Quotes about stupidity
page 17

Ben Aaronovitch photo

“A lot of people have died in the Underground, through accidents, stupidity, or suicide. All the one-unders who is dying wish had been to make other people late for work.”

Ben Aaronovitch book Whispers Under Ground

Source: Whispers Under Ground (2012), Chapter 21, “Oxford Circus” (p. 226)

People , Suicide
Ben Aaronovitch photo

“The police can live with looking corrupt, bullying, or tyrannical, but looking stupid is intolerable. It has a tendency to undermine public faith in the forces of Law and is deleterious to public order.”

Ben Aaronovitch book Moon Over Soho

Source: Moon Over Soho (2011), Chapter 4, “One-Tenth of My Ashes” (p. 64)

Faith , Law
George Curzon, 1st Marquess Curzon of Kedleston photo

“The obstacle has been Mackenzie King, the Canadian, who is both obstinate, tiresome and stupid.”

George Curzon, 1st Marquess Curzon of Kedleston (1859–1925) British politician

Source: Letter to his wife during the 1923 Imperial Conference (8 November 1923), quoted in Terry Reardon, Winston Churchill and Mackenzie King: So Similar, So Different (2012), pp. 52-53

Jack Vance photo

“Banish Evil from the world? Nonsense! Encourage it, foster it, sponsor it. The world owes Evil a debt beyond imagination. Think! Without greed ambition falters. Without vanity art becomes idle musing. Without cruelty benevolence lapses to passivity. Superstition has shamed man into self-reliance and, without stupidity, where would be the savor of superior understanding?”

Jack Vance book The Many Worlds of Magnus Ridolph

The Sub-Standard Sardines (p. 132)
Short fiction, The Many Worlds of Magnus Ridolph (1966)

Imagination , World , Evil , Understanding
Dan Fante photo

“I felt the question was stupid so I didn't answer.”

Dan Fante (1944–2015) American writer

Source: Novels, Spitting off Tall Buildings (1996), Ch.6 - p.33 [Page numbers per the Canongate Books Ltd. 2001 UK paperback edition]

Question
Alastair Reynolds photo

“I’ll argue to the death against stupid legislation, but some rules exist for a reason.”

Alastair Reynolds book On the Steel Breeze

Source: On the Steel Breeze (2013), Chapter 5 (p. 43)

Death
Alastair Reynolds photo

“We have been clever, and on occasion we have been foolish. For smart monkeys, we can, when the mood takes us, be exceedingly stupid. But it was cleverness that brought us to this point, and it is only cleverness that will serve us from now on.
We have no time for anything else.”

Alastair Reynolds book Blue Remembered Earth

Source: Blue Remembered Earth (2012), Epilogue (p. 562; closing words)

Time , Mood

“The secret of American schooling is that it doesn't teach the way children learn, and it isn't supposed to; school was engineered to serve a concealed command economy and a deliberately re-stratified social order. It wasn't made for the benefit of kids and families as those individuals and institutions would define their own needs. School is the first impression children get of organized society; like most first impressions, it is the lasting one. Life according to school is dull and stupid, only consumption promises relief: Coke, Big Macs, fashion jeans, that's where real meaning is found, that is the classroom's lesson, however indirectly delivered.”

John Taylor Gatto book The Underground History of American Education

Source: The Underground History of American Education: An Intimate Investigation Into the Prison of Modern Schooling (2001), pp. 105-106

Fashion , Life , Children , Learning
Robert A. Heinlein photo

“I sometimes think that my own weakness lies in not realizing the full depths of the weakness and stupidity of men. As a reasonable creature myself I seem to have an unfortunate tendency to expect others unlike myself to be reasonable.”

Robert A. Heinlein (1907–1988) American science fiction author

The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag (p. 267)
Short fiction, The Fantasies of Robert A. Heinlein (1999)

Thinking , Men

“Courage, combined with stupidity, does not make successful soldiers.”

Jack Cady (1932–2004) American writer

Source: Kilroy Was Here (1996), p. 133

Courage , Success
Alastair Reynolds photo

“There’s nothing like a stupid, accidental death to remind you of the supreme futility of everything.”

Alastair Reynolds (1966) British novelist and astronomer

Death’s Door (p. 229)
Short fiction, Belladonna Nights and Other Stories (2021)

Death
Aimee Mann photo

“Though you pay for the hands they're shaking
The speeches and the mistakes they're making
As they struggle with the undertaking
Of simple thought What you want, you don't know
You're with stupid now
What you know, you don't want to know
You're with stupid now.”

Aimee Mann (1960) American indie rock singer-songwriter (born 1960)

"You're With Stupid Now"
Song lyrics, I'm with Stupid (1995)

Dietrich Bonhoeffer photo

“Greater caution is called for when dealing with a stupid person than with a malicious one.”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–1945) German Lutheran pastor, theologian, dissident anti-Nazi

Letters and Papers from Prison (1967; 1997), On Stupidity

Personality
Dietrich Bonhoeffer photo

“One may protest against evil; it can be exposed and, if need be, prevented by use of force. Evil always carries within itself the germ of its own subversion in that it leaves behind in human beings at least a sense of unease. Against stupidity we are defenseless.”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–1945) German Lutheran pastor, theologian, dissident anti-Nazi

Letters and Papers from Prison (1967; 1997), On Stupidity

Sense , Evil
Dietrich Bonhoeffer photo

“Stupidity is a more dangerous enemy of the good than malice.”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–1945) German Lutheran pastor, theologian, dissident anti-Nazi

The Bonhoeffer Reader https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Bonhoeffer_Reader/CNZgAwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PA766, p. 766
Letters and Papers from Prison (1967; 1997), On Stupidity

Dilgo Khyentse photo

“In my native land waves of attachment to friends and kin surge,
Hatred for enemies rages like fire,
The darkness of stupidity, not caring what to adopt or avoid, thickens -
To abandon my native land is the practice of a bodhisattva”

Dilgo Khyentse (1910–1991) Bhutanese Buddhist Lama

The Heart of Compassion (2006)

Rage
Kim Stanley Robinson photo

“The triviality of the current scene usually put her off, but now she supposed that the politics of the moment always looked petty and stupid; only later did it take on the look of respectable statecraft, of immutable History.”

Kim Stanley Robinson (1952) American science fiction writer

Source: Blue Mars (1996), Chapter 12, “It Goes So Fast” (p. 563)

History
Mila Kunis photo

“People have interpretations of what you're supposed to be like. If you're unattractive and overweight, you must have a great personality. If you're attractive, then you must not be the nicest person. People are always taken aback that I'm easygoing but not necessarily stupid.”

Mila Kunis (1983) American actress

"I am not a party girl: Mila Kunis" in The Indian Express https://indianexpress.com/article/entertainment/entertainment-others/i-am-not-a-party-girl-mila-kunis/ (6 March 2012)

Personality , People

“Cultural products that present people who have no money or power as innately stupid or depraved, and thus unworthy of money or power, are in the interests of the ruling class and the power structure as it stands.”

Meredith Tax (1942) American writer

Source: "Culture is not Neutral, Whom Does it Serve?" (1972), p. 15

Money , People