“Nerds do not think they are better than you. Nerds are better than you, in their particular fields, unless you happen to be an even more devoted nerd.”

—  Laura Penny

Source: More Money than Brains (2010), Chapter One, Don't Need No Edjumacation, p. 12

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Nerds do not think they are better than you. Nerds are better than you, in their particular fields, unless you happen t…" by Laura Penny?
Laura Penny photo
Laura Penny 16
Canadian journalist 1975

Related quotes

Nassim Nicholas Taleb photo

“The fool generalizes the particular; the nerd particularizes the general; … the wise does neither.”

Nassim Nicholas Taleb book The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms

Source: The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms (2010), p. 53

Douglas Adams photo

“I think a nerd is a person who uses the telephone to talk to other people about telephones. And a computer nerd therefore is somebody who uses a computer in order to use a computer.”

Douglas Adams (1952–2001) English writer and humorist

Triumph of the Nerds: The Rise of Accidental Empires TV program (1996) http://www.pbs.org/nerds/part1.html

Moby photo

“Call me a nerd if you like, but I do find it hard to leave home without my laptop and a good book.”

Moby (1965) Activist, American musician, DJ and photographer

As quoted in "I lost my heart in... New York", in The Guardian (13 May 2005) http://www.theguardian.com/travel/2005/may/14/lostmyheart.guardiansaturdaytravelsection

Paul Graham photo

“Nerds serve two masters. They want to be popular, certainly, but they want even more to be smart. And popularity is not something you can do in your spare time, not in the fiercely competitive environment of an American secondary school.”

Paul Graham (1964) English programmer, venture capitalist, and essayist

"Why Nerds are Unpopular," February 2003

Linus Torvalds photo

“I may be a huge computer nerd, but even so I don't think education should be about computers. Not as a subject, and not as a classroom resource either.”

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

Sam Varghese, iTWire interview, 2014-09-15, 2018-07-20 https://www.itwire.com/business-it-news/open-source/65402-torvalds-says-he-has-no-strong-opinions-on-systemd,
2010s, 2014

Henry James photo

“do you think it is
better to be clever than to be good?”
“Good for what?” asked the Doctor. “You are good for
nothing unless you are clever.”

Henry James book Washington Square

Source: Washington Square

John Green photo

“Saying 'I notice you're a nerd' is like saying, 'Hey, I notice that you'd rather be intelligent than be stupid, that you'd rather be thoughtful than be vapid, that you believe that there are things that matter more than the arrest record of Lindsay Lohan. Why is that?' In fact, it seems to me that most contemporary insults are pretty lame. Even 'lame' is kind of lame. Saying 'You're lame' is like saying 'You walk with a limp.”

John Green (1977) American author and vlogger

Yeah, whatever, so does 50 Cent, and he's done all right for himself.
John Green asks himself "Why is being a nerd bad?" in July 27: How Nerdfighters Drop Insults http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xy1M5VHF3no
YouTube

“… We cannot get big grants to do field work anymore. … Will the next generation of conservation biologists be nothing but a bunch of computer nerds with no firsthand knowledge of natural history? … The naturalists are dying off and have few heirs.”

Reed Noss (1952)

[The naturalists are dying off, Conservation Biology, 10, 1, February 1996, 1–3, 10.1046/j.1523-1739.1996.10010001.x] (quote from p. 1)

Jennifer Weiner photo

“Sometimes the worst thing that happens to you, the thing you think you can't survive… it's the thing that makes you better than you used to be.”

Jennifer Weiner (1970) American writer

Source: Fly Away Home

Related topics