36 Quotes About Stupidity

In a world brimming with wisdom and insight, there's an undeniable charm to acknowledging our own limitations and the folly we sometimes encounter. Stupidity, in its many forms, can be both frustrating and oddly comforting, reminding us of our shared human imperfections. This curated collection of 36 quotes about stupidity serves as a humorous and thought-provoking exploration into the myriad ways in which our missteps and misunderstandings shape our experiences. Whether you’re seeking a chuckle or a moment of reflection, these quotes offer a playful yet poignant perspective on one of humanity’s most endearing flaws.

1. “Talk sense to a fool and he calls you foolish.” - Euripides

2. “You have attributed conditions to villainy that simply result from stupidity.” - Robert A. Heinlein

3. “There is more stupidity than hydrogen in the universe, and it has a longer shelf life.” - Frank Zappa

4. “Some scientists claim that hydrogen, because it is so plentiful, is the basic building block of the universe. I dispute that. I say there is more stupidity than hydrogen, and that is the basic building block of the universe.” - Frank Zappa

5. “All the other children at my school are stupid. Except I'm not meant to call them stupid, even though this is what they are.” - Mark Haddon

6. “And then he thought: Is this how idiots rationalize their stupidity to themselves?” - Orson Scott Card

7. “There's a thin line between genius and bottom-barrel stupidness. I hover delicately on a tightrope between the two, wondering where I'll land if I'll ever fall.” - Suzanne Crowley

8. “The more stupid one is, the closer one is to reality. The more stupid one is, the clearer one is. Stupidity is brief and artless, while intelligence squirms and hides itself. Intelligence is unprincipled, but stupidity is honest and straightforward.” - Fyodor Dostoyevsky

9. “Stupidity and wisdom meet in the same centre of sentiment and resolution, in the suffering of human accidents.” - Michel de Montaigne

10. “[Chess] is a foolish expedient for making idle people believe they are doing something very clever, when they are only wasting their time. ” - George Bernard Shaw

11. “Longbottom, if brains were gold, you'd be poorer than Weasley, and that's saying something.” - J.K. Rowling

12. “Well, speaking as a feminist, I'm glad that women can lead--uh, groups of unspeakable magical evil.""Yes," Alan said gravely. "It'd be shoking if the evil magicians were sexist. For one thing, that would mean they were stupid, and having stupid enemies would be a terrible blow to my manly pride.” - Sarah Rees Brennan

13. “He was stupid. If I killed everyone who was stupid, I wouldn't have time to sleep.” - Tamora Pierce

14. “If your brains were dynamite there wouldn't be enough to blow your hat off.” - Kurt Vonnegut

15. “Dzieje kultury wykazują, ze głupota jest siostrą bliźniaczą rozumu, ona rośnie najbujniej nie na glebie dziewiczej ignorancji , lecz na gruncie uprawnym siódmym potem doktorów i profesorów. Wielkie absurdy nie są wymyślane przez tych, których rozum krząta się wokół spraw codziennych. Nic dziwnego zatem, że właśnie najintensywniejsi myśliciele bywali producentami największego głupstwa. / The history of culture shows that foolishness is a twin sister of wisdom. It does not flourish on the fields of pure ignorance but on the fields tirelessly plowed by doctors and professors. Great absurdities do not flourish where one is busy with everyday life. No wonder that sometimes most vigorous thinkers come up with utmost stupidities. (Dziennik 1956, XIX, Thursday)” - Witold Gombrowicz

16. “Cieszy mię ten rym: „Polak mądr po szkodzie”;Lecz jeśli prawda i z tego nas zbodzie,Nową przypowieść Polak sobie kupi,Że i przed szkodą, i po szkodzie głupi.” - Jan Kochanowski

17. “Freedom of speech does not protect you from the consequences of saying stupid shit.[Blog post, March 12, 2012]” - Jim C. Hines

18. “This is stupid.""Look. You think how stupid people are most of the time. Old men drink. Women at a village fair. Boys throwing stones at birds. Life. The foolishness and the vanity, the selfishness and the waste. The pettiness, the silliness. You think in war it must be different. Must be better. With death around the corner, men united against hardship, the cunning of the enemy, people must think harder, faster, be...better. Be heroic.Only it's just the same. In fact do you know, because of all that pressure, and worry, and fear, it's worse. There aren't many men who think clearest when the stakes are highest. So people are even stupider in war than the rest of the time. Thinking about how they'll dodge the blame, or grab the glory, or save their skins, rather than about what will actually work. There's no job that forgives stupidity more than soldiering. No job that encourages it more.” - Joe Abercrombie

19. “And not only the pride of intellect, but the stupidity of intellect. And, above all, the dishonesty, yes, the dishonesty of intellect. Yes, indeed, the dishonesty and trickery of intellect.” - Leo Tolstoy

20. “In all things in this life, we are told "It's okay if you don't make it the first time!", "It's fine if you don't get it right the first time, just try again and again!" We are told this in learning how to ride a bike, in learning how to bake a cake, in solving our math equations...in everything. Except marriage. Why are we all expected to get such an enormous and weighty thing right, the very first time, and if we don't we're considered as failures? I beg to differ! This is a stupidity!” - C. JoyBell C.

21. “Why had he done it? Why couldn't it just not have happened? Why didn't they have time-travel, why couldn't he go back and stop it happening? Ships that could circumnavigate the galaxy in a few years, and count every cell in your body from light-years off, but he wasn't able to go back one miserable day and alter one tiny, stupid, idiotic, shameful decision...” - Iain M. Banks

22. “Something reduces the speed of the world and that something is stupidity! Stupidity is a boring friction!” - Mehmet Murat ildan

23. “I am so stupid, so easily fooled. It's really almost funny. If I could lift a finger I would gladly kill myself.” - Will Christopher Baer

24. “Please tell me you're not that stupid.Rachel to Melkin” - C.J. Redwine

25. “I always hated it when TV reporters stuck a microphone in the faces of people who'd just lost a home or a loved one, wanting to know how they felt. They felt like shit. They hurt, and they didn't know how they were going to get through the night. They wanted to scream and cry and hit the guy with the microphone.” - Suzanne Johnson

26. “It's the fools that make all the trouble in the world, not the wicked.” - L.M. Montgomery

27. “Is it that they think it a duty to be continually talking,' pursued she: 'and so never pause to think, but fill up with aimless trifles and vain repetitions when subjects of real interest fail to present themselves? - or do they really take a pleasure in such discourse?''Very likely they do,' said I; 'their shallow minds can hold no great ideas, and their light heads are carried away by trivialities that would not move a better-furnished skull; - and their only alternative to such discourse is to plunge over head and ears into the slough of scandal - which is their chief delight.” - Anne Brontë

28. “All three combined is...a different kind of stupid formerly unheard of by humankind.” - Veronica Roth

29. “I'm allergic to stupidity.” - Chris Colfer

30. “It's not evil, Rand. I know something evil when I smell it. This isn't evil, it's just incredibly stupid.” - Robert Jordan

31. “Never underestimate human stupidity.” - Pittacus Lore

32. “It's the wrong way. She's farther away from the door now. It occurs to me that some people only have book smarts.” - Kendare Blake

33. “An eleven-year-old girl is many things, but she is not stupid.” - Markus Zusak

34. “The world demands I make good choices on no information, and then blames my maidenhood for my mistakes, as if my maidenhood were responsible for my ignorance. Ignorance is not stupidity, but it might as well be. And I do not like feeling stupid.” - Lois McMaster Bujold

35. “Careful, Mr. Spiro, guns are dangerous. Especially the end with the hole.” - Eoin Colfer

36. “When you're surrounded by stupidity, self-preservation isn't a sin.” - Meljean Brook