Quotes about moron (109 quotes) | Quotes of famous people

“As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.”

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

Source: On Politics: A Carnival of Buncombe

People , Democracy , Soul , Heart

“If we had killed 10.3 million Jews, then I would have been satisfied and would say, good, we annihilated an enemy. … I wasn't only issued orders, in this case I'd have been a moron, but I rather anticipated, I was an idealist.”

Adolf Eichmann (1906–1962) German Nazi SS-Obersturmbannführer

Post-war discussion with Willem Sassen in Eichmanns Memoiren. Ein kritischer Essay (Zuerst 2001) Frankfurt/M.: Fischer TB, 2004 ISBN 3-5961-5726-9

“Sleep is the most moronic fraternity in the world, with the heaviest dues and the crudest rituals. It is a mental torture I find debasing… I simply cannot get used to the nightly betrayal of reason, humanity, genius.”

Vladimir Nabokov book Speak, Memory

Source: Speak, Memory

World , Sleep , Betrayal

“I'm a monster, not a moron.”

P. C. Cast book Hunted

Source: Hunted

“What they teach in these acting schools is incredible, hair-raising crap. The Actors Studio in America is supposed to be the worst. There the students learn how to be natural - that is, they flop around, pick their noses, scratch their balls. This bullshit is known as "method acting." How can you "teach" someone to be an actor? How can you teach someone how and what to feel and how to express it? How can someone teach me how to laugh or cry? How to be glad and how to be sad? What pain is, or despair or happiness? What poverty and hunger are? What hate and love are? What desire is, and fulfillment? No, I don't want to waste my time with these arrogant morons.”

Klaus Kinski (1926–1991) German actor

Source: Kinski Uncut : The Autobiography of Klaus Kinski (1996), p. 59

Love , Hunger , Pain , Hate

“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

““What do I ‘feel’?” he sneered… Did you actually ask me what I ‘feel’? I ‘feel’ I’m surrounded by morons!””

Malcolm Azania book From the Notebooks of Dr. Brain

Source: From the Notebooks of Dr. Brain (2007), Chapter 2 “Facing the Ultimate Archenemy” (p. 51)

Feeling

“An organisation that treats its programmers as morons will soon have programmers that are willing and able to act like morons only.”

Bjarne Stroustrup book The C++ Programming Language

[Stroustrup, Bjarne, The C++ Programming Language, 713]

“What's funny about the name "F**kface Von Clownstick" -- it was not coined by Jon Leibowitz-- he stole it from some moron on twitter.”

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

2010s, 2013

“They say that God protects drunks and children. I would add young morons to that list.”

Fred Thompson (1942–2015) American politician and actor

Teaching the Pig to Dance

God , Children

“Let us proceed under the assumption that the fairy folk do exist, and that I am not a gibbering moron.”

Eoin Colfer Artemis Fowl

Source: Artemis Fowl

“… the moron who thought love was forever.”

Daniel Handler book Why We Broke Up

Source: Why We Broke Up

Love

“The writer must be four people: 1) The nut, the obsede 2) The moron 3) The stylist 4) The critic. 1 supplies the material; 2 lets it come out; 3 is taste; 4 is intelligence.”

Susan Sontag (1933–2004) American writer and filmmaker, professor, and activist

People , Intelligence

“Townsend shrugged. 'With all due respect to the good doctor, I highly suspect he's a moron.”

Ally Carter Out of Sight, Out of Time

Source: Out of Sight, Out of Time

“One never quite allows for the moron in our midst.”

Agatha Christie book The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side

Source: The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side

“Yeah, I’m thinking it’s a reunion or, since it is our classmates, a collection of idiots. Let’s call it a meese. Like geese, only with morons. (Caleb)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Infinity

Thinking

“How do you politely explain to someone that you had believed for years he was a moron as well as a Fool?
Fitz in Assassin's Apprentice”

Robin Hobb book Assassin's Apprentice

Source: Assassin's Apprentice

Fools

“I do this real moron thing, and it's called thinking. And apparently I'm not a very good American because I like to form my own opinions.”

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

Thinking

“Look and you wlll see, that which was can never be. When they seek a boy your age, Run, you flippin moron, run!”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Invincible

Age , Boy

“Annabeth finished her note and folded the napkin. On the outside, she wrote: Connor, Give this to Rachel. Not a prank. Don’t be a moron. Love, Annabeth”

Rick Riordan book The House of Hades

Source: The House of Hades

Love

“A genius is a genius, regardless of the number of morons who belong to the same race—and a moron is a moron, regardless of the number of geniuses who share his racial origin.”

Ayn Rand (1905–1982) Russian-American novelist and philosopher

http://alexpeak.com/twr/racism/
The Virtue of Selfishness (1964)
Source: The Virtue of Selfishness: A New Concept of Egoism

“Thinking I'm a moron gives people something to feel smug about," Charles Wallace said. "Why should I disillusion them?”

Madeleine L'Engle book A Wrinkle in Time

Source: A Wrinkle in Time

People , Feeling , Thinking

“Ranger sent us to check on you," Hal said. "We just got here, and we heard shots."
"Some moron ate my jelly doughnut," Lula said. "So I shot him.”

Janet Evanovich book Sizzling Sixteen

Source: Sizzling Sixteen

“The consumer isn't a moron; she is your wife. You insult her intelligence if you assume that a mere slogan and a few vapid adjectives will persuade her to buy anything. She wants all the information you can give her.”

David Ogilvy book Confessions of an Advertising Man

Source: Confessions of an Advertising Man, p. 96 (Ballantine Books)

Intelligence

“The world is made up for the most part of morons and natural tyrants, sure of themselves, strong in their own opinions, never doubting anything.”

Clarence Darrow (1857–1938) American lawyer and leading member of the American Civil Liberties Union

World , Nature , Strong , Parting

“For alarmingly large chunks of an average day, I am a moron.”

Nick Hornby Fever Pitch

Source: Fever Pitch

“A duel, a duel, a duel. Is there anything more exciting, more romantic… or more utterly moronic?”

Julia Quinn (1970) American novelist

Source: The Duke and I

“If you don't vote, you're a moron.”

Craig Ferguson (1962) Scottish-born American television host, stand-up comedian, writer, actor, director, author, producer and voice a…

“Only a heathen would bring a gun to a sword fight.'

And only a moron would bring a sword to a gunfight.”

Derek Landy (1974) Irish children's writer

Source: Playing with Fire

Fight

“What a moron I was to think you were sweet and innocent, when it turns out you were actually college-educated the whole time!”

Margaret Atwood book The Edible Woman

Source: The Edible Woman

Education , Thinking , Time

“Valkyrie: “You are such a moron.”
Skulduggery: “Don't be jealous of my genius.”

Derek Landy Skulduggery Pleasant

Source: Skulduggery Pleasant

“The central belief of every moron is that he is the victim of a mysterious conspiracy against his common rights and true deserts.”

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

“Whoever thought a tiny candy bar should be called fun size was a moron.”

Glenn Beck (1964) U.S. talk radio and television host

“You're not a moron. You're only a case of arrested development.”

Ernest Hemingway book The Sun Also Rises

Source: The Sun Also Rises

“You freaking, flippin’, moronic frat boy!”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Acheron

Boy

“Each of us is sometimes a cretin, a fool, a moron, or a lunatic. A normal person is just a reasonable mix of these components, these four ideal types.”

Umberto Eco book Foucault's Pendulum

Source: Foucault's Pendulum

Fools , Personality

“Are you going to shoot me?' Vengeous sneered. 'I wouldn't be surprised. What would a thing like you know about honor? Only a heathen would bring a gun to a sword fight.'

And only a moron would bring a sword to a gunfight.”

Derek Landy (1974) Irish children's writer

Source: Playing with Fire

Fight

“Kyle is a werewolf?"asked Simon
"Of course he's a werewolf, you moron"said Jace”

Cassandra Clare book City of Fallen Angels

Source: City of Fallen Angels

“When you cut pieces out of the truth to avoid looking like a fool you end up looking like a moron instead.”

Robin Hobb book Assassin's Apprentice

Source: Assassin's Apprentice

Truth , Fools

“You said sloppy! Look, I didn't even use my sword; I hit him with my head, like a moron.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Magic Strikes

“(I’ve often noticed that people equate “having a sense of humour” with “being an insensitive moron.”)”

Sophie Kinsella book Finding Audrey

Source: Finding Audrey

People , Sense

“If you're listening to a rock star in order to get your information on who to vote for, you're a bigger moron than they are.”

Alice Cooper (1948) American rock singer, songwriter and musician

On Rock n Roll and political campaigns, in a statement to the Canadian Press (26 August 2005), as quoted in "Rock is on a roll with politics" by Warren Kinsella http://web.archive.org/web/20040913125414/http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20040912.wkinse0913/BNStory/Front/ in the Globe and Mail (12 September 2004).
Context: I call it treason against rock 'n' roll because rock is the antithesis of politics. Rock should never be in bed with politics.... When I was a kid and my parents started talking about politics, I'd run to my room and put on the Rolling Stones as loud as I could. So when I see all these rock stars up there talking politics, it makes me sick..... If you're listening to a rock star in order to get your information on who to vote for, you're a bigger moron than they are. Why are we rock stars? Because we're morons. We sleep all day, we play music at night and very rarely do we sit around reading the Washington Journal.

Star

“Sometimes I think,” he told Tex, “that Th’Wing thinks that I am an idiot studying hard to become a moron—but flunking the course.”

Robert A. Heinlein book Space Cadet

Source: Space Cadet (1948), Chapter 16 “P.R.S. Astarte”, p. 195

Thinking , Study

“The sharp side of the knife goes away from you. Pure reason does not trump brute force but suprisingly few people know what hot peppers look like when the teacher asks if you have enough to share with everyone. Never take the lid of a pressure cooker 'to see if it's done yet'. Even if you are careful with the picric acid that won't matter if you are careless with other items next to it. Move *away* from mysterious burglar alarms. Do not append 'you moron' to exposition directed at people who have just broken into your building. 'We need to talk' is overwhelmingly unlikely to precede good news. A rough brick wall may be used to sort socks or as a backdrop for sock-art (The Neglected Art). A silent cat is Up to Something. Lungs are unsuited for many possible atmospheres, including that of London, and anything with a high content of industrial cleaners. Youth will not save you from Newton's Laws. Or Darwin's.”

James Nicoll (1961) Canadian fiction reviewer

Facebook post (2014) https://www.facebook.com/james.nicoll.927/posts/10152710405547985
2010s

People , Youth , Law , Art

“He's (Michael Moore) going to wake up every day for the rest of his life, and he's going to tell us how he hates everything about this country except his right to hate it. And then we say that we love it and he's going to tell us what naive sheep we are and that he's the true patriot because he hates it and he sees all the problems in it. Yeah, right, Mike. You know something, if my yawn got any bigger they'd have to assign it a hurricane name, okay? Michael Moore simultaneously represents everything I detest in a human being and everything I feel obligated to defend in an American. Quite simply, it is that stupid moron's right to be that utterly, completely wrong.”

Dennis Miller (1953) American stand-up comedian, television host, and actor

The Tonight Show with Jay Leno (3 April 2003)

Love , Life , Hate , Stupidity

“I missed the enormously popular movie that introduced these characters, Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure, and felt myself blessed at the time. But now I'm not so sure. Their Bogus Journey is a riot of visual invention and weird humor that works on its chosen sub-moronic level, and on several others as well, including some fairly sophisticated ones. It's the kind of movie where you start out snickering in spite of yourself, and end up actually admiring the originality that went into creating this hallucinatory slapstick.”

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

Review http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/bill-and-teds-bogus-journey of Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey (19 July 1991)
Reviews, Three star reviews

Time

“You walk down the street at night. It's raining out. The only sound is that of your own feet. There are city sounds too, but these you don't hear because at the end of the street is the woman you've been waiting for for seven long years and each muffled tread of your footsteps takes you closer and closer and the sound of them marks off seconds and days and months of waiting.
Then, suddenly, you're there, outside a dark-faced building, a brownstone anachronism that stares back dully with the defiant expression of the moronic and you have an impending sense of being challenged.”

Mickey Spillane book The Snake

The Snake (1964)

Sense , Waiting , Night

“The papers exaggerate. They exaggerate everything, just to sell papers. The government exaggerates, to keep our minds off what morons they are.”

John Updike book Rabbit at Rest

Rabbit at Rest (1990)

“You believe that America is the last best hope for the free world. Boy, was I a moron for believing that. Nope, there are a lot of people that believe that we are the oppressor. This man states it. He states in this book "The purpose is to create mass organizations to seize power."”

Glenn Beck (1964) U.S. talk radio and television host

Wow! That almost sounds like the Tides Foundation.
Glenn Beck
Television
Fox News
2010-07-14
Gertz
Matt
The CA cop shooter and Glenn Beck: Here's what we know
2010-07-23
Media Matters for America
http://mediamatters.org/blog/201007230022
Selectively paraphrasing [Rules for radicals: a practical primer for realistic radicals, The purpose, Saul Alinsky, 1971, 1989-10, 3, 0-679-72113-4, In this book we are concerned with how to create mass organizations to seize power and give it to the people; to realize the democratic dream of equality, justice, peace, cooperation, equal and full opportunities for education, full and useful employment, health, and the creation of those circumstances in which man can have the chance to live by values that give meaning to life.]
2010s, 2010

People , Books , World , Hope

“Throughout the 200+ pages of this book Sanger called for the elimination of "human weeds," for the cessation of charity, for the segregation of "morons, misfits, and maladjusted," and for the sterilization of "genetically inferior races."”

Margaret Sanger (1879–1966) American birth control activist, educator and nurse

" Who Was Margaret Sanger? http://www.ewtn.com/library/prolife/pp04a.txt", brochure published by the American Life League, regarding The Pivot of Civilization http://www.gutenberg.org/files/1689/1689.txt.
None of those quoted phrases actually appear in the book.
Misattributed

Books

“Little Indian, Big City is one of the worst movies ever made. I detested every moronic minute of it…if you, under any circumstances, see Little Indian, Big City, I will never let you read one of my reviews again.”

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

Review http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/little-indian-big-city-1996 of Little Indian, Big City (22 March 1996)
Reviews, Zero star reviews

Reading

“Steven Spielberg offers me a part in Raiders of the Lost Ark… But as much as I'd like to do a movie with Spielberg, the script is as moronically shitty as so many other flicks of this ilk. At the same time, Claude Lelouch is nagging me to do his Les Uns et les Autres (Bolero). I'd be willing to do this project, but not for the shabby pittance that this rat offers me.”

Klaus Kinski (1926–1991) German actor

Source: Kinski Uncut : The Autobiography of Klaus Kinski (1996), p. 294

Time , Parting

“Kreske had more authority, but he was a moron.”

Christopher Golden (1967) American writer

Page 88
Body of Evidence

“There's good news and bad news about 2 Fast 2 Furious, the moronic follow-up to The Fast and the Furious and a contender for the worst movie of 2003. The good news is that it's better, albeit marginally, than Freddy Got Fingered.”

James Berardinelli (1967) American film critic

The bad news is that it's 15 minutes longer.
Review http://www.reelviews.net/php_review_template.php?identifier=1105 of 2 Fast 2 Furious (2003).
Half-star reviews

“That soul-destroying, meaningless, mechanical, monotonous, moronic work is an insult to human nature which must necessarily and inevitably produce either escapism or aggression, and that no amount of “bread and circuses” can compensate for the damage done—these are facts which are neither denied nor acknowledged but are met with an unbreakable conspiracy of silence—because to deny them would be too obviously absurd and to acknowledge them would condemn the central preoccupation of modern society.”

E. F. Schumacher (1911–1977) British economist

Source: Small is Beautiful: A Study of Economics As If People Mattered (1973), p. 35.

Soul , Nature , Silence

““We’re fools!” said Harrison. “Morons! Idiots!”
“If you speak of my altruism,” said Pepe cheerfully, “I agree. But if you speak of your interest in a very pretty girl, then I point out that nobody is ever as happy as while he is making a fool of himself over a woman.”

Murray Leinster (1896–1975) Novelist, short story writer

Source: Time Tunnel (1964), Chapter 2 (p. 24).

Fools , Girl , Happiness

“My mother is probably the wisest person I've ever known. She's not schooled, she's not well read. But she has a philosophy of life that makes well-read people seem like morons.”

Gene Simmons (1949) Israeli-born American rock bass guitarist, singer-songwriter, record producer, entrepreneur, and actor

Fresh Air interview (February 4, 2002)

Life , People , School , Reading

“It has also been said that your Education has been a failure no matter how much it has done for you, if it has failed to open your heart. Dr. Zakir Hussain, when Vice-Chancellor of the Aligarh University, said, that the aim of Education was that students should become responsible citizens and not merely bundles of styles and sophistication like articles in a furniture shop – the product now being churned out lacks even that saving grace….. The old system may have produced 'snobs' what is being spewed out now are 'slobs'. The young student in Indian Schools is being smothered under a dead weight of books and notes dealing with a host of subjects imaginable and unimaginable. Busy cramming from morning till night and repeating parrot-like that he does not understand, he is fast becoming a literate moron. Initiative, leadership and education in the real sense of the term are encouraged only in a few public Schools.”

Peter de Noronha (1897–1970) Indian businessman

The Pageant of Life (1964), On Teachers & Education

Books , Education , School , Imagination

“… there are now unmistakeable signs of a trend in favor of superior products at premium prices. The consumer is not a moron, she is your wife.”

David Ogilvy (1911–1999) Advertising executive

Ogilvy on Advertising, p. 170

“Only some ghastly dehumanised moron would want to get rid of the Routemaster.”

Ken Livingstone (1945) Mayor of London between 2000 and 2008

Said in 2001. Four years later the Routemaster bus was withdrawn from ordinary passenger service by Transport for London, a decision supported by Livingstone. Quoted in "Livingstone and the 'morons' have killed off the Routemaster" by Philip Johnston in Daily Telegraph (24 October 2005) http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2005/10/24/do2401.xml&sSheet=/portal/2005/10/24/ixportal.html.

“Slowly his eyes left my hair and traveled downwards. This time he really took in my outfit and then that Look that I’m always encountering; that special one composed in equal parts of amusement, astonishment and horror came over his face.
I am not a moron and I can generally guess what causes this look. The trouble is, it’s always something different.
I squirmed uncomfortably, feeling his eyes bearing down on my bare shoulders and breasts.
"What the hell are you doing in the middle of the morning with an evening dress on?” he asked me finally.
"Sorry about that,” I said quickly, "but it’s all I’ve got to wear. My laundry hasn’t come back yet.””

Elaine Dundy (1921–2008) American journalist, actress

Part One, One
The Dud Avocado (1958)

Travel , Feeling , Hell , Time

“"You stupid mutt! How could you? My baby!
[Jacob] backed out the front door now as I stalked him, half-running backward down the stairs. "It wasn't my idea, Bella!"
"I've held her all of one time, and already you think you have some moronic wolfy claim to her? She's mine. […] How dare you imprint on my baby? Have you lost your mind?"”

Stephenie Meyer (1973) American author

Bella Cullen and Jacob Black, p. 449
Twilight series, Breaking Dawn (2008)

Stupidity , Idea , Thinking , Time

“I shall have to express a very deep conviction: that until we have courage to recognize cruelty for what it is—whether its victim is human or animal—we cannot expect things to be much better in the world. There can be no double standard. We cannot have peace among men whose hearts find delight in killing any living creature. By every act that glorifies or even tolerates such moronic delight in killing, we set back the progress of humanity.”

Rachel Carson (1907–1964) American marine biologist and conservationist

Letter to Fon Boardman; quoted in Rachel Carson: Legacy and Challenge, ed. Lisa H. Sideris and Kathleen Dean Moore (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2008), p. 102 https://books.google.it/books?id=awR4kJrhQK0C&pg=PA102.

Men , World , Peace , Courage

“Idiots are not responsible for what they do. The real guilt falls on rational people who sit on their hands while the morons run wild. You can opt out if you want to. Play it safe. But if you do, don’t complain when the roof comes down.”

Jack McDevitt (1935) American novelist, Short story writer

Source: Academy Series - Priscilla "Hutch" Hutchins, Odyssey (2006), Chapter 6 (p. 48)

People

“I could start this review by stating that Dumb and Dumberer lives up to its name, or by calling it stupid, moronic, and idiotic, but I believe that approach is a trap, since a movie like this might relish being the object of such bland invectives. Instead, let me try a few that can't possibly be misconstrued as twisted praise: unfunny, boring, torturous, and unwatchable. … [N]o movie could be more aptly compared to raw sewage than this film - Directed By Troy Miller.”

James Berardinelli (1967) American film critic

Review http://www.reelviews.net/php_review_template.php?identifier=1484 of Dumb and Dumberer (2003).
Zero star reviews

Stupidity

“How can anyone believe that you can "learn" how to feel and learn how to express it? How can anyone teach another person how to laugh and how to cry? How to be cheerful and how to be sad? Teach them what pain is, and despair, and desire, and passion? Hate and love? How can anyone waste their own and somebody else's time with that idiocy? But far worse than the morons who think they can learn these things are the people who claim they can teach them. In the end, they teach bad manners. If one of their trained poodles sits down in public, he doesn't sit, he slouches - which is supposed to mean that his behavior is "natural." He or she scratches his or her head then picks his or her nose, which is supposed to mean that he or she has no complexes and acts very spontaneously. So this is what New York talk shows look like.”

Klaus Kinski (1926–1991) German actor

On method acting. p. 313
Kinski Uncut : The Autobiography of Klaus Kinski (1996)

Love , Pain , Hate , People

““Kristin, nothing ever does change.” I jerked a thumb back at the crowd outside. “You’ll always have morons like that, swallowing belief patterns whole so they don’t have to think for themselves. You’ll always have people like Kawahara and the Bancrofts to push their buttons and cash in on the program. People like you to make sure the game runs smoothly and the rules don’t get broken too often. And when the Meths want to break the rules themselves, they’ll send people like Trepp and me to do it. That’s the truth, Kristin. It’s been the truth since I was born a hundred and fifty years ago, and from what I read in the history books, it’s never been any different. Better get used to it.””

Richard K. Morgan book Altered Carbon

Epilogue (p. 524)
Altered Carbon (2002)

People , Truth , Books , Jerk

“[Harry listening to car radio] …he resents being made to realise, this late, that the songs of his life were as moronic as the rock the brainless kids now feed on, or the Sixties and Seventies stuff that Nelson gobbled up – all of it designed for empty heads and overheated hormones, an ocean white with foam, and listening to it now is like trying to eat a double banana split the way he used to. It's all disposable, cooked up to turn a quick profit. They lead us down the garden path, the music manufacturers, then turn around and lead the next generation down with a slightly different flavour of glop.
Rabbit feels betrayed. He was reared in a world where war was not strange but change was: the world stood still so you could grow up in it. He knows when the bottom fell out. When they closed down Kroll's, Kroll's that had stood in the centre of Brewer all those years, bigger than a church, older than a courthouse, right at the head of Weiser Square there,… […] So when the system just upped one summer and decided to close Kroll's down, just because shoppers had stopped coming in because the downtown had become frightening to white people, Rabbit realised the world was not solid and benign, it was a shabby set of temporary arrangements rigged up for the time being, all for the sake of money. You just passed through, and they milked you for what you were worth, mostly when you were young and gullible. If Kroll's could go, the courthouse could go, the banks could go. When the money stopped, they could close down God himself.”

John Updike book Rabbit at Rest

Rabbit at Rest (1990)

Life , Money , God , War

“It is almost an intellectual tradition to pay heed to the insane. In my case those that I most respect are the morons.”

Henri Michaux (1899–1984) painter, poet, writer

Ecuador (1929)

“It seems to us that in intelligence there is a fundamental faculty, the alteration or the lack of which, is of the utmost importance for practical life. This faculty is judgment, otherwise called good sense, practical sense, initiative, the faculty of adapting one's self to circumstances. A person may be a moron or an imbecile if he is lacking in judgment; but with good judgment he can never be either. Indeed the rest of the intellectual faculties seem of little importance in comparison with judgment.”

Alfred Binet (1857–1911) French psychologist and inventor of the first usable intelligence test

Source: The development of intelligence in children, 1916, p. 42-43

Life , Intelligence , Sense , Personality

“You pulled out a gun, and you shot the gun over FLOWERS! Are you a MORON?!! … You should be hiding under a rock, not acting as plaintiff in a lawsuit!”

Judith Sheindlin (1942) American lawyer, judge, television personality, and author

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1cYWq1bm_Q
Quotes from Judge Judy cases, Dismissing a statement or case

Flowers

“There is absolutely nothing legally actionable about [Allman’s] statement. It is clearly rhetorical hyperbole, which is 100% protected by the First Amendment. I think there would be no legal repercussions should someone write this about Queen Elizabeth or the President or anyone else. Of course, that does not mean that some abject moron of a lawyer wouldn’t take the case — and lord knows that Florida [where Hogg lives] has a bumper crop of them. But any lawsuit would be foolish and wouldn’t last long.”

Marc Randazza (1969) American writer

Thinking

“I have come to believe that large print, thick and heavy paper, and wide margins and oversize leading is indicative of the expected intelligence of the reader. … Compare children's books and books on Web Duhsign or other X-in-21-days books. If the reading level of a specification is below college level, chances are the people behind it are morons and the result morose.”

Erik Naggum (1965–2009) Norwegian computer programmer

Re: "Well, I want to switch over to replace EMACS LISP with Guile." http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.lisp/msg/6b361a9c756dc9a1 (Usenet article).
Usenet articles, Miscellaneous

Children , People , Books , Intelligence

“You see, you could never do a sketch like that these days. The audience is too uninformed. I blame the Americans. Nation of obese, violent, pig-ignorant, bible-thumping morons contaminating world culture. That’s why I spend most of my time here in France. … Beautiful, isn’t it? Just look at those olive trees.”

John Cleese (1939) actor from England

Interviewer: This is Santa Barbara.
From PBS series Monty Python's Personal Best: John Cleese's Personal Best (2006), playing role of senile old man.

World , Beauty , Tree , Time

“A man who had a heart attack while he was alone in his house was saved when his dog brought him the phone so he could call for help. However, it should be noted that for every one of these heartwarming stories, there's a million others where the dog just sits there like a moron and watches you die.”

Tina Fey (1970) American comedian, writer, producer and actress

citation needed

Dogs , Help , Heart , Housing

“The Sun editorial on Roosevelt this morning begins: "Franklin D. Roosevelt was a great man."… The argument, in brief, is that all his skullduggeries and imbecilities were wiped out when "he took an inert and profoundly isolationist people and brought them to support a necessary war on a scale never before imagined." In other words, his greatest fraud was his greatest glory, and his sufficient excuse for all his other frauds. It seems to me to be very likely that Roosevelt will take a high place in American popular history -- maybe even alongside Washington and Lincoln… He had every quality that morons esteem in their heros. It will be to the interest of all his heirs and assigns to whoop him up, and they will probably succeed in swamping his critics.”

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

April 13, 1945
1940s–present, The Diary of H.L. Mencken (1989)

War , People , Imagination , History

“Even if we accept, as the basic tenet of true democracy, that one moron is equal to one genius, is it necessary to go a further step and hold that two morons are better than one genius?”

Leó Szilárd (1898–1964) Physicist and biologist

As quoted in "Some Szilardisms on War, Fame, Peace", LIFE‎ magazine, Vol. 51, no. 9 (1 September 1961), p. 79
The Voice of the Dolphins : And Other Stories (1961)
Variant: I'm all in favor of the democratic principle that one idiot is as good as one genius, but I draw the line when someone takes the next step and concludes that two idiots are better than one genius.

Democracy

“Only the misapprehension that [Paglia] can be wise like lightning could explain her brief appearance, in Inside Deep Throat, to tell us that the cultural artefact in question was 'an epochal moment in the history of modern sexuality.' On the contrary, it was a moronic moment in the history of exploitation movies made by people so untalented that they can't even be convincing when they masturbate.”

Clive James (1939–2019) Australian author, critic, broadcaster, poet, translator and memoirist

On Camille Paglia (New York Times Book Review, March 27, 2005)
Essays and reviews

People , History , Question , Appearance

“Jay [Leno] is insane. He's not fit to scrub David Letterman's feet. Yes, I don't know why he's beaten David Letterman in the ratings. It's beyond my comprehension. America must be filled with morons who at night lay in bed -- the ones who are watching him. They must be in a coma.”

Howard Stern (1954) American radio personality

Howard Stern on Piers Morgan Tonight, CNN (January 18, 2011)

Night

“The planet is fine. The people are [bleeped out]. Because everyone is trying to save the planet. The planet doesn’t need that. The planet will take care of itself. People are selfish. And that's what they're doing is trying to save the planet for themselves to have a nicer place to live. They don't care about the planet in theory. They just care about having a comfortable place. And these people with the fires and the floods and everything, they overbuild, they put nature to the test and they get what's coming to them. That's what I say. That's what's happening, and I can't wait for the sea levels to rise. I can't wait for some of these cities to disappear. There are places that are going to go away. The map is going to change and that's because -- people think nature is outside of them. They don't take into them the idea that we are part of it. They say, "oh, we're going for a nature walk. We're going to the country because we like nature." Nature is in here. [points to chest] And if you're in tune with it, like the Indians, the Hopis, especially, the balance of life, the balance, the harmony of nature, if you understand that, you don't overbuild. You don’t do all this moron stuff.”

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

The View, 24 October 2007 http://newsbusters.org/blogs/justin-mccarthy/2007/10/24/george-carlins-view-wildfire-victims-get-whats-coming-them
Interviews, Television Appearances

Life , People , Idea , Understanding

“Always Postpone Meetings with Time-wasting Morons”

Scott Adams (1957) cartoonist, writer

Title of book, Always Postpone Meetings with Time-wasting Morons (1995)

Time

“Do they believe that the aim of teaching English is to increase the exact and beautiful use of the language? Or that it is to inculcate and augment patriotism? Or that it is to diminish sorrow in the home? Or that it has some other end, cultural, economic, or military? … it was their verdict by a solemn referendum that the principal objective in teaching English was to make good spellers, and that after that came the breeding of good capitalizers. … I have maintained for years, sometimes perhaps with undue heat: that pedagogy in the United States is fast descending to the estate of a childish necromancy, and that the worst idiots, even among pedagogues, are the teachers of English. It is positively dreadful to think that the young of the American species are exposed day in and day out to the contamination of such dark minds. What can be expected of education that is carried on in the very sewers of the intellect? How can morons teach anything that is worth knowing?”

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

On "teachers of English" in "The Schoolmarm's Goal" in The Lower Depths (1925)
1920s

Education , Beauty , Home , Thinking

“Comics they say are not literature – adventure strips lack artistic form, mental substance, and emotional appeal to any but the most moronic of minds. Can it be that 100,000,000 Americans are morons?”

William Moulton Marston (1893–1947) American psychologist, lawyer, inventor and comic book writer

Why 100,000,000 Americans Read Comics. p. 35-44.

Literature

“So I'm at the wailing wall, standing there like a moron, with my harpoon.”

Emo Philips (1956) American comedian

The Guardian - The best God joke ever - and it's mine! (September 1980)

“Trump says a lot of things that are crazy… Trump's a moron.”

Carly Fiorina (1954) American corporate executive and politician

As quoted in "Carly Fiorina Repeats After Girl: 'Donald Trump's a Moron'" http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/carly-fiorina-repeats-girl-donald-trumps-moron/story?id=36327939 (16 January 2016), by Ben Gittleson, ABC News.
2010s, 2016

“Our 'overhead' expense in segregating the delinquent, the defective and the dependent, in prisons, asylums and permanent homes, our failure to segregate morons who are increasing and multiplying … demonstrate our foolhardy and extravagant sentimentalism. No industrial corporation could maintain its existence upon such a foundation. Yet hardheaded 'captains of industry,' financiers who pride themselves upon their cool-headed and keen-sighted business ability are dropping millions into rosewater philanthropies and charities that are silly at best and vicious at worst. In our dealings with such elements there is a bland maladministration and misuse of huge sums that should in all righteousness be used for the development and education of the healthy elements of the community.”

Margaret Sanger (1879–1966) American birth control activist, educator and nurse

Source: The Pivot of Civilization, 1922, Chapter 12, "Woman and the Future"

Education , Home , Communication , Failure

“The concept of man as mass robot was both an expression of and a powerful motive force in industrialized mass society. It was the basis for behavioural engineering in commercial, economic, political and other advertising and propaganda; the expanding economy of the 'affluent society' could not subsist without such manipulation. Only by manipulating humans ever more into Skinnerian rats, robots buying automata, homeostatically adjusted conformers and opportunists (or, bluntly speaking, into morons and zombies) can this great society follow its progress toward ever increasing gross national product.”

Ludwig von Bertalanffy (1901–1972) austrian biologist and philosopher

Source: General System Theory (1968), 9. General Systems Theory in Psychology and Psychiatry, p. 206

Motivation

“[Mim, to Nelson, after discussing Annabelle's stepfather being dead] "More and more is dead, are you old enough to notice? Vegas is dead, the way it was. […] Now it's herds. Herds and herds of Joe Nobodies. Bozos. The hoi pollio, running up credit-card debt. Gambling is legal in half the states so they've built these huge moron-catchers along the Strip, all the way to the airport. A Pyramid, the Eiffel Tower, Venice – it's all here, Nelson, all for the morons. It's depressing as hell."”

John Updike book Rabbit Remembered

Rabbit Remembered (2000)

Way , Hell , Dead

“You stupid f—ing moron. How could you risk your presidency for this?”

Hillary Clinton (1947) American politician, senator, Secretary of State, First Lady

To Bill Clinton, during the Monica Lewinsky scandal in 1998, as reported in NewsMax.com https://books.google.com/books?id=8EkhAQAAMAAJ&q=%22You+stupid+f+%E2%80%94+ing+moron.+How+could+you+risk+your+presidency+for+this?%22 (9 December 2001)
Attributed

Stupidity

“My first photo Picture? I was doing large pictures in gloss enamel... One day a photograph of Brigit Bardot fell into my hands, and I painted it into one of these pictures in shades of grey. I had had enough of bloody painting, and painting from a photograph seemed to me the most moronic.... thing that everyone could do.”

Gerhard Richter (1932) German visual artist, born 1932

Source: after 2000, Doubt and belief in painting' (2003), p. 43, note 36 : quote on his start with photography

Photo , Painting

“Disco dancing is really dancing for people who hate dancing, since the beat is so monotonous that only the champions can find interesting ways of reacting to it. There is no syncopation, just the steady thump of a giant moron knocking in an endless nail.”

Clive James (1939–2019) Australian author, critic, broadcaster, poet, translator and memoirist

'The flying feet of Frankie Foo'
Essays and reviews, The Crystal Bucket (1982)

Hate , People , Way , Dance

“The present book is thus neither The Complete Idiot's Guide to Hegel, nor is it yet another university textbook on Hegel (which is for morons, of course) it is something like The Imbecile's Guide to Hegel-Hegel for those whose IQ is somewhere close to their bodily temperature (in Celsius), as the insult goes.”

Slavoj Žižek (1949) Slovene philosopher

Introduction
Less Than Nothing (2012)

Books , Universe

“[after watching a spitting cobra spit at Steve Irwin]
Y'all, I am screaming at my television set: THEY'RE SPITTING COBRAS, YOU MORON!! Didn't you hear the”

Bill Engvall (1957) American comedian and actor

Hocking sound
Here's Your Sign Live! (2004)

“There are pigs that can manipulate joysticks, yet you morons can't even send me an intelligible email.”

Maddox (1978) American internet writer

Bullshit Fan Mail http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=ihatemail0.
The Best Page in the Universe

Intelligence

“Magazines today are almost all stupid and moronic to start with. And it makes me furious that I can't find any articles to read anymore. I used to enjoy Forbes and Fortune, but now the pages are completely cluttered with ads.”

Ray Bradbury (1920–2012) American writer

Playboy interview (1996)

Stupidity , Reading

“To one who had never made more than five thousand a year himself, it was inspiring to explain before dozens of popeyed and admiring morons how they could make ten thousand—fifty thousand—a million a year, and all this by the Wonder Power of Suggestion, by Aggressive Personality, by the Divine Rhythm, in fact by merely releasing the Inner Self-shine.”

Sinclair Lewis book Elmer Gantry

Elmer Gantry (1927)

Personality

“Freebird, the mantra of the moron.”

Bill Hicks (1961–1994) American comedian

I'm Sorry Folks (1989)
Context: [Someone in the crowd yells "Freebird"] Please quit yelling that. It's not funny, it's not clever; it's stupid, it's repetitive, why the fuck would you continue to yell that? I'm serious. [The same man yells something back] "Kevin Matthews"; okay, what does that mean, now? Now, what does it mean? I understand where it comes from, so do you. Now, what does it all mean? What is the culmination of yelling that? [The same man yells back again] Jimmy Shorts: he's not here, he's not gonna be here. Now what? Now where are we? We're here at you interrupting me again, you fucking idiot. That's you. You see, we are here at the same point again where you, the fucking peon masses, can once again ruin anyone who tries to do anything because you don't know how to do it on your own! That's where we're fucking at! Once again the useless wastes of fucking flesh that has ruined everything good in this goddamn world! That's where we're at! HITLER HAD THE RIGHT IDEA! HE WAS JUST AN UNDERACHIEVER! KILL 'EM ALL, ADOLF! ALL OF 'EM! JEW, MEXICAN, AMERICAN, WHITE, KILL 'EM ALL! START OVER! THE EXPERIMENT DIDN'T WORK! Rain 40 days, please fucking rain to wash these turds off my fucking life! Wash these human wastes of flesh and bones off this planet! I pray to you, God, to kill these fucking people! [Someone yells out "Freebird" once more] Freebird. [Falls back] And in the beginning there was the word, Freebird. And Freebird would be yelled throughout the centuries. Freebird, the mantra of the moron.

“Nature abhors a moron.”

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

1940s–present, A Mencken Chrestomathy (1949)

Nature

“Wonder is not a disease. Wonder, and its expression in poetry and the arts, are among the most important things which seem to distinguish men from other animals, and intelligent and sensitive people from morons.”

Alan Watts (1915–1973) British philosopher, writer and speaker

Inside Information p. 7
The Book on the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are (1966)

Men , People , Disease , Art

“Seymour'd told me to shine my shoes just as I was going out the door with Waker. I was furious. The studio audience were all morons, the announcer was a moron, the sponsors were morons, and I just damn well wasn't going to shine my shoes for them, I told Seymour.”

Jerome David Salinger book Franny and Zooey

Franny and Zooey (1961), Zooey (1957)
Context: Seymour'd told me to shine my shoes just as I was going out the door with Waker. I was furious. The studio audience were all morons, the announcer was a moron, the sponsors were morons, and I just damn well wasn't going to shine my shoes for them, I told Seymour. I said they couldn't see them anyway, where we sat. He said to shine them anyway. He said to shine them for the Fat Lady. I didn't know what the hell he was talking about, but he had a very Seymour look on his face, and so I did it. He never did tell me who the Fat Lady was, but I shined my shoes for the Fat Lady every time I ever went on the air again — all the years you and I were on the program together, if you remember. I don't think I missed more than just a couple of times. This terribly clear, clear picture of the Fat Lady formed in my mind. I had her sitting on this porch all day, swatting flies, with her radio going full-blast from morning till night. I figured the heat was terrible, and she probably had cancer, and — I don't know. Anyway, it seemed goddam clear why Seymour wanted me to shine my shoes when I went on the air. It made sense.

Shoe