“A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep.”

— Saul Bellow

Compare: It’s a point so blindingly obvious that only an extraordinarily clever and sophisticated person could fail to grasp it.
John Bercow, 2016.
General sources
Variant: There is no limit to the amount of intelligence invested in ignorance when the need for illusion runs deep.
Source: To Jerusalem and Back: A Personal Account (1976), p. 127

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Saul Bellow 103

Canadian-born American writer 1915–2005

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