning of each other, and no shakiness upon the Road. The Road goes forward into day.”

Alice A. Bailey (1880–1949) esoteric, theosophist, writer

Glamour: A World Problem (1950), The Six Rules of the Path (Rules of the Road)

Self-confidence

“The people who have power over you are weak too. They shit and bleed and worry that their children don’t love them anymore. They’re embarrassed by the stupid things they did when they were young that everyone else has forgotten. And so they’re vulnerable. We all define ourselves by the people around us, because that’s the kind of monkey we are. We can’t transcend it. So when they watch you, they hand you the power to change what they are too.”

Daniel Abraham (1969) speculative fiction writer from the United States

The Expanse, Tiamat's Wrath (2019), Prologue (p. 5)

Children , People , Love , Making love

“I know you're not a stupid person, so why would you ask such a stunningly stupid question?”

Carl Hiaasen book Squeeze Me

Source: Novels, Squeeze Me (2020), Chapter 28

Question , Personality

“I maybe made some mistakes, but I'm only human. But, I'm man enough to face 'em today. What I did was stupid, no doubt it was dumb. But, the smartest shit I did was take the bullets out of that gun. Because I'd have killed them. Shit, I'd have shot Kim and them both. It's my life, I'd like to welcome you all to 'The Eminem Show.'”

Eminem (1972) American rapper and actor

"Cleanin' Out My Closet"
2000s, The Eminem Show (2002)

Life

“What! all of us, Christians, not only profess to love one another, but do actually live one common life; we whose social existence beats with one common pulse—we aid one another, learn from one another, draw ever closer to one another to our mutual happiness, and find in this closeness the whole meaning of life!—and to-morrow some crazy ruler will say some stupidity, and another will answer in the same spirit, and then I must go expose myself to being murdered, and murder men—who have done me no harm—and more than that, whom I love. And this is not a remote contingency, but the very thing we are all preparing for, which is not only probable, but an inevitable certainty.”

Leo Tolstoy The Kingdom of God Is Within You

Source: The Kingdom of God is Within You (1894), Chapter V, Contradiction Between our Life and our Christian Conscience

Drawing , Happiness , Learning , Love

“No one I imagine is so stupid as to believe that truth or even an approximation of truth is derived from counting pieces of marked paper and that the largest pile of papers is it. What makes democracy so fragile is the certain knowledge, even by the winners, that it is often wrong and if they think it’s right now, then it’s either been wrong at some time in the past or will be at some time in the future. There is then a shaky agreement on both sides of a democratic debate that there is some more fundamental reason for using this method to make decisions than that it is always right. In Western Europe over the last century or so that shaky agreement has not always held together and indeed it still is far from ordinary worldwide. A common everyday reason why most people accept democratic results is that they are rarely always on the losing side. And in the case of government elections they can have another opportunity to persuade the majority that the opinion they hold is correct and hope that the mistakes of the previous few years are not so very bad. On a much deeper level however respecting the “will of the people” comes from a profoundly scary place.”

Justin Barrett (1971) Irish activist

A Republic of Innocent Dead Cannot Live https://nationalparty.ie/a-republic-of-innocent-dead-cannot-live/ (June 4, 2018)

Democracy , Imagination , Time , Past

“A hundred years from now, when people look back at this period, they will marvel at the stupidity of it all: the stress, the motion sickness, and the self-neglect we put ourselves through. So we have two choices. We can be among the last people caught up in the “more bubble” when it bursts, or we can see the madness for what it is and join the growing community of Essentialists and get more of what matters in our one precious life.”

Greg McKeown (author) book Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less

Popular Quotes, Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less, Journal Articles

People , Communication , Self-confidence , Life

“Madness is the genius’ substitute for stupidity.”

Ron English (1959) American artist

Ron English's Fauxlosophy (2016)

Madness

“It's one thing to think someone's stupid. And fair enough if you need them to be. But you can't go banking on it. That's a mug's game.”

Tim Winton (1960) Australian writer

Part III, Ch.5 - p.250
The Shepherd's Hut (2018)

Game , Thinking

“In modern language we think of "idiot" as someone who is stupid or a fool. That is not the classical meaning... An idiot is someone who cares only about himself and has no regard for anyone else, and that's terribly important when you think about tyrants. ...We think of tyrants as people who are horrible... oppressors. ...In its classic historic meaning, tyrant was simply someone who ceased power.”

David Cay Johnston (1948) Investigative journalist and author

The Tyrant Next Time (November 7, 2019)

Thinking , People , Fools

“People aren’t stupid. They just want to believe in others. They just want to believe that the world isn’t coming to an end. And more importantly, they just want to believe in themselves. They want to believe that they can still trust their fellow human being to do the right thing.”

Jason Tanamor (1975) Filipino-American Author and Writer

Source: Novels, Anonymous (2013), Chapter 1

World , People

“What I would say is the single most important thing, if you want to avoid all the stupid errors, is knowing where you're competent and where you aren't. And that's very hard to do because the human mind naturally tries to make you think you're way smarter than you are.”

Charlie Munger (1924) American business magnate, lawyer, investor, and philanthropist

[A Conversation with Distinguished Alumnus Charles T. Munger (CERT '44, CAVU), December 17, 2020, Caltech, YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WaDU1J91hY8] (quote at 18:20 of 58:41)

Error , Thinking , Way , Making love

“I see [Bitcoin as] an artificial speculative medium that people are buying just because they think they can sell it to somebody else at a higher price, even though it inherently has no intrinsic value. So, I regard the whole business as anti-social, stupid, immoral. [...] I regard the thing as a combination of dementia and immorality, and I think the people that are pushing it are a disgrace.”

Charlie Munger (1924) American business magnate, lawyer, investor, and philanthropist

Yahoo Finance interview with Andrew Serwer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AIYPu4MFLl4, May 7, 2018 (at 17:00)

Business , Thinking , People

“It's so simple to be wise. Just think of something stupid to say and then don't say it.”

Sam Levenson (1911–1980) American journalist

Thinking

“For me, the most important thing in education is to instill a sense of responsibility. Because when you are responsible for your words, it will be very easy for you to live in this life later. If you live all the time with the claim that everyone owes you, it is very stupid.”

Chulpan Khamatova (1975) Russian actress

As quoted in Чулпан Хаматова и ее 17-летняя дочь дали первое совместное интервью (18 October 2019) https://tvrain.ru/teleshow/sobchak_zhivem/chulpan_khamatova_ya_by_vybrala_severnuyu_koreyu_a_ne_revolyutsiyu-286479/

Education , Time , Sense , Life

“I have been clinically depressed for most of my life. I once used drugs to fix it. Then I stopped. I stopped because I decided they were making me stupid, and I’d rather be miserable than stupid. I am what I am.”

Neal Stephenson book Seveneves

“Cleft” (pp. 560-561)
Seveneves (2015), Part Two

Life

“God is either powerless, stupid or he doesn't give a shit.”

Philip K. Dick book VALIS

VALIS (1981)

God

“Military intelligence was as nothing to military stupidity.”

Lois McMaster Bujold Vorkosigan Saga

Source: Vorkosigan Saga, Diplomatic Immunity (2002), Chapter 2 (p. 32)

Intelligence

“The reason we feel alienated is because the society is infantile, trivial, and stupid. So the cost of sanity in this society is a certain level of alienation. I grapple with this because I’m a parent. And I think anybody who has children, you come to this realization, you know—what’ll it be? Alienated, cynical intellectual? Or slack-jawed, half-wit consumer of the horseshit being handed down from on high? There is not much choice in there, you see. And we all want our children to be well adjusted; unfortunately, there’s nothing to be well adjusted to!”

Terence McKenna (1946–2000) American ethnobotanist

Thinking , Parent , Children , Feeling

“Whoever has a cold is stupid, because he just had to avoid catching a cold.”

Leopold II of Belgium (1835–1909) King of the Belgians

Source: Did you know: Leopold II was a hypochondriac. https://www.rtbf.be/culture/article/detail_le-saviez-vous-leopold-ii-etait-hypocondriaque?id=10710184

“I also admit that some gray-haired men are stupid but that doesn’t mean I am. I know myself.”

Suraj Sani (1996) Nigerian writer, Spoken word artist

Source: Quotes from Thorns in The desert, P. 11.

Men

“This is the world and this is life. The more you reply to negative words, the more they fool you, and the less you speak, the more they stupid you.”

Ayuel Monykuch (1997) South Sudanese Entrepreneur

Fools , World , Life

“If you are stupid they’ll humiliate you, if you’re wise they’ll hate you, if you’re beautiful they’ll kill you, and nor the virtues nor the weaknesses of a woman are ever forgiven. Men are blind of rage for being born as monsters, for not being capable to be loved and to love themselves.”

Menotti Lerro (1980) Italian poet

Brunella, Act II, scene ii.
Theater Quotes

Hate , Beauty , Rage , Love

“You can't rap, my friend
You're white and you're from Fulham
Please put down the mic
there's no way you can fool them
Don't be stupid, you won't get that far
Turn your back on hip-hop, bruv, and go and play guitar”

Example (musician) (1982) English rapper and singer

"You Can't Rap" (song)
("You Can't rap" - Official video on YouTube) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cvCd1Xq0Au4
(+ Lyrics version of "You Can't Rap" on YouTube) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bK_3L-9dv_c
Studio albums, What We Made (2007)

Fools , Way

“We are all human beings—the same human beings. Don’t categorize that you are yellow, you are white, you are Black, and white is better than yellow or Black or any other skin color. That’s stupid things to compare. We are all different and beautiful.”

Youn Yuh-jung (1947) South Korean actress

Max, Gao, ‘Minari’ Actress Youn Yuh-Jung Knows the Awards “Mean Nothing to Me”, Observer, 2021-02-15, 2021-06-08 https://observer.com/2021/02/youn-yuh-jung-interview-minari/,

Beauty , Color