Quotes about idiot (532 quotes) | Quotes of famous people

“As usual, there is a great woman behind every idiot.”

John Lennon (1940–1980) English singer and songwriter

For women , For Men

“He could only consider me as the living corpse of a would-be suicide, a person dead to shame, an idiot ghost.”

Osamu Dazai book No Longer Human

Third Notebook: Part Two
Source: No Longer Human

Suicide , Personality , Dead

“And Dr. Dre said … nothing, you idiots! Dr. Dre's dead, he's locked in my basement!”

Eminem (1972) American rapper and actor

"The Real Slim Shady"
2000s, The Marshall Mathers L.P. (2000)

Dead

“He may look like an idiot and talk like an idiot but don't let that fool you. He really is an idiot.”

Groucho Marx (1890–1977) American comedian

Fools

“If I decide to be an idiot, then I’ll be an idiot on my own accord.”

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750) German late baroque era composer

“I'd like to know why well-educated idiots keep apologizing for lazy and complaining people who think the world owes them a living.”

John Wayne (1907–1979) American film actor

People , World , Education , Thinking

“Well it's a risk to do a movie of this calibre on a subject matter and a point in history people are not very familiar with. It's a tough subject to sell - so salary-wise you have to make sacrifices to make a certain film happen. I would have been an idiot to pass up the opportunity to work with Mr Scorsese.”

Leonardo DiCaprio (1974) American actor and film producer

http://www.popmonk.com/actors/leonardo-dicaprio/quotes-leonardo-dicaprio.htm

People , History

“I object to being called a chess genius because I consider myself to be an all around genius who just happens to play chess, which is rather different. A piece of garbage like Kasparov might be called a chess genius, but he's like an idiot savant. Outside of chess he knows nothing.”

Bobby Fischer (1943–2008) American chess prodigy, chess player, and chess writer

Radio Interview, July 6 2001 http://www.geocities.jp/bobbby_b/mp3/F_18_1.MP3
2000s

“I've known for a long time that they're a bunch of idiots.”

Kobe Bryant (1978–2020) American basketball player

Time

“What a terrible era in which idiots govern the blind.”

William Shakespeare Julius Caesar

Source: Julius Caesar

“I was ecstatic when they re-named "French fries" as "freedom fries." Grown men and women in positions of power in the U. S. government showing themselves as idiots.”

Johnny Depp (1963) American actor, film producer, and musician

Women , Men , Freedom

“People think it must be fun to be a super genius, but they don't realize how hard it is to put up with all the idiots in the world.”

Bill Watterson (1958) American comic artist

Source: The Calvin And Hobbes: Tenth Anniversary Book

People , World , Thinking

“Note to self: While on the treadmill you may lip-sync to the songs on your iPod but DO NOT dance along. You look like an idiot.”

Chris Colfer (1990) actor, singer, book author

Personal Quotes 2009–2012

Dance

“In Aberdeen, I hated my best friends with a passion, because they were idiots.”

Kurt Cobain (1967–1994) American musician and artist

As quoted in The Daily Of The University Of Washington (1989-05-05).
Interviews (1989-1994), Print

Hate , Passion

“Almost everybody is born a genius and buried an idiot.”

Charles Bukowski book Notes of a Dirty Old Man

Source: Notes of a Dirty Man (Zápisky starého prasáka)

“Fear makes idiots out of us all, at some time or other.”

Patricia Briggs (1965) American writer

Source: When Demons Walk

Fear , Time

“I swear the sparrows called us ten kinds of idiot when we did it.”

Tamora Pierce (1954) American writer of fantasy novels for children

“If you have time to chatter,
Read books.

If you have time to read,
Walk into mountain, desert and ocean.

If you have time to walk,
Sing songs and dance.

If you have time to dance,
Sit quietly, you happy, lucky idiot.”

Nanao Sakaki (1923–2008) Japanese poet

Books , Mountain , Singing , Time

“Anyone who has declared someone else to be an idiot, a bad apple, is annoyed when it turns out in the end that he isn't.”

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist

“David Eddings:‏ I'm afraid that ignorance, hate, racism, and violence will be exacerbated by silence. If speaking out is not an answer then what is?
Markus Persson:‏ Reading up on history, thinking for yourself, and not being an idiot.”

Markus Persson (1979) Swedish video game programmer

In Twitter (14 August 2017) https://twitter.com/notch/status/897158641962319878

Hate , History , Thinking , Silence

“When I was in school, martial arts made you a dork, and I became self-conscious that I was too masculine. I was a 16-year-old girl with ringworm and cauliflower ears. People made fun of my arms and called me "Miss Man." It wasn't until I got older that I realized: These people are idiots. I'm fabulous.”

Ronda Rousey (1987) American judoka, mixed martial artist, professional wrestler and actress

"6 Feminist Quotes From Ronda Rousey That Prove She's More Than Just A Trash Talker", in Bustle.com (3 August 2015) http://www.bustle.com/articles/101566-6-feminist-quotes-from-ronda-rousey-that-prove-shes-more-than-just-a-trash-talker

People , School , Art , Girl

“The master made it his task to systematically destroy every doctrine, every belief, every concept of the divine, for these things, which were originally intended as pointers, were now taken as descriptions. He loved to quote the Eastern saying: "When the sage points at the moon, all that the idiot sees is the finger."”

Anthony de Mello (1931–1987) Indian writer

Source: One Minute Nonsense (1992), p. 132

Love , Quotes

“The first thing I learned at school was that some people are idiots; the second thing I learned was that some are even worse.”

Orhan Pamuk book Istanbul: Memories and the City

Source: Istanbul: Memories and the City

People , School , Learning

“You may be an idiot but I don't think you're a fool.”

Natsuki Takaya (1973) Manga artist

Fools , Thinking

“Silence makes idiots seem wise even for a minute.”

Carlos Ruiz Zafón book The Angel's Game

Source: The Angel's Game

Silence

“In Paris they just simply opened their eyes and stared when we spoke to them in French! We never did succeed in making those idiots understand their own language.”

Mark Twain book The Innocents Abroad

Source: The Innocents Abroad (1869), Ch. 61.
Context: The people of those foreign countries are very, very ignorant. They looked curiously at the costumes we had brought from the wilds of America. They observed that we talked loudly at table sometimes. They noticed that we looked out for expenses and got what we conveniently could out of a franc, and wondered where in the mischief we came from. In Paris they just simply opened their eyes and stared when we spoke to them in French! We never did succeed in making those idiots understand their own language.

Understanding

“The man who cannot visualize a horse galloping on a tomato is an idiot.”

André Breton (1896–1966) French writer

Horse

“The first man to compare the cheeks of a young woman to a rose was obviously a poet; the first to repeat it was possibly an idiot.”

Salvador Dalí (1904–1989) Spanish artist

Quote from Dialogues with Marcel Duchamp (1987) by Pierre Cabanne
Quotes of Salvador Dali, 1981 - 1989

“The world’s most sensible person and the biggest idiot both stay within you. The worst part is you can’t even tell who is who.”

Chetan Bhagat book 2 States: The Story of My Marriage

Variant: The world's most sensible person and the biggest idiot both stay within us. The worst part is, you can't even tell who is who.
Source: 2 States: The Story of My Marriage

World , Parting , Personality

“But let me tell you this: sometimes at night, when I look up at the stars, an see the whole sky jus laid out there, don't you think I ain't rememberin it all. I still got dreams like anybody else, an ever so often, I am thinkin about how things might of been. An then, all of a sudden, I'm forty, fifty, sixty years ole, you know?
Well, so what? I may be a idiot, but most of the time, anyway, I tried to do the right thing-- an dreams is jus dreams, ain't they? So whatever else has happened, I am figgerin this: I can always look back an say, at least I ain't led no hum-drum life.
You know what I mean?”

Winston Groom Forrest Gump

Source: Forrest Gump

Life , Dreams , Star , Thinking

“Before I could figure out how to apologize for being such an idiot, she tackled me with a hug, then pulled away just as quickly. "I'm glad you're not a guinea pig."
"Me, too." I hoped my face wasn't as red as it felt.”

Rick Riordan book The Sea of Monsters

Source: The Sea of Monsters

Hope

“In the first place God made idiots. This was for practice. Then he made school boards.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar, Ch. LXI
Following the Equator (1897)
Source: Following the Equator: A Journey Around the World

God , School

“Silverstream: You idiot!!! What are you doing in my territory???
Graystripe:… Drowning?
Silverstream: Can't you do that in your own territory?
Graystripe: Ah, but who would rescue me there?”

Erin Hunter

“I had to smile at the man. I mean, you have to smile at idiots and children.”

Jim Butcher book Fool Moon

Source: Fool Moon

Children , Smile

“Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning.”

Douglas Adams (1952–2001) English writer and humorist

Universe

“I hadn't known there were so many idiots in the world until I started using the Internet.”

Stanisław Lem (1921–2006) Polish science fiction author

World

“Life is too short to fight every idiot along your way.”

Christopher Paolini (1983) American author

Life , Way , Fight

“Extremism is so easy. You've got your position, and that's it. It doesn't take much thought. And when you go far enough to the right you meet the same idiots coming around from the left.

(Interview,, February 20, 2005)”

Clint Eastwood (1930) actor and director from the United States

“I quite agree with Dr. Nordau's assertion that all men of genius are insane, but Dr. Nordau forgets that all sane people are idiots.”

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet

Men , People , Forgetting

“Doctors always think anybody doing something they aren't is a quack; also they think all patients are idiots.”

Flannery O’Connor (1925–1964) American novelist, short story writer

Source: The Habit of Being: Letters of Flannery O'Connor

Thinking

“Idiots must stop claiming that atheism is a religion. Religion is defined as the belief in and worship of a superhuman controlling power. And atheism is… precisely not that. Atheism is a religion like abstinence is a sex position”

Bill Maher (1956) American stand-up comedian

Religion , Sex

“Out, out brief candle, life is but a walking shadow… a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”

William Shakespeare Macbeth

Variant: Life... is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
Source: Macbeth

Life

“Reader, suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

Draft manuscript (c.1881), quoted by Albert Bigelow Paine in Mark Twain: A Biography (1912), p. 724 http://books.google.com/books?id=2UYLAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA724#v=onepage&q&f=false
Variant: Suppose you were an idiot, and suppose you were a member of Congress; but I repeat myself.

Funny

“Twoflower was a tourist, the first ever seen on the discworld. Tourist, Rincewind had decided, meant 'idiot'.”

Terry Pratchett (1948–2015) English author

Source: The Color of Magic

“You just put that sword away, sir, please," said the voice of Lance-Constable Vimes.
"You will not shoot me, you young idiot. That would be murder," said the captain calmly.
"Not where I'm aiming, sir.”

Terry Pratchett book Night Watch

Source: Night Watch

“Out, out, brief candle! Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and is heard no more. It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”

William Shakespeare Macbeth

Source: Macbeth, Act V, scene v.
Context: Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

Life

“Some idiotic things are well worth doing.”

Richard Ford book Independence Day

Source: Independence Day

“Those who understand history are condemned to watch other idiots repeat it.”

Hakim Bey (1945) American political writer, poet and essayist

History , Understanding

“Only men would think of cutting themselves to determine who the packleader is. Idiots.”

Christopher Paolini book Brisingr

Source: Brisingr

Men , Thinking

“Have you ever noticed that anybody driving slower than you is an idiot, and anyone going faster than you is a maniac?”

George Carlin (1937–2008) American stand-up comedian

Carlin on Campus (1984)

Funny

“Jim said that bees won't sting idiots, but I didn't believe that, because I tried them lots of times myself and they wouldn't sting me.”

Mark Twain book Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Source: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Bee , Time

“Any idiot can face a crisis—it’s day to day living that wears you out.”

Clifford Odets (1906–1963) Playwright, screenwriter, director, actor

“With one long breath, caught and held in his chest, he fought his sadness over his solitary life. Don't cry, you idiot! Live or die, but don't poison everything…”

Saul Bellow book Herzog

Source: Herzog

Life , Sadness , Cry

“Insanity is knowing that what you're doing is completely idiotic, but still, somehow, you just can't stop it.”

Elizabeth Wurtzel book Prozac Nation

Source: Prozac Nation

“Even the idiot may have a message for us”

Henry Miller (1891–1980) American novelist

“What you call idiot points, I call awesome dollars. ~Seth”

Brandon Mull (1974) American fiction writer

Source: Secrets of the Dragon Sanctuary

“You're an idiot."
"I've never claimed to be otherwise.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Bones

Source: City of Bones

“Any intelligent person knows that life is a beautiful thing and that the purpose of life is to be happy," said my father as he watched the three beauties. "But it seems only idiots are ever happy. How can we explain this?”

Orhan Pamuk book The Museum of Innocence

Source: The Museum of Innocence

Life , Beauty , Intelligence , Personality

“Oh, I love London society! It is entirely composed now of beautiful idiots and brilliant lunatics. Just what society should be.”

Oscar Wilde An Ideal Husband

Mabel Chiltern, Act I
An Ideal Husband (1895)

Love , Beauty

“Man the lifeboats. The idiots are winning.”

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

The Guardian, 7 April 2008, http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/apr/07/education
Guardian columns

“And what shall I say of the poets? Oh, this poor century of ours! In the coming year many of them will make their start, but not one of them is as bad as Cervantes, or idiotic enough to praise Don Quixote.”

Lope De Vega (1562–1635) Spanish playwright and poet

De poetas no digo: buen siglo es éste. Muchos están en ciernes para el año que viene; pero ninguno hay tan malo como Cervantes ni tan necio que alabe a don Quijote.
Letter dated August 14, 1604; cited from Nicolás Marín (ed.) Cartas (Madrid: Clásicos Castalia, 1985) p. 68. Translation by Ilsa Barea, from Sebastià Juan Arbó Cervantes: Adventurer, Idealist, and Destiny's Fool (London: Thames and Hudson, 1955) p. 204.

“If we accept the Greek's definition of the idiot as an altogether private man, then we must conclude that many American citizens are now idiots. And I should not be surprised, although I don't know, if there were some such idiots even in Germany.”

C. Wright Mills (1916–1962) American sociologist

"Structure of Power in America", The British Journal of Sociology, Vol. 9 (March 1958).
1950s

“Now, the illness du jour is autism. You know what autism is? I'll tell you what autism is. In 99 percent of the cases, it's a brat who hasn't been told to cut the act out. That's what autism is. What do you mean they scream and they're silent? They don't have a father around to tell them, "Don't act like a moron. You'll get nowhere in life. Stop acting like a putz. Straighten up. Act like a man. Don't sit there crying and screaming, idiot."”

Michael Savage book The Savage Nation

The Savage Nation
The Savage Nation (1995- ), 2008-07-16
Radio
2008

Life , Cry

“We want to be clearly understood on this point. We are not trying to say that signs and rites are a big piece of humbug. They would be such if people did not need them; but we have to recognize that everyone has not the same degree of intelligence. Children have always had fairy stories told to them, and these stories will continue to be told as long as there are nurses and mothers. Children have faith and this is what saves them. Imagine a child of seven saying: 'I do not want to accept anything I cannot understand.' What could one teach such a monster? Accept what your teachers tell you to begin with, my fine fellow, then study it and, if you are not an idiot, you will understand it by-and-by.”

Eliphas Levi (1810–1875) French writer

Book Two: The Royal Mystery or the Art of Subduing the Powers, Chapter XI: The Arcana of Solomon's Ring
The Great Secret: or Occultism Unveiled

Children , People , Faith , Imagination

“Oh, dear me, how unspeakably funny and owlishly idiotic and grotesque was that "plagiarism" farce! As if there was much of anything in any human utterance, oral or written, except plagiarism! The kernel, the soul — let us go further and say the substance, the bulk, the actual and valuable material of all human utterances — is plagiarism. For substantially all ideas are second-hand, consciously and unconsciously drawn from a million outside sources, and daily used by the garnerer with a pride and satisfaction born of the superstition that he originated them; whereas there is not a rag of originality about them anywhere except the little discoloration they get from his mental and moral calibre and his temperament, and which is revealed in characteristics of phrasing. When a great orator makes a great speech you are listening to ten centuries and ten thousand men — but we call it his speech, and really some exceedingly small portion of it is his. But not enough to signify. It is merely a Waterloo. It is Wellington's battle, in some degree, and we call it his; but there are others that contributed. It takes a thousand men to invent a telegraph, or a steam engine, or a phonograph, or a photograph, or a telephone or any other important thing—and the last man gets the credit and we forget the others. He added his little mite”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

that is all he did. These object lessons should teach us that ninety-nine parts of all things that proceed from the intellect are plagiarisms, pure and simple; and the lesson ought to make us modest. But nothing can do that.
Letter to Helen Keller, after she had been accused of plagiarism for one of her early stories (17 March 1903), published in Mark Twain's Letters, Vol. 1 (1917) edited by Albert Bigelow Paine, p. 731

Men , Soul , Idea , Parting

“It's no more of that 12 bar ditty wavy hair in the breeze platform boots flap your flare nonsense. It's not a packaged image of third-rate idiots. It's not a pose. We just do our stuff. Hate it as it usually is, you know I was very shocked by the reviews of the last album. I believe none of them. They liked us for the wrong reasons, trendy reasons.”

John Lydon (1956) English singer, songwriter, and musician

The Tomorrow Show with Tom Snyder (27th June 1980)

Hate

“Idiot, n. A member of a large and powerful tribe whose influence in human affairs has always been dominant and controlling. The Idiot's activity is not confined to any special field of thought or action, but "pervades and regulates the whole." He has the last word in everything; his decision is unappealable. He sets the fashions and opinion of taste, dictates the limitations of speech and circumscribes conduct with a dead-line.”

Ambrose Bierce book The Devil's Dictionary

The Devil's Dictionary (1911)

Fashion , Decision , Dead

“I never engaged in these idiotic pamphlet-dropping exercises. They only served two purposes really - they gave the German defences endless practice in getting ready for it, and apart from that they supplied a considerable quantity of toilet paper to the Germans.”

Arthur Travers Harris (1892–1984) Royal Air Force air marshal

The World at War: the Landmark Oral History from the Classic TV Series (2007) by Richard Holmes, p. 298

Exercises

“The new heroism — put a village idiot into a pressure cooker, seal it up tight, and shoot him at the moon.”

Kurt Vonnegut Happy Birthday, Wanda June

"Harold Ryan"
Happy Birthday, Wanda June (1970)

“If I were to go blind, what would bother me the most would be no longer to be able to stare idiotically at the passing clouds.”

Emil M. Cioran (1911–1995) Romanian philosopher and essayist

Drawn and Quartered (1983)

“Why has this silly engine suddenly turned up, which is so idiotically welded together? They told me then, there would be two engines connected behind each other, and suddenly there appears this misbegotten monster of welded-together engines one cannot get at!”

Hermann Göring (1893–1946) German politician and military leader

Comment by Goering to a report submitted to him by Oberst Edgar Petersen, the Kommandeur der Erprobungsstellen (commander of German military aircraft test facilties in the Third Reich) on August 13 1942, regarding the usage and deficient installation design for the trouble-prone, complex Daimler-Benz DB 606 "power system" powerplants for the He 177A, Nazi Germany's only operational heavy bomber, which was suffering from an unending series of engine fires.
The Nuremberg Interviews (2004)
Source: [Heinkel He 177-277-274, Manfred, Griehl, Joachim, Dressel, Airlife Publishing, Shrewsbury, UK, 1998, 52, October 28, 2012]

Appearance

“Oh, what idiots we all have been. This is just as it must be.”

Niels Bohr (1885–1962) Danish physicist

In response to Frisch & Meitner's explanation of nuclear fission, as quoted in The Physicists - A generation that changed the world (1981) by C.P.Snow, p. 96

“Only idiots refuse to change their minds.”

Brigitte Bardot (1934) French model, actor, singer and animal rights activist

Unsourced

Change

“External objects produce decided effects upon the brain. A man shut up between four walls soon loses the power to associate words and ideas together. How many prisoners in solitary confinement become idiots, if not mad, for want of exercise for the thinking faculty!”

Jules Verne book A Journey to the Center of the Earth

Les objets extérieurs ont une action réelle sur le cerveau. Qui s’enferme entre quatre murs finit par perdre la faculté d’associer les idées et les mots. Que de prisonniers cellulaires devenus imbéciles, sinon fous, par le défaut d’exercice des facultés pensantes.
Source: Journey to the Center of the Earth (1864), Ch. XXVI: The worst peril of all

Exercises , Idea , Thinking , Madness

“Morphy and Capablanca had enormous talent, they are two of my favorites. Steinitz was very great too. Alekhine was great, but I am not a big fan of his. Maybe it’s just my taste. I’ve studied his games a lot, but I much prefer Capablanca and Morphy. Alekhine had a rather heavy style, Capablanca was much more brilliant and talented, he had a real light touch. Everyone I’ve spoken to who saw Capablanca play still speak of him with awe. If you showed him any position he would instantly tell you the right move. When I used to go to the Manhattan Chess Club back in the fifties, I met a lot of old-timers there who knew Capablanca, because he used to come around to the Manhattan club in the forties – before he died in the early forties. They spoke about Capablanca with awe. I have never seen people speak about any chess player like that, before or since. Capablanca really was fantastic. But even he had his weaknesses, especially when you play over his games with his notes he would make idiotic statements like 'I played the rest of the game perfectly.”

Bobby Fischer (1943–2008) American chess prodigy, chess player, and chess writer

But then you play through the moves and it is not true at all. But the thing that was great about Capablanca was that he really spoke his mind, he said what he believed was true, he said what he felt.
Radio Interview, October 16 2006 http://www.geocities.jp/bobbby_b/mp3/F_35_3.MP3

People , Game , Study , Light

“It is important to understand from the very beginning that I am not formulating any philosophy or any theological structure of ideas or theological concepts. It seems to me that all ideologies are utterly idiotic.”

Jiddu Krishnamurti (1895–1986) Indian spiritual philosopher

1960s, Freedom From The Known (1969)
Context: It is important to understand from the very beginning that I am not formulating any philosophy or any theological structure of ideas or theological concepts. It seems to me that all ideologies are utterly idiotic. What is important is not a philosophy of life but to observe what is actually taking place in our daily life, inwardly and outwardly. If you observe very closely what is taking place and examine it, you will see that it is based on an intellectual conception, and the intellect is not the whole field of existence; it is a fragment, and a fragment, however cleverly put together, however ancient and traditional, is still a small part of existence whereas we have to deal with the totality of life.

Idea , Understanding

“Anybody who says saccharin is injurious to health is an idiot.”

Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States

Response when Harvey W. Wiley opposed the the of saccharin because it is injurious to health, as quoted in The History of a Crime Against the Food Law (1929) by Harvey W. Wiley
1900s
Context: You tell me that saccharin is injurious to health? Dr. Rixey gives it to me every day. Anybody who says saccharin is injurious to health is an idiot.

Health

“We're idiots, babe. It's a wonder we can even feed ourselves.”

Bob Dylan (1941) American singer-songwriter, musician, author, and artist

Song lyrics, Blood on the Tracks (1975), Idiot Wind
Context: Idiot wind, blowing through the buttons of our coats, blowing through the letters that we wrote.
Idiot wind, blowing through the dust upon our shelves,
We're idiots, babe. It's a wonder we can even feed ourselves.

“Only an idiot could believe that scientific truth needs martyrdom”

David Hilbert (1862–1943) German prominent mathematician

Hilbert (2nd edition, 1996) by Constance Reid, p. 92
Context: But he (Galileo) was not an idiot,... Only an idiot could believe that scientific truth needs martyrdom — that may be necessary in religion, but scientific results prove themselves in time.

Truth

“I remember getting ready to do 'American Idiot' thinking that people were either going to call us brilliant or crazy for doing it and I think maybe we got a little bit of both in the reaction. With any album, you put in the best you can and you dig further than ever before and then you put it out never really knowing what will happen…”

Billie Joe Armstrong (1972) American singer and guitarist

Thinking , People

“This song is called American Idiot! It's about me.”

Billie Joe Armstrong (1972) American singer and guitarist

“A relationship where you can act like complete idiots together is probably the best thing ever.”

Ralph Smart

twitter

“Malays abhor the state of celibacy. To remain unmarried was and is considered shameful. Everyone must be married at some time or other. The result is that whether a person is fit or unfit for marriage, he or she still marries and reproduces. An idiot or a simpleton is often married off to an old widower, ostensibly to take care of him in his old age. If this is not possible, backward relatives are paired off in marriage. These people survive, reproduce and propagate their species. The cumulative effect of this can be left to the imagination.”

Lee Kuan Yew (1923–2015) First Prime Minister of Singapore

[Barr, Michael D., Lee Kuan Yew: Race, Culture and Genes, Journal of Contemporary Asia, 1999, 29 2, 147, https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/5058/d1bc358fe18944e8aaa399e422f74d0fed75.pdf]
1980s

Time , Imagination , Marriage , Personality

“But of course you should have retreated at once from the dominant male. Are you an idiot? You are extremely lucky he was distracted from ripping out your throat by the fruit. He thought you were trying to steal his females.”

Cassandra Clare The Bane Chronicles

"Pardon me, but we did not have the time to exchange that kind of personal information. I could not have known! Moreover, I wish to assure both of you that I did not make any amorous advances on female monkeys. [...] I didn't actually see any, so I didn't get the chance."
Giulana and Magnus Bane in 1791, p. 13.
The Bane Chronicles, What Really Happened in Peru (2013)