Stupidity

Stupidity is a lack of intelligence, understanding, reason, wit, or sense. The modern English word "stupid" has a broad range of application, from being slow of mind (indicating a lack of intelligence, care or reason), dullness of feeling or sensation (torpidity, senseless, insensitivity), or lacking interest or point (vexing, exasperating). It can either infer a congenital lack of capacity for reasoning, or a temporary state of daze or slow-mindedness. This page is for quotes regarding various notions of stupidity.

A

 * We are growing serious, and, let me tell you, that's the very next step to being dull.
 * Joseph Addison, The Drummer (1715), Act IV. 6; this could be derived from William Congreve's similar statement in Old Bachelor (1693)

C

 * The world’s prize stupid oaf is the man who thinks he already has all the answers.
 * John W. Campbell, Second-Order Logic? (editorial) in Astounding, Feb. 1955, p. 6


 * Think of how stupid the average person is, and then realize half of them are stupider than that.
 * George Carlin, from


 * I never heard tell of any clever man that came of entirely stupid people.
 * Thomas Carlyle, Rectorial Address at Edinburgh, 2nd April 1886


 * With various readings stored his empty skull, Learn'd without sense, and venerably dull.
 * Charles Churchill, The Rosciad (1761), line 591


 * All humans are stupid, but the smarter ones at least have a handle on their own ignorance.
 * John Cleese in conversation with Matthew Syed. Matthew Syed, "When dogma beats data, reason is lost", The Sunday Times (September 27, 2020), p. 21


 * I find we are growing serious, and then we are in great danger of being dull.
 * William Congreve, Old Bachelor (1693), Act II. 2


 * Aristotle taught that the brain exists merely to cool the blood and is not involved in the process of thinking. This is true only of certain persons.
 * Will Cuppy, The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody (1950)

D

 * The fool of nature stood with stupid eyes And gaping mouth, that testified surprise.
 * John Dryden, Cymon and Iphigenia (1700), line 107

E

 * Only two things are infinite; the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.
 * Origin unknown, incorrectly attributed to Albert Einstein


 * People who are stupid, unscrupulous, or hypocritical, think that others are just the same. And — this is the real pity — they treat them as if they were.
 * Josemaría Escrivá (Furrow, no. 551 )

G

 * "Wizard's First Rule: people are stupid." Richard and Kahlan frowned even more. "People are stupid; given proper motivation, almost anyone will believe almost anything. Because people are stupid, they will believe a lie because they want to believe it's true, or because they are afraid it might be true. People's heads are full of knowledge, facts, and beliefs, and most of it is false, yet they think it all true. People are stupid; they can only rarely tell the difference between a lie and the truth, and yet they are confident they can, and so are all the easier to fool."
 * Terry Goodkind, Wizard's First Rule, chapter 36

H

 * I distinguish four types. There are clever, hardworking, stupid, and lazy officers. Usually two characteristics are combined. Some are clever and hardworking; their place is the General Staff. The next ones are stupid and lazy; they make up 90 percent of every army and are suited to routine duties. Anyone who is both clever and lazy is qualified for the highest leadership duties, because he possesses the mental clarity and strength of nerve necessary for difficult decisions. One must beware of anyone who is both stupid and hardworking; he must not be entrusted with any responsibility because he will always only cause damage.
 * Kurt von Hammerstein-Equord, as quoted in
 * Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.
 * Robert J. Hanlon, Murphy's Law book two: More reasons why things go wrong! (1980) ISBN 0843106743 by Arthur Bloch page 52
 * This adage is called.
 * A boor cannot be sin-fearing, an ignoramus cannot be pious, a bashful one cannot learn, a short-tempered person cannot teach, nor does anyone who does much business grow wise.
 * Hillel the Younger Pirkei Avot 2:5

J

 * Why, Sir, Sherry is dull, naturally dull; but it must have taken him a great deal of pains to become what we now see him. Such an excess of stupidity, Sir, is not in Nature.
 * Samuel Johnson, of Sheridan, reported in James Boswell, Life of Samuel Johnson (1763)


 * He is not only dull himself, but the cause of dullness in others.
 * Samuel Johnson, reported in James Boswell, Life of Samuel Johnson (1783)

K

 * Everything happens for a reason, and sometimes the reason is you’re stupid and made a bad decision.
 * John Neely Kennedy


 * Fervid readiness to judge is the most detestable stupidity, the most pernicious evil.
 * Milan Kundera, in Testaments Betrayed (1995), p. 7


 * Be dauntless, valiant, tragic, whatever you like; but don’t be stupid.
 * Donn Kushner, A Book Dragon, chapter 1

L

 * It’s too bad that stupidity isn't painful. Ignorance is one thing, but our society thrives increasingly on stupidity. It depends on people going along with whatever they are told. The media promotes a cultivated stupidity as a posture that is not only acceptable but laudable.
 * Anton Szandor LaVey, in, and


 * Life is hard. It's a whole lot harder if you're stupid.
 * George V. Higgins, in


 * We spend our lives fighting to get people very slightly more stupid than ourselves to accept truths that the great men have always known. They have known for thousands of years that to lock a sick person into solitary confinement makes him worse. They have known for thousands of years that a poor man who is frightened of his landlord and of the police is a slave. They have known it. We know it. But do the great enlightened mass of the British people know it? No. It is our task, Ella, yours and mine, to tell them. Because the great men are too great to be bothered. They are already discovering how to colonise Venus and to irrigate the moon. That is what is important for our time. You and I are the boulder-pushers. All our lives, you and I, we’ll put all our energies, all our talents into pushing a great boulder up a mountain. The boulder is the truth that the great men know by instinct, and the mountain is the stupidity of mankind.
 * Doris Lessing Paul Tanner, in "Free Women: 1"

P

 * She gave him a look that suggested his stupidity had grown so powerful, it had become a force of nature like the ocean or the wind.
 * Paul Park, Watchers at the Living Gate (2011), in Untold Adventures, ISBN 978-0-7869-5837-5, p. 167


 * The bookful blockhead, ignorantly read, With loads of learned lumber in his head.
 * Alexander Pope, An Essay on Criticism (1709), line 612


 * Folly is as great as the sea. It can compass anything.
 * Antef, Nomarch of Thebes, in Bolesław Prus's novel Pharaoh (1895), chapter 61

R

 * The fundamental cause of the trouble is that in the modern world the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt.
 * Bertrand Russell, "The Triumph of Stupidity" (1933-05-10) in Mortals and Others: Bertrand Russell's American Essays, 1931-1935 (Routledge, 1998, ISBN 0-415-17866-5, p. 28. This quote reflects Russell's idea on the cause of the emerging Nazi rule in Germany at that time and not on trouble in general.


 * Men are born ignorant, not stupid; they are made stupid by education.
 * Bertrand Russell, A History of Western Philosophy (1945), Book Three, Part II, Chapter XXI: Currents of Thought in the Nineteenth Century, p. 722.

S

 * Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens.
 * Against stupidity the very gods Themselves contend in vain.
 * Friedrich Schiller, Die Jungfrau von Orleans (The Maid of Orleans, at Project Gutenberg), Act III, scene vi (as translated by Anna Swanwick) (1801)
 * Variants:
 * Against stupidity the gods themselves contend in vain.
 * Against stupidity the gods themselves labor in vain.
 * Against stupidity the gods themselves fight unvictorious
 * Against stupidity even the gods contend in vain.
 * Against stupidity gods themselves contend in vain.
 * With stupidity the gods themselves contend in vain.
 * With stupidity the gods themselves struggle in vain.
 * Against Stupidity, The Gods Themselves and Contend In Vain? are the titles of the three parts of Isaac Asimov's book The Gods Themselves


 * If a person is stupid, we excuse him by saying that he cannot help it; but if we attempted to excuse in precisely the same way the person who is bad, we should be laughed at.
 * Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation, E. Payne, trans., vol. 2, p. 230


 * Sand, salt, and an iron weight are easier to bear than the stupid person.
 * Sirach 22:15


 * It is better to be poor and walk in integrity than to be stupid and speak lies.
 * Solomon, Proverbs 19:1


 * A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky, dangerous animals and you know it.
 * Ed Solomon, screenplay, Men in Black

T

 * Until now, human intelligence, which is no more than a minute aspect of universal intelligence, has been distorted and misused by the ego. I call that “intelligence in the service of madness.” Splitting the atom requires great intelligence. Using that intelligence for building and stockpiling atom bombs is insane or at best extremely unintelligent. Stupidity is relatively harmless, but intelligent stupidity is highly dangerous. This intelligent stupidity, for which one could find countless obvious examples, is threatening our survival as a species.
 * Eckhart Tolle in A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose,  (2005)

W

 * There is no sin except stupidity.
 * Oscar Wilde, The Critic as Artist, Part ii

Anonymous

 * After a foolish action comes remorse.
 * Anonymous; cited as a proverb among negroes in "The Mind of the African Negro as Reflected in His Proverbs" by A. O. Stafford in The Journal of Negro History Vol. 1. No. 1 (January 1916) edited by Carter G. Woodson


 * Weapons-Grade Stupidity: Tech-support slang for customer intelligence that is so low it poses a severe hazard to those who come in contact with it.
 * (author?)


 * When the world begets too many fools, nature provides a Foolkiller.
 * Greg Salinger in Issue 10 of Foolkiller limited series (1990-91) (Steve Gerber)


 * I'd all but given up my crusade to rid the world of fools…there are, I found, just too many!
 * Foolkiller in Issue 225 of The Amazing Spider-Man (Roger Stern)

Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations

 * Quotes reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 758.


 * La faute en est aux dieux, qui la firent si bête.
 * The fault rests with the gods, who have made her so stupid.
 * Jean-Baptiste-Louis Gresset, Méchant, II. 7


 * The impenetrable stupidity of Prince George (son-in-law of James II.) served his turn. It was his habit, when any news was told him, to exclaim, "Est il possible?"—"Is it possible?"
 * Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay, History of England, Volume I, Chapter IX


 * Schad'um die Leut'! Sind sonst wackre Brüder. Aber das denkt, wie ein Seifensieder.
 * A pity about the people! they are brave enough comrades, but they have heads like a soapboiler's.
 * Friedrich Schiller, Wallenstein's Lager, XI. 347


 * Peter was dull; he was at first Dull,—Oh, so dull—so very dull! Whether he talked, wrote, or rehearsed— Still with his dulness was he cursed—  Dull—beyond all conception—dull.
 * Percy Bysshe Shelley, Peter Bell the Third, Part VII, XI


 * Personally, I have a great admiration for stupidity.
 * Oscar Wilde, An Ideal Husband, Act II