Quotes on Stupidity

If we lived in a state where virtue was profitable, common sense would make us saintly. But since we see that avarice, anger, pride and stupidity commonly profit far beyond charity, modesty, justice and thought, perhaps we must stand fast a little, even at the risk of being heroes.

You have attributed conditions to villainy that simply result from stupidity.

Stupidity is something unshakable; nothing attacks it without breaking itself against it; it is of the nature of granite, hard and resistant.

A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep.

I am still amazed at the amount of Christian charity [Wellesley] stuck us all with, a kind of glazed politeness in the face of boredom and stupidity. Tolerance, in the worst sense of the word. How marvelous it would have been to go to a women's college that encouraged impoliteness, that rewarded aggression, that encouraged argument.

Already, he was dreaming of a refined solitude, a comfortable desert, a motionless ark in which to seek refuge from the unending deluge of human stupidity.

Don't be too hard on me. Everyone has to sacrifice at the altar of stupidity from time to time.

Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.

You can make fun with Saddam Hussein jokes ... but you can't make fun of, say, the concentration camps. I think my target was not so much evil, but benign stupidity people doing stupid things without realising or, instead, thinking they were doing good.

In politics stupidity is not a handicap.

In summary, Intelligence Intensification is desirable, because there is not a single problem confronting humanity that is not either caused or considerably worsened by the prevailing stupidity (insensitivity) of the species: badly wired robots bumping into and maiming and killing each other.

You can tell how smart people are by what they laugh at.

The bookful blockhead, ignorantly read With loads of learned lumber in his head.

Men are born ignorant, not stupid. They are made stupid by education.

"Beware of the man who works hard to learn something, learns it, and finds himself no wiser than before," Bokonon tells us. "He is full of murderous resentment of people who are ignorant without having come by their ignorance the hard way."

Nothing is worse than active ignorance.

Complete masculinity and stupidity are often indistinguishable.

Stupidity is active in every direction, and can dress up in all the clothes of truth. Truth, on the other hand, has for every occasion only one dress and one path, and is always at a disadvantage.

The stupider the peasant, the better the horse understands him.

Fear or stupidity has always been the basis of most human actions.

To be stupid, selfish, and have good health are three requirements for happiness, though if stupidity is lacking, all is lost.