Quotes about stupidity
page 9

“Maybe you've put your faith in spiritual claptrap because our random, narrative-free universe terrifies you. But that's no solution. If you want comforting, suck your thumb. Buy a pillow. Don't make up a load of floaty blah about energy or destiny. This is the real world, stupid. We should be solving problems, not sticking our fingers in our ears and singing about fairies.”

Charlie Brooker (1971) journalist, broadcaster and writer from England

[Screen Burn, http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguide/columnists/story/0,,2145124,00.html, The Guardian, 11 August 2007, 2007-08-19]
Guardian columns, Screen Burn

World, Faith, Problem, Universe

“I like Sarah Palin, and I’ve heartily enjoyed her arrival on the national stage. As a career classroom teacher, I can see how smart she is — and quite frankly, I think the people who don’t see it are the stupid ones, wrapped in the fuzzy mummy-gauze of their own worn-out partisan dogma. So she doesn’t speak the King’s English — big whoop! There is a powerful clarity of consciousness in her eyes. She uses language with the jumps, breaks and rippling momentum of a be-bop saxophonist. I stand on what I said (as a staunch pro-choice advocate) in my last two columns — that Palin as a pro-life wife, mother and ambitious professional represents the next big shift in feminism. Pro-life women will save feminism by expanding it, particularly into the more traditional Third World.”

Camille Paglia (1947) American writer

Obama Surfs Through (2008)

Life, Women, People, World

“Oh," the figure settled back down, "those reasons. Well, yes. Clever, even. But still profoundly stupid.”

Steven Erikson book The Bonehunters

The Bonehunters (2006)

“The world, Ahlrada Ahn knew, was indifferent to the necessity of preservation. Of histories, of stories layered with meaning and import. It cared nothing for what was forgotten, for memory and knowledge had never been able to halt the endless repetition of wilful stupidity that so bound peoples and civilizations.”

Steven Erikson book The Bonehunters

The Bonehunters (2006)

People, World, History, Knowledge

“There science is dealing with physical facts, in art we are dealing with psychic effects. With this I come to my first statement: 'The source of art – that is, where it comes from – is the discrepancy between physical fact and psychic effect'. That's what I'm talking about. When I want to speak about why I am doing the same thing now, which is squares, for – how long? – 19 years. Because there is no final solution in any visual formulation. Although this may be just a belief on my part, I have some assurances that that is not the most stupid thing to do, through Cezanne whom I consider as one of the greatest painters. From Cézanne we have, so the historians tell us – 250 paintings of Mont St. Victoire. But we know that Cézanne has left in the fields often more than he took home because he was disappointed with his work. So we may conclude he did many more than 250 of the same problem.”

Josef Albers (1888–1976) German-American artist and educator

Homage to the square' (1964), Oral history interview with Josef Albers' (1968)

Art, Disappointment, Home, Problem

“I'm not laughing at you. […] I'm laughing at the whole stupid business. We face the biggest threat in our history and they give me a helmet too big, and you a helmet too small, and tell us we can't exchange them. It's too much. Really.”

David Gemmell book Legend

Source: Drenai series, Legend, Pt 1: Against the Horde, Ch. 9

History, Business

“Trump (Donald) denied knowing that Serge (Kovaleski) was disabled, and demanded an apology, saying that anyone could see his imitation was of a flustered, frightened reporter, not a disabled person. It’s true that Trump was not mimicking any mannerisms that Serge has. He doesn’t jerk around or flail his arms. He’s not retarded. He sits calmly, but if you look at his wrists, you’ll see they are curved in. That’s not the imitation Trump was doing—he was doing a standard retard, waving his arms and sounding stupid: “’Ahhh, I don’t know what I said—ahhh, I don’t remember!’ He’s going, ‘Ahhh, I don’t remember, maybe that’s what I said!’””

Ann Coulter (1961) author, political commentator

2016, In Trump We Trust: E Pluribus Awesome! (2016)

Jerk, Personality

“Humans are an embarrassing species w/ small glimmers of beauty that seep through the veil of bigotry&stupidity, every once in a small while.”

Frances Bean Cobain (1992) American artist

17 June 2014 https://twitter.com/alka_seltzer666/status/479082538904723457 Twitter https://twitter.com/alka_seltzer666 posts

Beauty

“As a child I was helpless and filled with trust, but now I am fortunately sick with fear and filled with distrust. Now I am sharp-sighted, but then I was stupid and blind goose, and I had to experience it over and over again.”

Timo K. Mukka (1944–1973) Finnish writer

p. 166

Fear

“Such an accusation is as stupid as it is absurd.”

Tanith Lee book The Storm Lord

Source: The Storm Lord (1976), Chapter 11 (p. 160)

“I am not sure that I do not begin to like the correction of a mistake, even when it involves my having shown much ignorance and stupidity, as well as I like hitting on a new idea.”

Samuel Butler (1835–1902) novelist

Inaccuracy
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912), Part XXII - Reconciliation

Idea

“Watching this video is like being bukkaked with stupid.”

Maddox (1978) American internet writer

The Best Page in the Universe

“The genius of you Americans is that you never make clear-cut stupid moves, only complicated stupid moves which make us wonder at the possibility that there may be something to them we are missing.”

Gamal Abdel Nasser (1918–1970) second president of Egypt

As quoted in [The Game of Nations, The Amorality of Power Politics, Copeland, Miles, 216, 1970, 4, Simon and Schuster]

““He posed me a question which I must answer correctly—else he will not co-operate.”
“Huh? What was the question?
“I’ll ask you. Martha, what is the meaning of life?”
“What! Why, what a stupid question!”
“He did not ask it stupidly.”
“It’s a psychopathic question, unlimited, unanswerable, and, in all probability, sense free.””

Robert A. Heinlein book Beyond This Horizon

Source: Beyond This Horizon (1948; originally serialized in 1942), Chapter 2, “Rich Man, Poor Man, Beggar Man, Thief—”, p. 35; see also pages 31, 33

Life, Question, Sense

“If I give you romantic advice, don't take it. Look what's happening to me. I have the best taste in friends and the worst taste in husbands. I'm never getting married again. That's just stupid. There's no reason on Earth to do that.”

Liza Minnelli (1946) American actress and singer

October 6, 2007 St. Petersburg Times by Shannon Breen.ď

“You know what is good about these Dixie Chicks burnings or bashings? It's a wonderful, wonderful way for really stupid people to hook up. They meet, they throw some things on the fire, they talk about Vin Diesel, they tell stories about who their favorite Fox anchor is, they exchange phone numbers and in some cases has led to marriages.”

Janeane Garofalo (1964) comedian, actress, political activist, writer

standup performance, 2003[citation needed]
Standup routines

Marriage, People, Way

“We live in a society where saying that something is for girls is the equivalent to saying that something is stupid, or saying that something isn't worthwhile. I think that's awful and I think that kind of attitude needs to be changed.”

Lauren Faust (1974) American animator and writer

Lauren Faust, Bronycon Summer 2012

Girl, Thinking, Change

“Dennis Rodman says North Korea is 'not that bad'. Dennis Rodman is deeply stupid.”

Anderson Cooper (1967) journalist and author

Post on Twitter https://twitter.com/andersoncooper/status/420260443161378816 (6 January 2014).

“We are living in the most destructive and, hence, the most stupid period of the history of our species.”

Wendell Berry (1934) author

"A Poem of Difficult Hope".
What Are People For? (1990)

History

“(On Standards & Practices): “Where are your standards?…. Stupid to retarded, is that the level of standards you’re trying to put out to America?””

Bill Hicks (1961–1994) American comedian

Relentless (1992)

“I think if I directly design their apartment, I will not help them… If you are rich and famous and you buy an apartment (house) and you don't know what to do, you will rent an interior designer. But in the end you will not make your own home. You will take the prefab life made by your interior designer and that is stupid. With ICON you will do it yourself.”

Philippe Starck (1949) French architect and industrial designer

Starck (2006) in: "Starck Ting: March 2006" at starckting.blogspot.com, 2006-03-01

Life, Home, Thinking, Help

“There'd always been something about the boy, he was smart and stupid at the same time. As if he was meant to do everything the wrong way. Junior league ball, the boy was twelve, they subbed him in for the pitcher, good arm but he chokes, eight runs straight, loses the game. Afterward acting like nothing happened. It made no sense. The feeling that gave you, watching your son lose the game, but he just shrugged it off, didn't care.”

Philipp Meyer book American Rust

American Rust (2009)

Way, Feeling, Game, Boy

“People are trying to force me to redeem (myself) — certain women, certain mentors. Nobody's going to change me. I'm going to fight that. You can't change me; you can't tame me. When you say that, I'm going to bite you even harder. I'm more ferocious, more complicated. I'm not going to let anybody win a popularity contest off my conduct. You have to understand. It is a pervasive (belief) that I'm an animal — undomesticated as well. But regardless of the bizarre (stuff) I've done, I'm a very rational individual. But everybody still thinks I'm crazy and stupid because that's what they want to believe.”

Mike Tyson (1966) American boxer

http://www.usatoday.com/sports/boxing/2005-06-02-tyson-saraceno_x.htm
On himself

Women, People, Understanding, Thinking

“I was very melancholic in the beginning. Then I was very angry. Then I fell in love again — but not stupid like in the beginning.”

Laura Pausini (1974) Italian singer

Los Angeles Daily News (October 16, 2014)

Love

“The fool of nature stood with stupid eyes
And gaping mouth, that testified surprise.”

John Dryden book Fables, Ancient and Modern

Source: Fables, Ancient and Modern (1700), Cymon and Iphigenia, Line 107.

Fools, Nature

“The human mind is utterly stupid when it carries, quite willingly, the heavy burden of resentment.”

Sri Chinmoy (1931–2007) Indian writer and guru

#16,575, Part 17
Seventy Seven Thousand Service-Trees series 1-50 (1998)

“I'd heard of Evergreen Care Center before. Cass and I had always made fun of the stupid ads they ran on TV, featuring some dragged-out woman with a limp perm and big, painted-on circles under her eyes, downing vodka and sobbing uncontrollably. We can't heal you at Evergreen, the very somber voiceover said. But we can help you to heal yourself. It had become our own running joke, applicable to almost anything.”

Sarah Dessen book Dreamland

Dreamland (2000)

Help, Painting

“Science can learn a lot from someone this stupid.”

Maddox (1978) American internet writer

The Best Page in the Universe

Learning, Science

“Length of course depends on the stupidity of the class…”

John Fisher, 1st Baron Fisher (1841–1920) Royal Navy admiral of the fleet

Fisher's notes in the front cover of his own copy of A Short Treatise on Electricity and the Management of Electric Torpedoes (1868)
Fisher of Kilverstone (1973), Ruddock F. Mackay, Clarendon Press, p. 48.

Dependency

“But much more vicious than these cases is the majority of foreign correspondents who never have to be placed against the wall, who are never told what to write and how to write it, but who know from contact with the great minds of the press lords or from the simple deduction that the bosses are in big business and the news must be slanted accordingly, or from the general intangible atmosphere which prevails everywhere, what they can do and what they must never do. The most stupid boast in the history of present-day journalism is that of the writer who says, "I have never been given orders; I am free to do as I like."”

George Seldes (1890–1995) American journalist

Lords of the Press

History, Business

“All these books were written by idle, unoccupied, ignorant men, the slaves of vice and filth. I wonder what it is that delights us in these books unless it be that we are attracted by indecency. Learning is not to be expected from authors who never saw even a shadow of learning. As for their story-telling, what pleasure is to be derived from the things they invent, full of lies and stupidity?”
Quos omnes libros conscripserunt homines otiosi, male feriati, imperiti, vitiis ac spurcitiae dediti, in queis miror quid delectet nisi tam nobis flagitia blandirentur. Eruditio non est exspectanda ab hominibus qui ne umbram quidem eruditionis viderant. Iam cum narrant, quae potest esse delectatio in rebus quas tam aperte et stulte confingunt?

Juan Luis Vives (1492–1540) Spanish philosopher

De Institutione Feminae Christianae (1523), trans. by C. Fantazzi (1996), Vol. I, p. 47.

Men, Pleasure, Books, Learning

“Each year at springtime scores of people on snowmobiles crash through the melting ice on the lakes of Minnesota and drown. Pressure is mounting on the new governor to pass a protective law. He, the former wrestler and bodyguard, has the only sage answer to this: "You can´t legislate stupidity."”

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

Minnesota declaration (1999)

People, Law

“Each man follows the path of destiny, but no two paths are alike. It seems that mine now runs into a place of evil intent, wasted wisdom, and stupidity.”

Andre Norton (1912–2005) American writer of science fiction and fantasy

Source: Dragon Magic (1972), Chapter 5, “Shui Mien Lung—Slumbering Dragon” (p. 168)

Wisdom, Evil

“Some day, even the experts will figure out, that crime is not caused by rap music…or even my music, but by a power structure of self-absorbed property owners so brain dead and stupid they won't even see that if you're too goddamn greedy to pay taxes for schools and services, they're not going to be any good any more! And that uneducated time bombs are a very poor investment as a future work force. And if you go on teaching people that life is cheap, and leave them to rot in ghettos and jails, they may one day feel justified in coming back to rob and kill you. Duh!”

Jello Biafra (1958) singer and activist

"Rob Now, Pay Later", Home Alive: The Art of Self Defense (1996)

Life, People, School, Music

“You've got to give it up for our troops. The mission itself is hard enough, but then there's all sorts of backdoor drafts where they extend their tours, calling up the guard, the reserve; all these Enron accounting tricks so that Rumsfeld doesn't have to admit he got the troop levels wrong, and still they don't bug out. And I see this, and then I watch some reality show, and I see people who are peevish and selfish and greedy and narcissistic and lazy and stupid, and I think to myself, "Why is this first group of people defending this second group of people?"”

Bill Maher (1956) American stand-up comedian

I'm Swiss (2005)

People, Thinking, Reality, Selfishness

“It's not just that I'm stupid; it's that I'm just smart enough to know how stupid I am. I wish I weren't so stupid. Or that I were stupider.”

John S. Hall (1960) Poet, author, singer, lawyer

August 19
Quotes from Daily Negations (2007)

“Motion with respect to the universal ocean of aether eludes us. We say, "Let V be the velocity of a body through the aether", and form the various electromagnetic equations in which V is scattered liberally. Then we insert the observed values, and try to eliminate everything which is unknown except V. The solution goes on famously; but just as we have got rid of all the other unknowns, behold! V disappears as well, and we are left with the indisputable but irritating conclusion —
::: 0 = 0
This is a favourite device that mathematical equations resort to, when we propound stupid questions.”

Arthur Stanley Eddington (1882–1944) British astrophysicist

Source: The Nature of the Physical World (1928), Ch. 2 Relativity

Mathematics, Question, Universe

“That doesn't make any sense. Sorry. There's no known way of saying an English sentence in which you begin a sentence with "in" and emphasize it. Get me a jury and show me how you can say "In July" and I'll go down on you. That's just idiotic, if you'll forgive me for saying so. It's just stupid… "In July"; I'd love to know how you emphasize "In" in "In July."”

Orson Welles (1915–1985) American actor, director, writer and producer

Impossible! Meaningless!
The Findus Foods "Frozen Peas" Session Out-Takes

Love, Way, Forgiveness, Sense

“Days are stupid length. They are just long enough to get regret and then you have to go to bed.”

Dylan Moran (1971) Irish actor and comedian

on days.
Yeah, Yeah (2011)

“A lifetime career goal for me has always been wanting to lift up little girls. I feel like society has contempt for girls and little girl things. When athletes are performing badly their coaches call them ladies, or when somebody is being weak they say they're crying like a little girl, that's contempt. When somebody's trying to describe something as stupid or lame they say it's for little girls or only a little girl would like that, or when something is pink or full of rainbows and hearts people jump to the immediate conclusion that it's dumb, and if adult men are liking that sort of thing there's something wrong with them, because there's something contemptuous and unworthy about girl things and being a girl.”

Lauren Faust (1974) American animator and writer

Men, People, Feeling, Girl

“Science Fiction Gods; Do they take much of an interest in us? I doubt it. How much entertainment does an ant's nest provide you with?
'Adepticus Sir, that bunch of Ornithoids on Artoc 4 that you asked me to observe, well they've just trashed their planet.'
'Oh that is a pity Initiatus Jones. What was it this time, ecological screw up or nuclear winter?'
'Worse than that sir, i looks lke they were mucking around with vacuum energy without having first invented the Mobius sphere.'
'Ah yes, the old classic mistake, we loose a few like that.'
'Could we not have tipped them off about it Sir?'
'I'm afraid not Jones, stupidity must remain its own reward, it's regrettable but there you are. Did you salvage anything?'
'They composed some fairly good poetry a couple of centuries ago, and some rather fine cloud sculptures fairly recently, I've logged some records in the archives.'
'Splendid Jones, I'll peruse them this evening. What about those Apes on Sol 3, how are they getting on?'
'Quit a bit of warfare as usual Sir, mostly based on chemical explosives these days, but with the occasional use of plutonium. Many of them have developed a belief in a big bang theory, and they reckon that they have the maths to prove it.'
'Really? Smith in anthropology will probably find that hilarious, I'm sure she would appreciate the data. It was one of her old Stomping grounds you know?'
'No I didnt know that Sir'
'It was a long time ago Jones, and a bit of a fiasco actually, she gave them a piece of her mind about some of their barbaric behavior which then abruptly became worse. Ever since then they have been obsessed with the number plate on her craft, it read 'JHVH'. The department gave her a desk job after that.”

Peter J. Carroll (1953) British occultist

Source: The Apophenion (2008), p. 107-108

God, Behavior, Science, Winter

“In Etruria.. the nation stagnated and decayed in political helplessness and indolent opulence, a theological monopoly in the hands of the nobility, stupid fatalism, wild and meaningless mysticism, the arts of soothsaying and mendicant priestcraft gradually developed themselves, till they reached the height at which we afterwards find them.”

Theodor Mommsen (1817–1903) German classical scholar, historian, jurist, journalist, politician, archaeologist and writer

Vol. 1, Book II, Chapter 8. "Law. Religion. Military System. Economic Condition. Nationality"
The History of Rome - Volume 1

Art

“It [i. e., his look] held the fatal mixture of stupidity and cunning that lurks at the bottom of all evil.”

Brian W. Aldiss book Hothouse

Source: Hothouse (1962), Chapter 22

Evil

““It would please me your not being obsequious. That is a trait of marketplace people who are selling shoddy goods. I am sure to prefer endless, stupid questions to that.”
“Ob… obseek…?”
“Obsequious. Flattering with oiliness. It is not liked by me. In Yiqanuc we say: ‘Send the man with the oily tongue to go and lick the snowshoes.’””

Tad Williams (1957) novelist

Source: Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn, The Dragonbone Chair (1988), Chapter 18, “A Net of Stars” (p. 262).

People, Question

“Jake jerked a thumb at the door. "Al right. Get the hell out of here, and take all your pictures of naked women with you." "Yes, sir." Chuckling, Potter scooped up the folder of reconnaissance photos and started out. He paused with his hand on the doorknob. "Good luck," he said. "You've done everything you could to get us ready, but we'll still need it." "I'll put in a fresh requisition with the Quartermaster Corps," Jake said. Potter nodded and left. Jake shook his head in bemusement. He might have made stupid jokes like that with Ferd Koenig and a couple of other old-time Party buddies, but not with anybody else. So why make them with Potter? But he didn't need long to find the answer. He'd known Potter longer than he'd known Koenig or any of the other Party men. They'd both hung tough when the Army of Northern Virginia was falling to pieces all around them. If the president of the greatest country in North America- no, in the world!”

Harry Turtledove book American Empire: The Victorious Opposition

couldn't joke around with the one man who'd known him when he was just a sergeant, with whom could he joke? Nobody. Nobody at all.
Source: American Empire: The Victorious Opposition (2003), p. 533

Women, Men, World, Jerk

“Since Pharaoh’s bits were pushed into the jaws of kings, these dyings—patient or impatient, but dyings—have happened, by the hundreds of millions; they were all wasted. They taught us to kill others and to die ourselves, but never how to live. Who is “taught to live” by cruelty, suffering, stupidity, and that occupational disease of soldiers, death?”

Randall Jarrell (1914–1965) poet, critic, novelist, essayist

“Poetry in War and Peace”, p. 129
Kipling, Auden & Co: Essays and Reviews 1935-1964 (1980)

Death, Disease, Suffering

“The history of the apple is too absurd. Whether the apple fell or not, how can any one believe that such a discovery could in that way be accelerated or retarded? Undoubtedly, the occurrence was something of this sort. There comes to Newton a stupid, importunate man, who asks him how he hit upon his great discovery. When Newton had convinced himself what a noodle he had to do with, and wanted to get rid of the man, he told him that an apple fell on his nose; and this made the matter quite clear to the man, and he went away satisfied.”

Carl Friedrich Gauss (1777–1855) German mathematician and physical scientist

As quoted by Robert Chambers, "Sir Isaac Newton and the Apple," The Book of Days (1832) Vol. 2 https://books.google.com/books?id=K0UJAAAAIAAJ, p. 757.

Way, History

“You are what is keeping and making the black race look bad. Wake up fool. Do not glorify this half a man, he has worked for nothing. He chose to keep himself where he is, not the white people. It is time to take responsibility for your own actions, and not act like a stinking fool. Kids and young black men and women look at this site, and believe that they are abused. That is a bold-faced lie. It is out of the mouths of cheap thugs like you that are hurting our young and taking away the chances they have to make themselves a productive part of society. Brothers and sisters, the only slavery in America now is the one you put yourself into. Rise up like Doctor King as taught us, and be a real human being. We are all in this togehter, white and black. Peace to all, and I hope this stupid fake hate stops real soon. We are all brothers and sisters. Do not be fooled by the tyranny of evil men like this. Lift yourself up, educate yourselves, and work hard for a good life. No one owes you anything. Stand proud as a person of color, and do something meaningful with your life. I did and I am the best at what I do! Peace out, R. Sherman.”

Richard Sherman (American football) (1988) American football player

Posted on a website under the alias "RSherman25", quoted in "Richard Sherman Blasts 'Black Lives Matter' Activist" https://web.archive.org/web/20150916235759/http://newsbusters.org/blogs/culture/dylan-gwinn/2015/09/14/richard-sherman-blasts-black-lives-matter-activist (14 September 2015), by Dylan Gwinn, NewsBusters (2015), Reston, Virginia: Media Research Center. Sherman has said that although he agreed with some of the sentiments expressed, he did not write or say this http://www.seattletimes.com/sports/seahawks/video-richard-sherman-speaks-passionately-on-black-lives-matter/. Misattributed

Life, Women, Men, Hate

“When you’re young, hungry and stupid you’ll do whatever it takes.”

Kai Ryssdal (1963) Radio host, United States Navy officer

Interviewed by Wendy A. Hoke, "Interview with Marketplace's Kai Ryssdal" http://creativeink.blogspot.com/2008/09/interview-with-marketplaces-kai-ryssdal.html, Creative Ink (September 2008).

“It seemed clear that wars were not made by generations and their special stupidities, but that wars were made instead by something ignorant in the human heart.”

John Knowles book A Separate Peace

Gene, on war.
Source: A Separate Peace (1959), P. 193

War, Heart

“If you're too stupid to understand that a philosophy that favors a federally structured republic, with numerous restraints on the scope and power of government to interfere with individual rights or the free market, is a lot different from an ethnic-nationalist, atheistic, and socialist program of genocide and international aggression, you should use this rule of thumb: If someone isn't advocating the murder of millions of people in gas chambers and a global Reich for the White Man you shouldn't assume he's a Nazi and you should know it's pretty damn evil to call him one.”

Jonah Goldberg (1969) American political writer and pundit

January 5, 2001 http://web.archive.org/web/20010105/www.nationalreview.com/goldberg/goldbergprint010501.html 2000s, 2001

People, Understanding, Evil

“Bakunin: Left to themselves people are noble, generous, uncorrupted, they'd create a completely new kind of society if only people weren't so blind, stupid and selfish.
Herzen: Is that the same people or different people?
Bakunin: The same people.”

Tom Stoppard (1937) British playwright

The Coast of Utopia: Salvage (2002)

People, Selfishness

“Smashing things is the violent way stupid mortal monkeys solve their problems.”

Kage Baker book In the Garden of Iden

Source: In the Garden of Iden (1997), Chapter 5 (p. 45)

Way, Problem

“Memory is often the attribute of stupidity; it generally belongs to heavy spirits whom it makes even heavier by the baggage it loads them down with.”

François-René de Chateaubriand book Mémoires d'Outre-Tombe

Book II: Ch. 1:The School at Dol – Mathematics and Languages – The nature of my memory
Mémoires d'outre-tombe (1848 – 1850)

Memory

“It is of first-rate importance to notice from the start that stupidity is not the same thing, or the same sort of thing, as ignorance. There is no incompatibility between being well-informed and being silly, and a person who has a good nose for arguments or jokes may have a bad head for facts.”

Gilbert Ryle book The Concept of Mind

Source: The Concept of Mind (1949), Ch. II: Knowing How and Knowing That, (2) Intelligence and Intellect

Personality

“Jesus knew — knew — that we're carrying the Kingdom of Heaven around with us, inside, where we're all too goddam stupid and sentimental and unimaginative to look? You have to be a son of God to know that kind of stuff.”

Jerome David Salinger book Franny and Zooey

Franny and Zooey (1961), Zooey (1957)

God

“The qualities which produce the dogged, unbeatable courage of the British, personified at the time by Winston Churchill, can appear in other settings as stubbornness bordering on stupidity.”

Dean Acheson book Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department

Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department (1969), Principles

Dogs, Courage, Appearance, Time

“We are simultaneously supposed to gasp in awe at teachers' raw dedication and be forced to listen to their incessant caterwauling about how they don't make enough money. Well, which is it? Are they dedicated to teaching tomorrow's future or are they in it for the money? After all the carping about how little teachers are paid, if someone enters the teaching profession for the big bucks, aren't they too stupid to be teaching our kids?”

Ann Coulter (1961) author, political commentator

2006, Godless : The Church of Liberalism (2006)

Money, Teachers, Future

“You know why I am a prisoner—because the laws are so stupid that we prefer to break them than to live by them, although it means life-long imprisonment.”

Brian W. Aldiss (1925–2017) British science fiction author

“Man on Bridge” p. 87
Short fiction, Who Can Replace a Man? (1965)

Life, Law

“Bans are laws for the stupid.”

Henning von Tresckow (1901–1944) German general

1942. Henning von Tresckow 10.01.1901 – 21.07.1944 von Dr. Hans-Peter Diller, OTA https://web.archive.org/web/20090408164814/http://www.offizierschule-des-heeres.de/tresckowmonografie.htm.

Law

“I was a looker someone who looked over at every car at every traffic light, hoping something would happen, and almost never finding anyone looking back- always everyone looking forward, and every time I felt stupid. Why should people look over at you? Why would they care?”

Dave Eggers (1970) memoirist, novelist, short story writer, editor, publisher

You Shall Know Our Velocity! (2002)

People, Hope, Cars, Light

“To be wicked is never excusable, but there is some merit in knowing that you are; the most irreparable of vices is to do evil from stupidity.”

Charles Baudelaire book Le Spleen de Paris

On n'est jamais excusable d'être méchant, mais il y a quelque mérite à savoir qu'on l'est; et le plus irréparable des vices est de faire le mal par bêtise.
XXVIII: "La Fausse Monnaie"
Le Spleen de Paris (1862)

Evil

“There was a Hindu named Arjan in Gobindwal on the banks of the Beas River. Pretending to be a spiritual guide, he had won over as devotees many simple-minded Indians and even some ignorant, stupid Muslims by broadcasting his claims to be a saint. They called him guru. Many fools from all around had recourse to him and believed in him implicitly. For three or four generations they had been peddling this same stuff. For a long time I had been thinking that either this false trade should be eliminated or that he should be brought into the embrace of Islam. At length, when Khusraw passed by there, this inconsequential little fellow wished to pay homage to Khusraw. When Khusraw stopped at his residence, [Arjan] came out and had an interview with [Khusraw]. Giving him some elementary spiritual precepts picked up here and there, he made a mark with saffron on his forehead, which is called qashqa in the idiom of the Hindus and which they consider lucky. When this was reported to me, I realized how perfectly false he was and ordered him brought to me. I awarded his houses and dwellings and those of his children to Murtaza Khan, and I ordered his possessions and goods confiscated and him executed.”

Guru Arjan (1563–1606) The fifth Guru of Sikhism

– Emperor Jahangir's Memoirs, Jahangirnama 27b-28a, (Translator: Wheeler M. Thackston) [Jahangir, Emperor of Hindustan, 1999, The Jahangirnama: Memoirs of Jahangir, Emperor of India, Thackston, Wheeler M., Wheeler Thackston, Oxford University Press, 59, 978-0-19-512718-8]

Children, Fools, Thinking, Time

“Occasionally, there arises a writing situation where you see an alternative to what you are doing, a mad, wild gamble of a way for handling something, which may leave you looking stupid, ridiculous or brilliant — you just don't know which. You can play it safe there, too, and proceed along the route you'd mapped out for yourself. Or you can trust your personal demon who delivered that crazy idea in the first place.
Trust your demon.”

Roger Zelazny (1937–1995) American speculative fiction writer

Introduction to Passion Play (1962)

Way, Idea, Personality, Madness

“Tanzania is standing by the people of Zimbabwe including President Mugabe… Mugabe is there, he is president, he has been elected. If Tanzania had simply said, stupid, you’re hopeless, a murderer, a violator of basic human rights; does that remove Mugabe from office? It doesn’t.”

Jakaya Kikwete (1950) Tanzanian politician and president

Interviews, Interview with Financial Times, 2007-10-04 http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/d8a07e28-72a3-11dc-b7ff-0000779fd2ac.html?nclick_check1/

People

“How suburban!' cried Elvira. I was in Hampstead the other day: in front of one of the richest houses was a crazy pavement: they paid about £35 for it, doubtless. The man who would have done it best was in an asylum : he would have done it for nothing, happy to do it, and the more there is of it, the more dull and plain it looks, just an expanse of conventional craziness, looking as stupid as a neanderthal skull. That's the suburbs all over. That's what we are, you see: suburban, however wild we run. You know quite well, in yourself, don't you, two people like us can't go wild? Still, it's nice to pretend to, for a while.”

Christina Stead book The Beauties and Furies

The Beauties and Furies (1936)

Happiness, People, Housing

“Jack: A potential Cabinet Minister if ever I saw one. Dishonest in a way which seems embarrassingly frank. Upright when creeping. And dignified when at his most stupid.”

Dennis Potter (1935–1994) English television dramatist, screenwriter and journalist

Vote, vote, vote for Nigel Barton (1965)

Way

“If I could give advice to the planet, it would be; don't marry for looks alone, going either way, and I'll tell you why. In a few years, if Barbara's boobs start to sag too much, there's a place you can go where they can just lift 'em right back up to where they were. And they can point the nipple wherever they want 'em. You can actually go to a titty bar, pick out a set of titties and say, "I want those titties on that woman right there." If her belly gets too big and she don't wanna work it off, you can go get a tummy tuck- they'll give you a belly that looks like a cheerleader. You know, if your eyes start to go bad, you can have Lasik surgery and they can give you 20/20 vision at any age. If your hearing starts to fail, they can put a device in your ear that'll make you able to hear as good as you could the day you were born. But let me tell you something, folks… you can't fix stupid. There's not a pill you can take, there's not a class you can go to. Stupid is fo-evah.”

Ron White (1956) American comedian

You Can't Fix Stupid

Age, Way

“It is true that the masses have always been led in one manner or another, and it could be said that their part in history consists primarily in allowing themselves to be led, since they represent a merely passive element, a “matter” in the Aristotelian sense of the word. But, to lead them today, it is sufficient to dispose of purely material means, … and this shows clearly to what depths our age has sunk. At the same time the masses are made to believe that they are not being led, but that they are acting spontaneously and governing themselves, and the fact that they believe this is a sign from which the extent of their stupidity may be inferred.”

René Guénon (1886–1951) French metaphysician

Source: The Crisis of the Modern World (1927), p. 109

Age, History, Sense, Time

“The reason propaganda works is that most people are too involved or too stupid to recognize it as propaganda. People claim to understand the bias and filter it out, but that's absurd. Of course they don't.”

Ann Coulter (1961) author, political commentator

2002, Ann Coulter : Left Is 'out to Destroy the Country' (2002)

People, Understanding

“"You stupid mutt! How could you? My baby!
[Jacob] backed out the front door now as I stalked him, half-running backward down the stairs. "It wasn't my idea, Bella!"
"I've held her all of one time, and already you think you have some moronic wolfy claim to her? She's mine. […] How dare you imprint on my baby? Have you lost your mind?"”

Stephenie Meyer (1973) American author

Bella Cullen and Jacob Black, p. 449
Twilight series, Breaking Dawn (2008)

Idea, Thinking, Time, Baby

“I just want to say that um, I'm just really, really shocked at like how nice our world is because it's just so nice. Like oh my God! Like, the other day, like I was sitting there and I saw these magazines and they said I was pregnant, and like, it's so true. Like America, believe everything you read. Because, like, you're smart and I'm stupid. Like for real. Come on y'all.”

Britney Spears (1981) American singer, dancer and actress

Sarcastic message delivered in "valley girl" tones, recorded by X17online, as quoted in "Britney, like, totally breaks her silence" http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18141662/ns/entertainment-access_hollywood/ at Access Hollywood (17 April 2007).

God, World, Reading

“It is by no means enough that an officer of the Navy should be a capable mariner. He must be that, of course, but also a great deal more. He should be as well a gentleman of liberal education, refined manners, punctilious courtesy, and the nicest sense of personal honor.
He should be the soul of tact, patience, justice, firmness, kindness, and charity. No meritorious act of a subordinate should escape his attention or be left to pass without its reward, even if the reward is only a word of approval. Conversely, he should not be blind to a single fault in any subordinate, though at the same time, he should be quick and unfailing to distinguish error from malice, thoughtlessness from incompetency, and well meant shortcomings from heedless or stupid blunder.
In one word, every commander should keep constantly before him the great truth, that to be well obeyed, he must be perfectly esteemed.”

John Paul Jones (1747–1792) American naval officer

Statement long attributed to Jones, but now believed to have been written by Augustus C. Buell; Reef Points: 2003-2004, 98th Edition, U.S. Naval Academy (2003)
Misattributed

Truth, Education, Justice, Error

“He [Richter's art-mate, the German painter Sigmar Polke ] was very different, he was not cool... He had irony. He was very funny. The things we did together [around 1963 – 1970] were a kind of craziness... We thought everything was so stupid and we refused to participate. That was the basis of our understanding.... he was able to paint those little dots in his raster paintings by hand with such a patience while he was living with his two children and his wife in a small subsidized apartment.”

Gerhard Richter (1932) German visual artist, born 1932

Source: after 2000, Doubt and belief in painting' (2003), pp. 45-46, note 43

Children, Art, Understanding, Painting

“What are wanted for the Indian as for the Englishman, the Frenchman, the German, and the Russian, are not Constitutions and Revolutions, nor all sorts of Conferences and Congresses, nor the many ingenious devices for submarine navigation and aerial navigation, nor powerful explosives, nor all sorts of conveniences to add to the enjoyment of the rich, ruling classes; nor new schools and universities with innumerable faculties of science, nor an augmentation of papers and books, nor gramophones and cinematographs, nor those childish and for the most part corrupt stupidities termed art — but one thing only is needful: the knowledge of the simple and clear truth which finds place in every soul that is not stupefied by religious and scientific superstitions — the truth that for our life one law is valid — the law of love, which brings the highest happiness to every individual as well as to all mankind. Free your minds from those overgrown, mountainous imbecilities which hinder your recognition of it, and at once the truth will emerge from amid the pseudo-religious nonsense that has been smothering it: the indubitable, eternal truth inherent in man, which is one and the same in all the great religions of the world. It will in due time emerge and make its way to general recognition, and the nonsense that has obscured it will disappear of itself, and with it will go the evil from which humanity now suffers.”

Leo Tolstoy A Letter to a Hindu

A Letter to a Hindu (1908)

Love, Life, Happiness, Truth

“I'm bothered by the fact that stupid people don't spontaneously combust, which they should.”

Erik Naggum (1965–2009) Norwegian computer programmer

Re: A draft business plan for free software LISP vendors http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.lisp/msg/3bb9094cbc310a0f (Usenet article). Usenet articles, Miscellaneous

People

“Not everybody is absolutely stupid. Why on earth would I be racist, what would I be trying to achieve?”

Morrissey (1959) English singer

From the TV documentary The Importance of Being Morrissey (2003)
In interviews etc., About himself and his work

“Of all the bigotries that savage the human temper there is none so stupid as the anti-Semitic.”

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

Is it Peace (1923)
Later life

“Suddenly, I wondered what the hell was going on. Ramón had been the smartest and most capable guy in our whole grade in “thinking” and “figuring” out things, and he’d been considered dumb, too. And now Gus, he was also the smartest guy of all of us during recess and he just said that he’d been flunked before. This didn’t make any damn—I mean, blessed—sense to me at all! The smartest kids I knew were all considered stupid.”

Victor Villaseñor (1940) American writer

Burro Genius: A Memoir (2004)

Guy, Hell, Thinking, Sense

“Right now, at this very moment, on American highways, there are no less than 5,000 concentration camp trucks. Trucks that we have constructed. Inside these trucks, there are living, terrified innocent beings. Cows and pigs and chickens. These trucks are being driven to concentration camp's slaughterhouses that we carefully constructed all across America. When the trucks arrive, the animals are so frightened that they won't even get off the truck. They're not stupid, they know what's next. So people go on the trucks with electric prods and force them to walk down the chutes to their own deaths. Or if the animals are small enough to man handle, like chickens, we'll just grab them off the trucks and toss them inside. Inside, these innocent, living beings are hanged upside down, fully conscious. In other words, they go in alive, against their will, and come out chopped up, into hundreds of pieces.”

Gary Yourofsky (1970) animal rights activist

Part of the speech to the students of the Georgia Institute of Technology (Summer 2010)

Death, People, Animals

“Another stupid party last night; perhaps if larger they might be less intolerable, but here there were only just enough to make one card-table, with six people to look on and talk nonsense to each other.”

Jane Austen (1775–1817) English novelist

Letter to Cassandra (1801-05-12) [Letters of Jane Austen -- Brabourne Edition]
Letters

People, Night

“‘ Is the war coming to Eldacre, my lord?’ asked Ramus, as he settled into the chair.
'I fear it is. A more stupid and wasteful business there never was. Fields will not be planted, food will run low, tax revenues will dry up — save from the makers of swords and munitions.”

David Gemmell book Stormrider

Source: Rigante series, Stormrider, Ch. 15

War, Fear, Food, Business

“Sir Anthony Eden has been pretending that he is now invading Egypt in order to strengthen the United Nations. Every burglar of course could say the same thing, he could argue that he was entering the house in order to train the police. So, if Sir Anthony Eden is sincere in what he is saying, and he may be, he may be, then if he is sincere in what he is saying then he is too stupid to be a prime minister.”

Aneurin Bevan (1897–1960) Welsh politician

Speech on November 4th at "Law not War" rally in Trafalgar Square, London, during the Suez crisis of 1956.
1950s

Housing, Sincerity, Training

“They are possibly the dumbest people on the planet… in thrall to conniving, thieving, smug pricks. We Americans suffer from an enforced ignorance. We don't know about anything that's happening outside our country. Our stupidity is embarrassing. National Geographic produced a survey which showed that 60 percent of 18-25 year olds don't know where Great Britain is on a map. And 92 percent of us don't own a passport.”

Michael Moore (1954) American filmmaker, author, social critic, and liberal activist

On the American public, as quoted in "The Awkward Conscience of a Nation" in The Daily Mirror (3 November 2003); also partly quoted in "The company they keep" by Michael Barone, in U.S.News & World Report (12 July 2004) http://www.usnews.com/usnews/opinion/articles/040712/12barone.htm 2004

People, Suffering, Country

“The story begins with a somewhat disgruntled hero, who perceived of the world as populated with stupid people, everywhere committing the environmental fallacy. The fallacy was a case not merely of the “mind’s falling into error,” but rather of the mind leading all of us into incredible dangers as it first builds crisis and then attacks crisis.
Like all heroes, this one looked about for resources, for aids that would help in a dangerous battle, and he found plenty of support – in both the past and the present. It won’t hurt to summarize the story thus far. If the intellect is to engage in the heroic adventure of securing improvement in the human condition, it cannot rely on “approaches,” like politics and morality, which attempt to tackle problems head-on, within the narrow scope. Attempts to address problems in such a manner simply lead to other problems, to an amplification of difficulty away from real improvement. Thus the key to success in the hero’s attempt seems to be comprehensiveness. Never allow the temptation to be clear, or to use reliable data, or to “come up to the standards of excellence,” divert you from the relevant, even though the relevant may be elusive, weakly supported by data, and requiring loose methods.
Thus the academic world of Western twentieth century society is a fearsome enemy of the systems approach, using as it does a politics to concentrate the scholars’ attention on matters that are scholastically respectable but disreputable from a systems-planning point of view.”

C. West Churchman (1913–2004) American philosopher and systems scientist

Source: 1960s - 1970s, The Systems Approach and Its Enemies (1979), p. 145; cited in C. WEST CHURCHMAN: CHAMPION OF THE SYSTEMS APPROACH http://filer.case.edu/nxb41/churchman.html, 2004-2007 Case Western Reserve University

People, World, Error, Support

“People flock around the sorcerer, the priest, the scientist, the commissar, the psychiatrist, the drug pusher, each generation of the faithful pitying the victims of past fallacies, and this repetitive vanity keeps us stupider than we need to be. **The Rules of Chaos (1969), p 106”

Stephen Vizinczey (1933) Hungarian-Canadian writer

People, Faith, Past

“The fittest survive.
What is meant by the fittest?
Not the strongest; not the cleverest —
Weakness and stupidity everywhere survive.
There is no way of determining fitness except in that a thing does survive.
"Fitness," then, is only another name for "survival."”

Charles Fort (1874–1932) American writer

Darwinism:
That survivors survive.
Source: The Book of The Damned (1919), Ch. 3, part 1 at resologist.net

Way

“It is the kind of thing that happens to you when you are stupid," said Esa. "Things go entirely differently from the way you planned them.”

Agatha Christie book Death Comes as the End

Death Comes as the End (1945)

Way

“The only reason they put me in jail is my involvement in politics, my criticism of the authorities. Later the excuse for my detention became my “tax problem.” But internally they never told me anything about it. I don’t want to underestimate their intelligence, but up to this day I think what they did is very stupid. In fact, they even helped me in an ironic sense. They gave me a chance to explain what is happening with this system. They provided such a platform for me.”

Ai Weiwei (1957) Chinese concept artist

2010-, Ai Weiwei Does Not Feel Powerful, 2011

Intelligence, Problem, Thinking, Sense

“The pain is legit. But Trump is a stupid vote. Because Trump won't solve any of those things, he'll make them all worse. You're voting against your pain. You're voting to create more. You're going for a kind of witch doctor of politics who is promising things based on magic.”

Mike Murphy (political consultant) (1962) American political consultant

As quoted in "Debriefing Mike Murphy" https://www.weeklystandard.com/matt-labash/debriefing-mike-murphy (18 March 2016), by Matt Labash, The Weekly Standard 2010s

Pain

“People ask me, "Do you have optimism about the world, about how terrible it is?" And I say, "Yes, it's great the way it is" … I had the wonderful privilege of sitting face to face with [a Hindu guru] and the first thing he said to me was "Do you have a question?", cause the teacher always answers questions… I said, "Yes, I have a question." I said, " Since in Hindu thinking all the universe is divine, a manifestation of divinity itself, how can we say no to anything in the world? How can we say no to brutality to stupidity to vulgarity to thoughtlessness?" And he said, "For you and me, you must say yes." Well, I learned from my friends who were students of his that that happened to be the first question he asked his guru, and we had a wonderful conversation for an hour there.”

Joseph Campbell The Power of Myth

Episode 2, Chapter 12
The Power of Myth (1988)

People, World, Way, Optimism

“The great thing about the U. S. economy right now is that we are the smart kids in the stupid-kid class. America has fiscal problems and gridlock issues and polarity and partisanship in Congress -- and yet, compared to Japan and Europe, the U. S. looks great.”

Ian Bremmer (1969) American political scientist

"Capitalism's State of Play," http://online.barrons.com/article/SB127206429298081857.html#articleTabs_panel_article%3D1 Barron's (April 24, 2010).

Problem

“The main reason there are no raw devices [in Linux] is that I personally think that raw devices are a stupid idea.”

Linus Torvalds (1969) Finnish-American software engineer and hacker

Message, linux-kernel mailing list, 1996-10-17, IU, Torvalds, Linus, 2017-04-25 http://lkml.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/9610.2/0030.html, 1990s, 1995-99

Idea, Thinking, Personality