“Anything that is too stupid to be spoken is sung.”

In George Bernard Shaw's Man and Superman, act II, there is the following dialogue:<br>TANNER: Let me remind you that Voltaire said that what was too silly to be said could be sung.<br>STRAKER. It wasn't Voltaire: it was Bow Mar Shay.<br>TANNER. I stand corrected: Beaumarchais of course. <br class="br">This quote has also been attributed to Joseph Addison. In The Spectator, 21 March 1711 http://www.hoasm.org/VIIA/Spectator3-21-11.html, Addison wrote of "an establish'd Rule, which is receiv'd as such to this Day, That nothing is capable of being well set to Musick, that is not Nonsense." <br class="br">Misattributed <br class="br">Source: "Nowadays what isn't worth saying is sung" (Aujourd'hui ce qui ne vaut pas la peine d'être dit, on le chante) — Pierre de Beaumarchais, Le Barbier de Séville (1775), act I, scene II.

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update Sept. 27, 2023. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Anything that is too stupid to be spoken is sung." by Voltaire?

Voltaire167

French writer, historian, and philosopher 1694–1778

Related quotes

“Many wise words are spoken in jest, but they don't compare with the number of stupid words spoken in earnest.”

Sam Levenson (1911–1980) American journalist

“Don't do anything stupid.”

Jeffrey R. Holland (1940) Mormon leader

“In explaining any puzzling Washington phenomenon, always choose stupidity over conspiracy, incompetence over cunning. Anything else gives them too much credit.”

Charles Krauthammer (1950–2018) American journalist

Column, October 19, 2007, "Pelosi’s Armenian Gambit" http://jewishworldreview.com/cols/krauthammer101907.php3 at jewishworldreview.com. <br class="br">2000s, 2007

“Because of the self-confidence with which he had spoken, no one could tell whether what he said was very clever or very stupid.”

Leo Tolstoy book War and Peace

Source: Война и мир

“Too many stupid people have it.”

Peter Greenaway (1942) British film director

Two moviegoers
8 1/2 Women

“It's too bad that stupidity isn't painful.”

Anton LaVey (1930–1997) Founder of the Church of Satan, author of the Satanic Bible

The Nine Satanic Sins (1987)

“Blessed are the forgetful; for they get over their stupidities, too.”

Friedrich Nietzsche book Beyond Good and Evil

Variant: Blessed are the forgetful, for they get the better even of their blunders.
Source: Beyond Good and Evil

“Very often in everyday life one sees that by losing one's temper with someone who has already lost his, one does not gain anything but only sets out upon the path of stupidity. He who has enough self-control to stand firm at the moment when the other person is in a temper, wins in the end. It is not he who has spoken a hundred words aloud who has won; it is he who has perhaps spoken only one word.”

Hazrat Inayat Khan (1882–1927) Indian Sufi

Source: Mastery through Accomplishment

“People are too lazy and too stupid to think for themselves that we've got sitcoms with canned laughter that let's you know when to laugh if you're to stupid to know when the joke is.”

Marilyn Manson (1969) American rock musician and actor

“I don't know anything!' Tim(Caleb) wailed.
He'd never spoken a truer word in his life.”

Anthony Horowitz (1955) English novelist and screenwriter

Source: Three of Diamonds

Related topics