Quotes about incompetence (176 quotes) | Quotes of famous people

“It has become almost a cliché to remark that nobody boasts of ignorance of literature, but it is socially acceptable to boast ignorance of science and proudly claim incompetence in mathematics.”

Richard Dawkins (1941) English ethologist, evolutionary biologist and author

The Richard Dimbleby Lecture: Science, Delusion and the Appetite for Wonder (1996)

Literature , Mathematics , Science

“If, there is a tendency in all Western democracies no longer to respect the professional politician or even the party member as such, it is no longer only because of some personal insufficiency, some fault, or some incompetence, or because of some scandal that can now be more widely known, amplified, and in fact often produced, if not premeditated by the power of the media. Rather, it is because politicians become more and more, or even solely characters in the media's representation at the very moment when the transformation of the public space, precisely by the media, causes them to lose the essential part of the power and even of the competence they were granted before by the structures of parliamentary representation, by the party apparatuses that were linked to it, and so forth. However competent they may personally be, professional politicians who conform to the old model tend today to become structurally incompetent. The same media power accuses, produces, and amplifies at the same time this incompetence of traditional politicians: on the one hand, it takes aways from them the legitimate power they held in the former political space (party, parliament, and so forth), but, on the other hand, it obliges them to become mere silhouettes, if not marionettes, on the stage of televisual rhetoric. They were thought to be actors of politics, they now often risk, as everyone knows, being no more than TV actors.”

Jacques Derrida book Specters of Marx

Wear and Tears (tableu of a ageless world)
Specters of Marx (1993)

Democracy , Time , Parting , Personality

“When the war started in Abyssinia all Negro nationalists looked with hope to Haile Selassie. They spoke for him, they prayed for him, they sung for him, they did everything to hold up his hands, as Aaron did for Moses; but whilst the Negro peoples of the world were praying for the success of Abyssinia this little Emperor was undermining the fabric of his own kingdom by playing the fool with white men, having them advising him[, ] having them telling him what to do, how to surrender, how to call off the successful thrusts of his [Race] against the Italian invaders. Yes, they were telling him how to prepare his flight, and like an imbecilic child he followed every advice and then ultimately ran away from his country to England, leaving his people to be massacred by the Italians, and leaving the serious white world to laugh at every Negro and repeat the charge and snare - "he is incompetent," "we told you so." Indeed Haile Selassie has proved the incompetence of the Negro for political authority, but thank God there are Negroes who realise that Haile Selassie did not represent the truest qualities of the Negro race. How could he, when he wanted to play white? How could he, when he surrounded himself with white influence? How could he, when in a modern world, and in a progressive civilization, he preferred a slave State of black men than a free democratic country where the black citizens could rise to the same opportunities as white citizens in their democracies?”

Marcus Garvey (1887–1940) Jamaica-born British political activist, Pan-Africanist, orator, and entrepreneur

The Failure of Haile Selassie as Emperor in The Blackman, April, 1937.

Men , God , War , People

“I probably always say the same things; I hope people don't remember. One of the same things I say is that Japanese macroeconomic policy is perversely and inexcusably incompetent, and I surely would say that again. It's true-as Paul Krugman, a fellow participant in this program, has been saying and as I have said here in previous years-that Japan has reinvented the Keynesian liquidity trap. It can now reappear in classrooms where it had been long ignored or at best barely mentioned as a curiosum of the Great Depression.”

James Tobin (1918–2002) American economist

"Reflections on Japanese Political Economy" (1999)

People , Hope

“Incompetence plus incompetence equals incompetence”

Laurence J. Peter (1919–1990) Canadian eductor

Source: The Peter Principle (1969), p. 107 (The Mathematics of Incompetence)

“The people as a whole can be benefited morally and materially by a system which shall permit of ample reward for exceptional efficiency, but which shall nevertheless secure to the average man, who does his work faithfully and well, the reward to which he is entitled. Remember that I speak only of the man who does his work faithfully and well. The man who shirks his work, who is lazy or vicious, or even merely incompetent, deserves scant consideration; we may be sorry for his family, but it is folly to waste sympathy on the man himself; and it is also folly for sentimentalists to try to shift the burden of blame from such a man himself to “society” and it is an outrage to give him the reward given to his hard-working, upright, and efficient brother. Still less should we waste sympathy on the criminal; there are altogether too many honest men who need it; and one chief point in dealing with the criminal should be to make him understand that he will be in personal peril if he becomes a lawbreaker. I realize entirely that in the last analysis, with the nation as with the individual, it is private character that counts for most. It is because of this realization that I gladly lay myself open to the charge that I preach too much, and dwell too much upon moral commonplaces; for though I believe with all my heart in the nationalization of this Nation—in the collective use on behalf of the American people of the governmental powers which can be derived only from the American people as a whole—yet I believe even more in the practical application by the individual of those great fundamental moralities.”

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

1910s, The Progressives, Past and Present (1910)

Men , People , Family , Understanding

“Eliza and I composed a precocious critique of the Constitution of the United States of America … We argued that is was as good a scheme for misery as any, since its success in keeping the common people reasonably happy and proud depended on the strength of the people themselves — and yet it prescribed no practical machinery which would tend to make the people, as opposed to their elected representatives, strong.
We said it was possible that the framers of the Constitution were blind to the beauty of persons who were without great wealth or powerful friends or public office, but who were nonetheless genuinely strong.
We thought it was more likely, though, that their framers had not noticed that it was natural, and therefore almost inevitable, that human beings in extraordinary and enduring situations should think of themselves of composing new families. Eliza and I pointed out that this happened no less in democracies than in tyrannies, since human beings were the same the wide world over, and civilized only yesterday.
Elected representatives, hence, could be expected to become members of the famous and powerful family of elected representatives — which would, perfectly naturally, make them wary and squeamish and stingy with respect to all the other sorts of families which, again, perfectly naturally, subdivided mankind.
Eliza and I … proposed that the Constitution be amended so as to guarantee that every citizen, no matter how humble, or crazy or incompetent or deformed, somehow be given membership in some family as covertly xenophobic and crafty as the one their public servants formed.”

Kurt Vonnegut book Slapstick

Source: Slapstick (1976), Ch. 6

People , World , Family , Beauty

“Though, in reviewing the incidents of my administration, I am unconscious of intentional error, I am nevertheless too sensible of my defects not to think it probable that I may have committed many errors. Whatever they may be, I fervently beseech the Almighty to avert or mitigate the evils to which they may tend. I shall also carry with me the hope, that my Country will never cease to view them with indulgence; and that, after forty-five years of my life dedicated to its service with an upright zeal, the faults of incompetent abilities will be consigned to oblivion, as myself must soon be to the mansions of rest.”

George Washington (1732–1799) first President of the United States

1790s, Farewell Address (1796)

Life , Hope , Error , Thinking

“Look at what happened in New Orleans and along the Gulf Coast when Katrina hit. People ask me whether they thought race was the reason the response was so slow. I say, "well, no, this administration was colorblind in its incompetence." But, everyone here knows that the disaster and the poverty happened long before the hurricane hit.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2007

People

“The state is God, deifies arms and prisons. The worship of the state is the worship of force. There is no more dangerous menace to civilization than a government of incompetent, corrupt, or vile men. The worst evils which mankind ever had to endure were inﬂicted by bad governments. The state can be and has often been in the course of history the main source of mischief and disaster.”

Ludwig von Mises (1881–1973) austrian economist

Source: Omnipotent Government: The Rise of the Total State and Total War (1944), Chapter III: Etatism

Men , God , History , Evil

“There's nothing wrong with being incompetent.… It just means you don't have to do as much.”

Charles Manson (1934–2017) American criminal and musician

NBC interview (1987)

“Democracy substitutes election by the incompetent many for appointment by the corrupt few.”

George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish playwright

#17
1900s, Maxims for Revolutionists (1903)

Democracy , Funny

“The right to be heard would be, in many cases, of little avail if it did not comprehend the right to be heard by counsel. Even the intelligent and educated layman has small and sometimes no skill in the science of law. If charged with crime, he is incapable, generally, of determining for himself whether the indictment is good or bad. He is unfamiliar with the rules of evidence. Left without the aid of counsel he may be put on trial without a proper charge, and convicted upon incompetent evidence, or evidence irrelevant to the issue or otherwise inadmissible. He lacks both the skill and knowledge adequately to prepare his defense, even though he have a perfect one. He requires the guiding hand of counsel at every step in the proceedings against him. Without it, though he be not guilty, he faces the danger of conviction because he does not know how to establish his innocence. If that be true of men of intelligence, how much more true is it of the ignorant and illiterate, or those of feeble intellect.”

George Sutherland (1862–1942) Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, United States Senator, member of the United States House of Re…

Powell v. Alabama, 287 U.S. 45, 53 (1932)

Men , Education , Law , Intelligence

“Our society cannot be maintained by this type of incompetency.”

Jacque Fresco (1916–2017) American futurist and self-described social engineer

“Conditions of misery, suffering, war, and war profiteering were the incentive and inspiration for my work. I was also motivated by the seeming incompetence of governments, the academic world, and a lack of solutions from scientists. Many fail as generalists because of their over-specialization on limited aspects of social problems. Scientists, politicians, and academicians see problems from inside the system they’re in, which is what’s responsible for the problems in the first place. I am disappointed with those who worry about terra-forming other planets while our own is still full of war, poverty, hunger, and environmental neglect.”

Jacque Fresco (1916–2017) American futurist and self-described social engineer

Hunger , War , Suffering , Problem

“I’d rather be ruled by a competent Turk than an incompetent Christian.”

Martin Luther (1483–1546) seminal figure in Protestant Reformation

The earliest published source for such a statement yet located is in Pat Robertson — Where He Stands (1988) by Hubert Morken, p. 42, where such a comment is attributed to Luther without citation.
Disputed

“I am bothered by the misinformation which gets disseminated uncritically through the media and by the obstructions which prevent correct information from being disseminated. These obstructions come about in many ways - personal, institutional, through self-imposed inhibitions, through external inhibitions, through outright dishonesty, through incompetence - the list is a long one.”

Serge Lang (1927–2005) mathematician

Way , Personality , Self-confidence

“Healing wasn’t always the best thing. Sometimes a hole was better left open. Sometimes it healed too thick and too well and left separate pieces fused and incompetent. And it was harder to reopen after that.”

Ann Brashares book The Last Summer

Source: The Last Summer

“I find it rather easy to portray a businessman. Being bland, rather cruel and incompetent comes naturally to me.”

John Cleese (1939) actor from England

Nature

“He attacked everything in life with a mix of extraordinary genius and naive incompetence, and it was often difficult to tell which was which.”

Douglas Adams (1952–2001) English writer and humorist

Life

“I don't know what I'm doing, but my incompetence has never stopped my enthusiasm.”

Woody Allen (1935) American screenwriter, director, actor, comedian, author, playwright, and musician

Variant: I have no idea what I am doing but incompetence has never prevented me from plunging in with enthusiasm.

“I wish the government would put a tax on pianos for the incompetent.”

Edith Sitwell (1887–1964) British poet

As quoted in An Uncommon Scold (1989) by Abby Adams, p. 176

“Kissing Mother Superior, incompetent, hairball, poppy seeds, on the can.”

Jennifer Egan A Visit from the Goon Squad

Source: A Visit from the Goon Squad

Kiss

“Wait. You work for me?"
"I prefer to think of it as managing your incompetence.”

Jim Butcher Cold Days

Source: Cold Days

Thinking , Waiting

“I've read your summary."
"And?"
"It's not incompetent."
Be still, my heart, so I don't faint from such faint phrase. "Did you expect it to be written in crayon?”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Magic Bleeds

Reading , Heart

“Violence,” came the retort, “is the last refuge of the incompetent.”

Isaac Asimov book Foundation

Variant: Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.
Source: Part II, The Encyclopedists, section 5; This also appears three times in "Bridle and Saddle" which is titled "The Mayors" within Foundation. It is derived from the famous phrase by Samuel Johnson: "Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel" and from the words of Lady Anne Bellamy in H. Rider Haggard's Dawn, “I do not believe in violence; it is the last resource of fools.” Asimov is usually quoted simply with "Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent."

“Absolutely not. I'm an expert in procrastination, but the last thing I want you to think is that I'm incompetent, too. Because I'm actually pretty good at what I do." -Jo”

Nicholas Sparks book Safe Haven

Source: Safe Haven

Thinking

“I do not scruple to employ mendacity and a fictitious appearance of female incompetence when the occasion demands it.”

Elizabeth Peters (1927–2013) American author and egyptologist

Appearance

“Just as your hand has the power to hide the sun, mediocrity has the power to hide your inner light. Do not blame others for your own incompetence.”

Paulo Coelho (1947) Brazilian lyricist and novelist

Source: Warrior of the Light

Light , Sun

“I am, as I've said, merely competent. But in an age of incompetence, that makes me extraordinary.”

Billy Joel (1949) American singer-songwriter and pianist

Age

“It happens; incompetence is rewarded more often than not.”

Jeff Lindsay book Darkly Dreaming Dexter

Source: Darkly Dreaming Dexter

“Never attribute to malevolence what is merely due to incompetence”

Arthur C. Clarke book 3001: The Final Odyssey

Source: 3001: The Final Odyssey

“Education is the inculcation of the incomprehensible into the ignorant by the incompetent.”

John Maynard Keynes (1883–1946) British economist

From hearer's memory in Jewish Frontier, vol. 29 http://books.google.com/books?id=NmYeAAAAMAAJ&q=keynes+%22inculcation+of+the+incomprehensible+into+the+ignorant+by+the+incompetent%22&dq=keynes+%22inculcation+of+the+incomprehensible+into+the+ignorant+by+the+incompetent (1962).
Alternate version: Education: the inculcation of the incomprehensible into the indifferent by the incompetent.
As quoted in Infinite Riches: Gems from a Lifetime of Reading (1979) by Leo Calvin Rosten, p. 165
Attributed

Education

“Can no one imagine an incompetent Legend?”

John Steakley book Armor

Armor

Imagination

“Management cares about only one thing. Paperwork. They will forgive almost anything else—cost overruns, gross incompetence, criminal indictments—as long as the paperwork’s filled out properly. And in on time.”

Connie Willis Bellwether

Source: Bellwether (1996), Chapter 4 “Rapids”, Section 1 (p. 140)

Forgiveness , Time

“The purpose of bureaucracy is to compensate for incompetence and lack of discipline.”

James C. Collins (1958) American business consultant and writer

Source: Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap... and Others Don't

“The earth we inhabit is an error, an incompetent parody. Mirrors and paternity are abominable because they multiply and affirm it.”

Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986) Argentine short-story writer, essayist, poet and translator, and a key figure in Spanish language literature

"Hakim, the Masked Dyer of Merv", in A Universal History of Iniquity (1935); tr. Andrew Hurley, Collected Fictions (1998). Cf. Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius (1940)

Error

“One of the topics [on the show last week] was the murder of women in the Arab sector, what is referred to, unfortunately, […] as 'honor killing' and has nothing to do with [anything worthy of] honor. The guest in the studio was a woman who had 20 years of experience working for the sake of those same women who die for no good reason, a woman whose everyday job was a holy work for the sake of thousands of Arab women who need a voice that will shout out and cry out their cries. After she had accused the government and the police and everyone of incompetence, I asked her, in a somewhat aggressive manner, as it were, '[…] Where are we in all of this? Where are we Arab women to teach and discipline our sons that a man has no right over a woman? […]' During the commercial break, she got up and told me that I had to learn how to talk to Arabs because the tone that I adopted and the things that I said were said to gain approval from Jews. So I've come to tell you today that I haven't come for approval from you; that I haven't come for approval from anyone; and this is the message that I want you to digest very, very well. In my life I have been accused of many things: that I am the fifth column; that an Arab will always stay an Arab, no matter how liberal he may look; that I bring shame on my family for being in a relationship with a person outside my religion. I've received threats after asking Palestinian residents live on the show why they don't go out against Hamas men, who use them and bring them to their slaughter; I've been attacked on Yom ha-Shoah and Yom ha-Zikaron that the managers at Arutz 2 dared to put an Arab on a show such as that as the host on a day such as that; I've been told that I make Arab women stray off the path of proper behavior; and that I've forgotten where I come from being an 'Ashkenazified', 'Judaized' Arab. So they blamed and they talked—as if that, in itself, made them right.”

Lucy Aharish (1981) Arab-Israeli journalist

Source: Lucy Aharish's campus speech http://www.onlife.co.il/%D7%A2%D7%91%D7%95%D7%93%D7%94/%D7%9E%D7%A0%D7%94%D7%99%D7%92%D7%95%D7%AA-%D7%94%D7%99%D7%95%D7%9D-%D7%90%D7%AA-%D7%94%D7%9E%D7%97%D7%A8/85312/%D7%9C%D7%95%D7%A1%D7%99-%D7%90%D7%94%D7%A8%D7%99%D7%A9-%D7%9C%D7%90-%D7%91%D7%90%D7%AA%D7%99-%D7%9C%D7%9E%D7%A6%D7%95%D7%90-%D7%97%D7%9F-%D7%91%D7%A2%D7%99%D7%A0%D7%99-%D7%90%D7%A3-%D7%90%D7%97%D7%93 at "מנהיגות היום את המחר". Onlife. 9 November 2014. Retrieved 27 January 2015. Video available.

Life , Women , Men , Family

“Now most serious thinkers acknowledge that dislocations in the market operation of our economy and the prevalence of discrimination thrust people into idleness and bind them in constant or frequent unemployment against their will. The poor are less often dismissed from our conscience today by being branded as inferior and incompetent. We also know that no matter how dynamically the economy develops and expands, it does not eliminate all poverty.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

1960s, Address to Local 815, Teamsters and the Allied Trades Council (1967)

People

“First off, the whole point of airborne troops is surprise: you don't know they're coming until they're there. But because Cain arrived 24 hours after the first wave, the surprise was gone. And to make matters worse, the landing zone was some eight miles from the bridge. So, thanks to some incompetent planning by the top brass in England, the Germans knew that Cain and his men were coming, they knew where he landed, they knew where he was going, and they had the wherewithal to do something about it.”

Jeremy Clarkson (1960) English broadcaster, journalist and writer

The Victoria Cross: For Valour (2003)

Men

“I must be permitted to say that I have been almost overwhelmed by the announcement of the sad event which has so recently occurred. I feel incompetent to perform duties so important and responsible as those which have been so unexpectedly thrown upon me.”

Andrew Johnson (1808–1875) American politician, 17th president of the United States (in office from 1865 to 1869)

Quote, First Presidential address (1865)

Sadness , Feeling

“Most power structures are deeply incompetent, staffed by people who don't really believe in their institutions and that most power is the projection of the perception of power. And the more secretively it works, the more incompetent it is, because secrecy breeds incompetence, while openness breeds competence, because one can see and can compare actions and see which one is more competent. To keep up these appearances, institutional heads or political heads such as presidents spend most of the time trying to walk in front of the train and pretending that it is following them, but the direction is set by the tracks and by the engine of the train. Understanding that means that small and committed organisations can outmanoeuvre these institutional dinosaurs, like the State Department, the NSA or the CIA.”

Julian Assange (1971) Australian editor, activist, publisher and journalist

Source: Repubblica.it interview, 23 Dec 2016<sup> link http://www.repubblica.it/esteri/2016/12/23/news/assange_wikileaks-154754000/</sup>

Understanding , Secret , People , Appearance

“That worries me. One death is attrition; two would look like incompetence—on someone’s part.”

Robert Charles Wilson book Bios

Source: Bios (1999), Chapter 3 (p. 37)

Death , Parting

“Second, after a painful gap without any king, and a furious struggle by various foreign powers to elect men favorable to them, the Seym chose a pathetic Polish incompetent, who had the good sense to die rather promptly.”

James A. Michener book Poland

page 153
Poland (1983)

Men , Pain , Sense

““You see God as an engineer?” asked Urpastor Phelps.
“I don’t see God as anything at all.”
“An engineer, you said. An incompetent engineer.”
“Incompetent, perfect, who knows? God is whatever we agree to pretend God is. God is our image of God.””

James K. Morrow book Only Begotten Daughter

Source: Only Begotten Daughter (1990), Chapter 16 (p. 272)

God , Perfection

“We have a dysfunctional immigration system, which does not permit us to know who we let into our country, and it does not permit us to protect our citizens properly. We have an incompetent administration.”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

2010s, 2016, June, Speech about the Orlando Shooting (June 13, 2016)

Country

“Someone who says “I am busy” is either declaring incompetence (and lack of control of his life) or trying to get rid of you.”

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

Source: The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms (2010), p. 26

Life , Business

“I've come to the conclusion that roughly 50 percent of the adults in this country are simply too ignorant and functionally incompetent to be living in a free society. You might think I'm off base, but every day around half the people in this country go out of their way to prove me right.”

Neal Boortz (1945) American author, journalist, and radio host

Somebody's Gotta Say It (2007)

People , Way , Thinking , Country

“Our aim is not just to remove our uniquely incompetent Government from office—it is to destroy the socialist fallacies—indeed the whole fallacy of socialism—that the Labour Party exists to spread.”

Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) British stateswoman and politician

Speech to Junior Carlton Club Political Council (4 May 1976) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/103017
Leader of the Opposition

“One of the chief features of incompetence was an inability to see it in oneself.”

Kim Stanley Robinson book Galileo's Dream

Source: Galileo's Dream (2009), Ch. 13, p. 295

“It is plain that the present system of intensive farming cannot be defended. … Let us then be vegetarians, at least. For those who have recognized flesh-eating for what it is, the merest addiction, and one, as Shelley saw, to ‘kindle all putrid humours in (our) frame’ … for such moralists the step is easy. It is not necessary, rather it is incompetent, to kill and torture animals to eat.”

Stephen R. L. Clark (1945) British philosopher

Source: The Moral Status of Animals, p. 46

Animals

“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.
2000s, 2007

Stupidity

“Government succeeds by failing: the more incompetence, the greater the potential reward in the arena of the public sector.”

L. K. Samuels (1951) American writer

Source: In Defense of Chaos: The Chaology of Politics, Economics and Human Action, (2013), p. 246

“Lord Peter Wimsey: He dogs my footsteps with the incompetent zeal of fifty Watsons.”

Dorothy L. Sayers book Murder Must Advertise

Murder Must Advertise (1933)

Dogs

“Failure to grasp centrifugal meaning is incomplete reading; failure to grasp centripetal meaning is incompetent reading.”

Northrop Frye (1912–1991) Canadian literary critic and literary theorist

Source: "Quotes", The Great Code: The Bible and Literature (1982), Chapter Three, p. 58

Failure , Reading

“I made a mistake. I underestimated the influence of Vice President Cheney, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, and the rest of the neocons; I vastly underestimated their disingenuousness and incompetence. So George W. Bush went to war again, and just the way the neocons wanted him to- without significant international backing.”

Joe Biden (1942) 47th Vice President of the United States (in office from 2009 to 2017)

Page 342
2000s, Promises to Keep (2008)

War , Way

“In a hierarchy every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence.”

Laurence J. Peter (1919–1990) Canadian eductor

Source: The Peter Principle (1969), p. 25: Statement of the Peter Principle

“It isn't the incompetent who destroy an organization. The incompetent never get into a position to destroy it. It is those who have achieved something and want to rest upon their achievements who are forever clogging things up.”

Charles E. Sorensen (1881–1968) American businessman

Source: My Forty Years with Ford, 1956, p. 51; Quoted in The Rotarian, Oct. 1976, p. 56

“If I'm ISIS, I call her (Hillary Clinton) up and I give her the most valuable player award. … And I guarantee you with Libya, which was her baby, and all of the other mistakes she has made. Obama takes now, because obviously, for him, that's the better alternative, all right? But he has been an incompetent president. He has done a horrible job.”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

2010s, 2016, August, Speech at rally in Wilmington, North Carolina (August 9, 2016)

Baby

“Every great revelation is likely to have been foreshadowed in more or less imperfect forms, so as to prepare our minds and make ready the way for complete perception hereafter. It is probable that the human race is quite incompetent to receive a really great idea the first time it is offered.”

Oliver Lodge (1851–1940) British physicist

Raymond, p. 382 https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=loc.ark:/13960/t80k3mq4s;view=1up;seq=424
Raymond, or Life and Death (1916)

Way , Idea , Time

“Dirty Love wasn't written and directed, it was committed. Here is a film so pitiful, it doesn't rise to the level of badness. It is hopelessly incompetent… I am not certain that anyone involved has ever seen a movie, or knows what one is.”

Roger Ebert (1942–2013) American film critic, author, journalist, and TV presenter

Review http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050922/REVIEWS/509220303/1023 of Dirty Love (23 September 2005)
Reviews, Zero star reviews

Love

“The unpleasant truth is that President Bush's utter incompetence has made the world a far more dangerous place and dramatically increased the threat of terrorism against the United States. Just yesterday, the International Institute of Strategic Studies reported that the Iraq conflict " has arguably focused the energies and resources of Al Qaeda and its followers while diluting those of the global counterterrorism coalition." The ISS said that in the wake of the war in Iraq Al Qaeda now has more than 18,000 potential terrorists scattered around the world and the war in Iraq is swelling its ranks.”

Al Gore (1948) 45th Vice President of the United States

Quotes, NYU Speech (2004)

War , Truth , World , Study

“A game of cricket is at work from the first ball to the last in shaping an outline or design for itself. Sometimes the design degenerates into dullness and incompetence, but design there always is, and there is an interest even in the tracing of the course and impulse of its failures.”

Dudley Carew (1903–1981) English journalist, writer, poet and film critic

To the Wicket (1946)

Game , Failure

“I'm very angry because our country is being run horribly and I will gladly accept the mantle of anger. Our military is a disaster. Our healthcare is a horror show. Obamacare, we're going to repeal it and replace it. We have no borders. Our vets are being treated horribly. Illegal immigration is beyond belief. Our country is being run by incompetent people. And yes, I am angry. I'm angry because our country is a mess.”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

Full Transcript of the Sixth Republican Debate in Charleston http://time.com/4182096/republican-debate-charleston-transcript-full-text/, Time (14 January 2016).
2010s, 2016, January

People , Anger , Country

“The young are really the heirs to a generation of incompetence.”

Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980) Canadian educator, philosopher, and scholar-- a professor of English literature, a literary critic, and a …

1970s, Culture Is Our Business (1970)

“Occupational incompetence is everywhere. Have you noticed it? Probably we all have noticed it.”

Laurence J. Peter (1919–1990) Canadian eductor

Source: The Peter Principle (1969), p. 20 cited in: James Ike Schaap (2011) " The Peter Principle: Is This Forty-Year-Old Universal Phenomenon in Decline or Growing? http://www.jgbm.org/page/1%20James%20Ike%20Schaap%20.pdf"

“In recent years, many men of science have come to realize that the scientific picture of the world is a partial one — the product of their special competence in mathematics and their special incompetence to deal systematically with aesthetic and moral values, religous experiences and intuitions of significance. Unhappily, novel ideas become acceptable to the less intelligent members of society only with a very considerable time-lag. Sixty or seventy years ago the majority of scientists believed — and the belief caused them considerable distress — that the product of their special incompetence was identical with reality as a whole. Today this belief has begun to give way, in scientific circles, to a different and obviously truer conception of the relation between science and total experience.”

Aldous Huxley book Ends and Means

Ends and Means (1937)

Men , World , Way , Intelligence

“Today the poor are less often dismissed, I hope, from our consciences by being branded as inferior or incompetent. We also know that no matter how dynamically the economy develops and expands, it does not eliminate all poverty.
The problem indicates that our emphasis must be twofold. We must create full employment or we must create incomes. People must be made consumers by one method or the other. Once they are placed in this position we need to be concerned that the potential of the individual is not wasted. New forms of work that enhance the social good will have to be devised for those for whom traditional jobs are not available.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

1960s, Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community? (1967)

People , Hope , Problem

“Now - how can we possibly examine something we use all the time and presuppose in every statement? How can we criticize the terms in which we habitually express our observations? Let us see! The first step in our criticism of commonly-used concepts is to create a measure of criticism, something with which these concepts can be compared. Of course, we shall later want to know a little more about the measuring stick itself; for example, we shall want to know whether it is better than, or perhaps not as good as, the material examined. But in order for this examination to start there must be a measuring-stick in the first place. Therefore, the first step in our criticism of customary concepts and customary reactions is to step outside the circle and either to invent a new conceptual system, for example a new theory, that clashes with the most carefully established observational results and confounds with the most plausible theoretical principles, or to import such a system from outside science, from religion, from mythology, from the ideas of incompetents, or the ramblings of madmen. This step is, again, counter-inductive, Counter-induction is thus both a fact”

Paul Karl Feyerabend book Against Method

science could not exist without it - and a legitimate and much needed move in the game of science.
Pg 68.
Against Method (1975)

Religion , Game , Idea , Science

“He who feels that in his inmost being he cannot be compared with others, will be his own lawgiver. For one thing is needful: to give style to one’s character. This art is practised by him who, with an eye for the strong and weak sides of his nature, removes from it one quality and another, and then by daily practice and acquired habit replaces them by others which become second nature to him; in other words, he puts himself under restraint in order by degrees to bend his nature entirely to his own law. Only thus does a man arrive at satisfaction with himself, and only thus does he become endurable to others. For the dissatisfied and the unsuccessful as a rule avenge themselves on others. They absorb poison from everything, from their own incompetence as well as from their poor circumstances, and they live in a constant craving for revenge on those in whose nature they suspect harmony. Such people ever have virtuous precepts on their lips; the whole jingle of morality, seriousness, chastity, the claims of life; and their hearts ever burn with envy of those who have become well [harmonious] and can therefore enjoy life.”

Georg Brandes (1842–1927) Danish literature critic and scholar

Source: An Essay on Aristocratic Radicalism (1889), p. 26

Life , People , Law , Art

“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 , Stupidity , Education , Justice

“It is not uncommon for intelligent adults to turn into passive observers of their own incompetence in anything but the most elementary mathematics. Individuals may see the direct consequences of this intellectual paralysis in terms of limiting job possibilities. But the indirect, secondary consequences are even more serious. One of the main lessons learned by most people in math class is a sense of having rigid limitations. They learn a balkanized image of human knowledge which they come to see as a patchwork of territories separated by impassable iron curtains.”

Seymour Papert book Mindstorms: Children, Computers, and Powerful Ideas

Source: Mindstorms: Children, Computers, and Powerful Ideas (1980), Chapter 2, Mathophobia: The Fear of Learning

People , Intelligence , Mathematics , Knowledge

“The working classes may be injuriously degraded and oppressed in three ways:1st — When they are neglected in infancy2nd — When they are overworked by their employer, and are thus rendered incompetent from ignorance to make a good use of high wages when they can procure them.3rd — When they are paid low wages for their labour”

Robert Owen (1771–1858) Welsh social reformer

Two Memorials on Behalf of the Working Classes (1818).

Way

“I have always felt,” he said, “that violence was the last refuge of the incompetent, and empty threats the final sanctuary of the terminally inept.”

Neil Gaiman book Neverwhere

Source: Neverwhere (1996), Chapter 10; Gaiman here references the famous statement of Isaac Asimov from "Foundation", Astounding Science-Fiction (May 1942)

“The conclusion was…unpalatable to believers in American omnipotence, to whom every goal unattained is explicable only by incompetence or treason.”

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

“From the end of World War I until the middle of the middle of the 1970s, French public life was shaped and misshaped by three overlapping and intersecting forms of collective and individual irresponsibility. The first of these was political. Reading the history of interwar France, one is struck again and again by the incompetence, the insouciance and the culpable negligence of the men who governed the country and represented its citizens. This is not a political observation, in the partisan sense, but rather a cultural one.”

Tony Judt (1948–2010) British historian

Introduction: The Misjudgment of Paris
The Burden of Responsibility: Blum, Camus, Aron, and the French Twentieth Century (1998)

Life , Men , War , World

“Many of us are gravely suspicious about the influence of freemasonry. I am utterly opposed to it and to the influence of other secret organisations because I believe them to be a deeply corrupting influence on society. That influence has been highlighted by the case of Chief Inspector Woollard who investigated allegations of incompetence and misconduct by a building contractor working for the London borough of Islington. During his investigation, he discerned considerable masonic influence among officials in the company and in the local authority. As he came closer to concluding that the influence of freemasonry in the administration of the contract had been great, he was removed from the case and sent to the Metropolitan police's equivalent of running a power station in Siberia. Masonic influence is serious…We need a clear statement from the Home Secretary an which he makes it clear that he opposes masonic influences of any sort and that police officers should be asked to sign a declaration of interests and membership of organisations such as many local authority officers and councillors are asked to sign, Freemasonry is incompatible with being a police officer.”

Jeremy Corbyn (1949) British Labour Party politician

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1988/jun/24/policing-london in the House of Commons (24 June 1988).
1980s

Secret , Home

“The two-party system has given this country the war of Lyndon Johnson, the Watergate of Nixon, and the incompetence of Carter. Saying we should keep the two-party system simply because it is working is like saying the Titanic voyage was a success because a few people survived on life-rafts.”

Eugene McCarthy (1916–2005) American politician

Chicago Tribune (10 September 1978)

Life , War , People , Success

“As part of the spring ritual of National Poetry Month, poets are symbolically dragged into the public square in order to be humiliated with the claim that their product has not achieved sufficient market penetration and must be revived by the Artificial Resuscitation Foundation (ARF) lest the art form collapse from its own incompetence, irrelevance, and as a result of the general disinterest among the broad masses of the American People. The motto of ARF's National Poetry Month is: "Poetry's not so bad, really."”

Charles Bernstein (1950) American writer

" Against National Poetry Month As Such http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/044106.html", from My Way: Speeches and Poems, 1999, University Of Chicago Press, ISBN 0226044092

People , Art , Spring , Parting

“There is no obligation for the author of a film to believe in, or to sympathise with, the moral behaviour of his characters. Nor is he necessarily to be accredited with the same opinions as his characters. Nor is it necessary or obligatory for him to believe in the tenet of his construction -- all of which is a disclaimer to the notion that the author of Drowning by Numbers believes that all men are weak, enfeebled, loutish, boorish and generally inadequate and incompetent as partners for women. But it's a thought.”

Peter Greenaway (1942) British film director

Fear of Drowning By Numbers

Women , Men

“You see, the religious people — most of them — really think this planet is an experiment. That’s what their beliefs come down to. Some god or other is always fixing and poking, messing around with tradesmen’s wives, giving tablets on mountains, commanding you to mutilate your children, telling people what words they can say and what words they can’t say, making people feel guilty about enjoying themselves, and like that. Why can’t the gods leave well enough alone? All this intervention speaks of incompetence. If God didn’t want Lot’s wife to look back, why didn’t he make her obedient, so she’d do what her husband told her? Or if he hadn’t made Lot such a shithead, maybe she would’ve listened to him more. If God is omnipotent and omniscient, why didn’t he start the universe out in the first place so it would come out the way he wants? Why’s he constantly repairing and complaining? No, there’s one thing the Bible makes clear: The biblical God is a sloppy manufacturer. He’s not good at design, he’s not good at execution. He’d be out of business if there was any competition.”

Carl Sagan book Contact

Source: Contact (1985), Chapter 16 (p. 285)

God , Children , People , Way

“On land you saw how the pride of Captain Pedel was so much humbled that he with his men, who are as foolish as himself, could not even bear the look of my men; and how, on the mere sight of my warriors, they threw down their arms and willingly awaited their well-deserved punishment with outstretched necks. Are these not sufficient proofs of your incompetency and inability to resist my forces?”

Koxinga (1624–1662) Chinese military leader

Formosa under the Dutch: described from contemporary records, with explanatory notes and a bibliography of the island, 1903, William Campbell, Kegan Paul, 424, Dec. 20 2011 http://books.google.com/books?id=OpdMq-YJoeoC&pg=PA423&dq=koxinga+formosa+always+belonged+to+china&hl=en&ei=vsjiTergDM3TgAekqbzKBg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=7&ved=0CEQQ6AEwBg#v=onepage&q=same%20doom%20had%20they%20not%20taken%20to%20flight%20and%20gone%20out%20to%20sea.&f=false, Original from the University of Michigan(LONDON : KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, TRUBNER & CO. LTD DRYDEN HOUSE, 43 GERRARD STREET, SOHO MDCCCCIII Edinburgh : T. and A. CONSTABLE, Printers to His Majesty)

Men

“We must review oil deregulation law and study the following: Removing VAT, lowering tariff, re-imposing price ceilings and prohibiting price manipulation. We should also spend on research and development to find alternate and indigenous sources of energy. The summit will not accomplish anything other than to highlight the ignorance and incompetence of energy officials who need to call a summit just to find out what’s going on.”

Francis Escudero (1969) Filipino politician

The Philippine Star http://www.philstar.com:8080/headlines/37151/chiz-backs-scrapping-oil-tariff
2008, Statement: on Energy Summit

Law , Study

“This movie is not merely bad, but incompetent. I get tapes in the mail from 10th graders that are better made than this… I have often asked myself, "What would it look like if the characters in a movie were animatronic puppets created by aliens with an imperfect mastery of human behavior?"”

Roger Ebert (1942–2013) American film critic, author, journalist, and TV presenter

Now I know.
Review http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/friends-and-lovers-1999 of Friends & Lovers (30 April 1999)
Reviews, Half-star reviews

Behavior

“I trust in God that my life may be spared for nine months longer, after which period, in the event of my death, no Regency would take place. I should then have the satisfaction of leaving the Royal authority to the personal exercise of that young lady [Princess, later Queen, Victoria], the heiress presumptive to the Crown, and not in the hands of a person now near me [Victoria's mother, the Duchess of Kent], who is surrounded by evil advisers and who is herself incompetent to act with propriety in the station in which she would be placed. I have no hesitation in saying that I have been insulted grossly insulted by that person, but I am determined to endure no longer a course of behaviour so disrespectful to me. Amongst other things, I have particularly to complain of the manner in which that young lady has been kept away from my Court; she has been repeatedly kept from my Drawing Rooms, at which she ought always to have been present, but I am fully resolved that this shall not happen again. I would have her know that I am King, and I am determined to make my authority respected, and for the future I shall insist and command that the Princess do upon all occasions appear at my Court, as it is her duty to do.”

William IV of the United Kingdom (1765–1837) King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and of Hanover

As quoted in The Early Court of Queen Victoria http://www.archive.org/stream/earlycourtofquee00jerruoft/earlycourtofquee00jerruoft_djvu.txt (1912) by Clare Jerrold

Life , Death , God , Exercises

“God is the immemorial refuge of the incompetent, the helpless, the miserable. They find not only sanctuary in His arms, but also a kind of superiority, soothing to their macerated egos: He will set them above their betters.”

H.L. Mencken (1880–1956) American journalist and writer

35
1940s–present, Minority Report : H.L. Mencken's Notebooks (1956)

God

“The Obama administration's agenda of maximizing dependency involves political favoritism cloaked in the raiment of "economic planning" and "social justice" that somehow produce results superior to what markets produce when freedom allows merit to manifest itself, and incompetence to fail. The administration's central activity – the political allocation of wealth and opportunity – is not merely susceptible to corruption, it is corruption.””

George Will (1941) American newspaper columnist, journalist, and author

Column, May 14, 2009, "Tincture of Lawlessness" http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/05/14/tincture_of_lawlessness_96482.html at realclearpolitics.com.
2000s

Justice , Freedom , Dependency , Wealth

“Arabic writing at the beginning of Islam was, therefore, not of the best quality nor of the greatest accuracy and excellence. It was not (even) of medium quality, because the Arabs possessed the savage desert attitude and were not familiar with crafts. One may compare what happened to the orthography of the Qur’an on account of this situation. The men around Muhammad wrote the Qur’an in their own script which, was not of a firmly established, good quality. Most of the letters were in contradiction to the orthography required by persons versed in the craft of writing…. Consequently, (the Qur’anic orthography of the men around Muhammad was followed and became established, and the scholars acquainted with it have called attention to passages where (this is noticeable). No attention should be paid in this connection with those incompetent (scholars) that (the men around Muhammad) knew well the art of writing and that the alleged discrepancies between their writing and the principles of orthography are not discrepancies, as has been alleged, but have a reason. For instance, they explain the addition of the alif in la ‘adhbahannahU "I shall indeed slaughter him" as indication that the slaughtering did not take place ( lA ‘adhbahannahU ). The addition of the ya in bi-ayydin "with hands (power)," they explain as an indication that the divine power is perfect. There are similar things based on nothing but purely arbitrary assumptions. The only reason that caused them to (assume such things) is their belief that (their explanations) would free the men around Muhammad from the suspicion of deficiency, in the sense that they were not able to write well. They think that good writing is perfection. Thus, they do not admit the fact that the men around Muhammad were deficient in writing.”

Ibn Khaldun book Muqaddimah

Muqqadimah, ibn Khaldun, vol. 2, p. 382
Muqaddimah (1377)

Men , Art , Thinking , Sense

“Why are pictures like this allowed?’ he suddenly cried. He had stopped in front of a colonial print in which the martyrdom of St Agatha was depicted with all the fervour that incompetence could command.
‘It’s only a saint,’ said Lady Peaslake, placidly raising her head.
‘How disgusting – and how ugly’
‘Yes, very. It’s Roman Catholic.”

E.M. Forster (1879–1970) English novelist

Albergo Empedocle
The Life to Come and other stories (1972)

“Westerns. One after another. They get shittier and shittier, and the so-called directors get lousier and lousier. And the more incompetent they are, the more hostile they act.”

Klaus Kinski (1926–1991) German actor

Source: Kinski Uncut : The Autobiography of Klaus Kinski (1996), p. 210

Hostility

“If every day a man takes orders in silence from an incompetent superior, if every day he solemnly performs ritual acts which he privately finds ridiculous, if he unhesitatingly gives answers to questionnaires which are contrary to his real opinions and is prepared to deny his own self in public, if he sees no difficulty in feigning sympathy or even affection where, in fact, he feels only indifference or aversion, it still does not mean that he has entirely lost the use of one of the basic human senses, namely, the sense of humiliation.”

Václav Havel (1936–2011) playwright, essayist, poet, dissident and 1st President of the Czech Republic

Letter to Husák

Feeling , Sense , Silence , Indifference

“Why did the generals who have been so ready to term me a complaisant and incompetent yes-man fail to secure my removal? Was that all that difficult? No, that wasn't it; the truth was that nobody would have been ready to replace me, because each one knew that he would end up just as much a wreck as I.”

Wilhelm Keitel (1882–1946) German general

Excerpt from "The Memoirs of Field-Marshal Keitel" - Page 52 - by Wilhelm Keitel - 1966

Truth

“A manufacturing organization being a live, human thing, is like a municipality. Many of our shops are as fruitful fields for riddance of graft as are many of our cities. The graft in the shop consists mostly in the distortion of the managing and planning body into a wire-pulling and influence machine with easy berths filled by incompetents or idlers. This condition often exists not because of any intentional desire to be disloyal on the part of the employees, but simply on account of the work being allowed to drift without systematic attention to departmental organization.”

Hugo Diemer (1870–1937) American mechanical engineer

Source: "Industrial Engineering," 1905, p. 67

Parting

“Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy states that in any bureaucratic organization there will be two kinds of people: those who work to further the actual goals of the organization, and those who work for the organization itself. Examples in education would be teachers who work and sacrifice to teach children, vs. union representative who work to protect any teacher including the most incompetent. The Iron Law states that in all cases, the second type of person will always gain control of the organization, and will always write the rules under which the organization functions.”

Jerry Pournelle (1933–2017) American science fiction writer and journalist

Reference quote http://www.jerrypournelle.com/archives2/archives2view/view408.html#Iron in Chaos Manor View 408, April 3-9, 2006
Assorted

Children , People , Education , Law

“I have no patience for injustice, no tolerance for government incompetence, no sympathy for leaders who fail their citizens.”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

2010s, 2016, July, (21 July 2016)

Patience

“As incompetent in life as in death, I loathe myself and in this loathing I dream of another life, another death. And for having sought to be a sage such as never was, I am only a madman among the mad.”

Emil M. Cioran book A Short History of Decay

A Short History of Decay (1949)

Life , Death , Dreams , Madness

“Are these not sufficient proofs of your incompetency and inability to resist my forces? I will give you more and stronger ones. But if you still persist in refusing to liften to reason and decline to do my bidding, and if you wish delibrately to rush to your ruin, then I will shortly, in your presence, order your castle [Fort Provintia] to be stormed. If I wish to set my force to work, then I am able to move heaven and Earth. Wherever I go I am destined to win. Therefore take warning, and think the matter over.”

Koxinga (1624–1662) Chinese military leader

Forbidden Nation: A History of Taiwan, 2008, Jonathan Manthorpe, illustrated, Macmillan, 0230614248, 71, Dec. 20 2011 http://books.google.com/books?id=p3D6a7bK_t0C&pg=PA71&dq=koxinga+taiwan+always+chinese&hl=en&ei=NcbiTafrEY3ogQeB7_28Bg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=10&ved=0CFYQ6AEwCQ#v=onepage&q=koxinga%20taiwan%20always%20chinese&f=false,

Thinking