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Human Stupidity Quotes

Browse 50 quotes about Human Stupidity.

Human Stupidity Quotes

“In the evening I came home and read about the Messina earthquake, and how the relief ships arrived, and the wretched survivors crowded down to the water's edge and tore each other like wild beasts in their rage of hunger. The paper set forth, in horrified language, that some of them had been seventy-two hours without food. I, as I read, had also been seventy-two hours without food; and the difference was simply that they thought they were starving.”

FearMadnessHungerCrowdsStoicismStarvationFastingHuman StupidityHuman Toughness
Book:Fasting Cure
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“One potential remedy for human stupidity is a dose of humility. National, religious and cultural tensions are made worse by the grandiose feeling that my nation, my religion and my culture are the most important in the world – hence my interests should come before the interests of anyone else, or of humankind as a whole. How can we make nations, religions and cultures a bit more realistic and modest about their true place in the world?”

CultureNationalismHuman Stupidity
Book:21 Lessons for the 21st Century
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“In his savage, untutored breast new emotions were stirring. He could not fathom them. He wondered why he felt so great an interest in these people—why he had gone to such pains to save the three men. But he did not wonder why he had torn Sabor from the tender flesh of the strange girl. Surely the men were stupid and ridiculous and cowardly. Even Manu, the monkey, was more intelligent than they. If these were creatures of his own kind he was doubtful if his past pride in blood was warranted. But the girl, ah—that was a different matter. He did not reason here. He knew that she was created to be protected, and that he was created to protect her”

LoveHuman StupidityPrimeval Man
Book:Tarzan of the Apes
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“I had written the sentence, 'You mustn't think that the evolution that gave rise to us was the only evolutionary possibility on this planet. . . . that cultural developments could be shaped through the mediation of another animal species. If the biological conditions were favorable, some civilization not inferior to our own could arise in the depths of the sea. . . . Would it do the same stupid things mankind has done? Would it invite the same historical calamities? What would we say if some animal other than man declared that its education and its numbers gave it the sole right to occupy the entire world and hold sway over all creation?”

EvolutionHuman SpeciesHuman StupidityHuman Arrogance
Author:Karel Capek
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“[On Dr. Strangelove]: My idea of doing it as a nightmare comedy came in the early weeks of working on the screenplay. [...] What could be more absurd than the very idea of two mega powers willing to wipe out all human life because of an accident, spiced up by political differences that will seem as meaningless to people a hundred years from now as the theological conflicts of the Middle Ages appear to us today?”

LifeWarHumorFilmDeathPoliticsComedyConflictCompetitionStupidityCinemaFilmmakingAbsurdityHuman StupidityDark ComedyBlack Comedy
Author:Stanley Kubrick
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“I've said this before: a lot of people think they're artists because they feel things deeply. You know, we're in a culture now and a time where people think they talk about their truth...'If I feel something so deeply, it must be true!' You know, 'I know that I was raped by a big-footed six and had to give up the...the big-foot baby two aliens to go back to Zontar!', you know? People believe this sh*t! I talked about this crazy woman who I knew years ago who thinks she had a near-death experience and now could control electricity and talk to God and angels and stuff..and every poster she puts up that I see gets more elaborate and insane! You know...pretty soon, she's gonna be, you know, f***ing, who knows...ISIS! [...] it's like, these are the kinds of people...they're not only in the arts, they're everywhere, and years ago, when [politicians] would talk about the 'wisdom of the masses', the common people...the Internet has proved that's utterly ridiculous.”

IntuitionStupiditySuperstitionsBeliefsPoliticiansStupid PeopleHuman Stupidity
Author:Dan Schneider
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“In 1939 war was probably a counterproductive move for the Axis powers – yet it did not save the world. One of the astounding things about the Second World War is that following the war the defeated powers prospered as never before. Twenty years after the complete annihilation of their armies and the utter collapse of their empires, Germans, Italians and Japanese were enjoying unprecedented levels of affluence. Why, then, did they go to war in the first place? Why did they inflict unnecessary death and destruction on countless millions? It was all just a stupid miscalculation. In the 1930s Japanese generals, admirals, economists and journalists concurred that without control of Korea, Manchuria and the Chinese coast, Japan was doomed to economic stagnation.8 They were all wrong. In fact, the famed Japanese economic miracle began only after Japan lost all its mainland conquests.”

WarJapanHuman StupidityEconomic Miracle
Book:21 Lessons for the 21st Century
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“[January 1944] As to this country, I have been lecturing now for three years to the troops and their attitude is the same. They don’t believe in concentration camps, they don’t believe in the starved children of Greece, in the shot hostages of France, in the mass-graves of Poland; they have never heard of Lidice, Treblinka or Belzec; you can convince them for an hour, then they shake themselves, their mental self-defence begins to work and in a week the shrug of incredulity has returned like a reflex temporarily weakened by a shock. Clearly all this is becoming a mania with me and my like. Clearly we must suffer from some morbid obsession, whereas the others are healthy and normal. But the characteristic symptom of maniacs is that they lose contact with reality and live in a phantasy world. So perhaps it is the other way around: perhaps it is we, the screamers, who react in a sound and healthy way to the reality which surrounds us, whereas you are the neurotic, who totter about in a screamed phantasy world because you lack the faculty to face the facts! Were it not so, this war would have been avoided, and those murdered within sight of your daydreaming eyes would still be alive!”

HistoryGeniusInsanitySympathyHolocaustElitismEgalitarianismEye OpeningSad TruthHuman Stupidity
Author:Arthur Koestler
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“And we really should be considering the moral implications of what we're doing. What kind of a species are we that we treat the rest of life so cheaply? There are those who think that's the destiny of Earth: We arrived, we're humanizing the Earth, and it will be the destiny of Earth for us to wipe humans out and most of the rest of biodiversity. But I think the great majority of thoughtful people consider that a morally wrong position to take, and a very dangerous one.”

EarthExtinctionHuman Stupidity
Author:E O Wilson
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“It is so hard for an evolutionary biologist to write about extinction caused by human stupidity. Let me then float an unconventional plea, the inverse of the usual argument. The extinction of Partula is unfair to Partula. That is the conventional argument, and I do not challenge its primacy. But we need a humanistic ecology as well, both for the practical reason that people will always touch people more than snails do or can, and for the moral reason that humans are legitimately the measure of all ethical questions for these are our issues, not nature's.”

PeopleNeedsWritingHumansWellsHardReasonChallengesMoralIssuesArgumentLet MeStupidityPracticalsEthicalUsualConventionalUnfairEcologyExtinctionFloatsBiologistUnconventionalSnailHumanisticInversePrimacyHuman StupidityEthical Questions
Author:Stephen Jay Gould
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“Whether religious or racial, anti-Semitism is always repugnant, one of the most destructive manifestations of human stupidity and evil. What is profoundly expressed in it is man's traditional mistrust of the man who is not part of his tribe, that 'other' who speaks a different language, whose skin is a different color, and who participates in mysterious rites and rituals.”

MenHumansDifferentEvilSpeakLanguageReligiousColorHe ManSkinsStupidityTraditionalMysteriousManifestationDestructiveRitualTribesMistrustRiteAnti SemitismDifferent LanguagesDifferent ColorsHuman Stupidity
Author:Mario Vargas Llosa
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“No matter how high are one's estimates of human stupidity, one is repeatedly and recurrently startled by the fact that:a) people whom one had once judged rational and intelligent turn out to be unashamedly stupid.b) day after day, with unceasing monotony, one is harassed in one's activities by stupid individuals who appear suddenly and unexpectedly in the most inconvenient places and at the most improbable moments.”

PeopleHumansMatterMomentsFactsTurnsIndividualStupidActivityIntelligentStupidityRationalJudgedImprobableInconvenientMonotonyHuman Stupidity
Author:Carlo M. Cipolla
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“If I were a younger man, I would write a history of human stupidity; and I would climb to the top of Mount McCabe and lie down on my back with my history for a pillow; and I would take from the ground some of the blue-white poison that makes statues of men; and I would make a statue of myself, lying on my back, grinning horribly, and thumbing my nose at You Know Who.”

IfsKnowsMenWritingHumansLyingWhiteBlueStupidityNosesPoisonClimbsStatuesPillowCradleGrinningHuman StupidityCats CradleBokonon
Author:Kurt Vonnegut
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“For at least two thirds of our miseries spring from human stupidity, human malice and those great motivators and justifiers of malice and stupidity, idealism, dogmatism and proselytizing zeal on behalf of religious or political idols”

HumansTwoPoliticalReligiousSpringThirdsMiseryStupidityIdolsIdealismBehalfZealMaliceDogmatismHuman StupidityProselytizing
Book:Huxley and God: Essays on Religious Experience
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“He who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would fully suffice. This disgrace to civilization should be done away with at once. Heroism at command, senseless brutality, deplorable love-of-country stance, how violently I hate all this, how despicable and ignoble war is; I would rather be torn to shreds than be a part of so base an action! It is my conviction that killing under the cloak of war is nothing but an act of murder.”

LoveShouldHas BeensWarCountryDoneActionHatePoliticsGivenPeaceMistakeBrainDemocracyCivilizationI HateMurderKillingConvictionCommandPatriotismMarchContemptAntiwarHeroismTornFilesDisgraceBrutalityStanceCloaksCordsDespicableBeing At PeaceMilitarismIgnobleHuman StupidityReligion WarReligion And WarAnti PatriotismSpinal CordPatriotism And War
Author:Albert Einstein
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“There is no supernatural, there is only nature. Nature alone exists and contains all. All is. There is the part of nature that we perceive, and the part of nature that we do not perceive. ... If you abandon these facts, beware; charlatans will light upon them, also the imbecile. There is no mean: science, or ignorance. If science does not want these facts, ignorance will take them up. You have refused to enlarge human intelligence, you augment human stupidity. When Laplace withdraws Cagliostro appears.”

IfsWantHumansMeanDoeFactsLightScienceNatureExistenceIgnoranceAccountsIntelligentStupidityPerceiveAbandonHuman IntelligenceCharlatansImbecilesHuman Stupidity
Author:Victor Hugo
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“Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.”

HumansTwoHumorFunnySciencePoliticalUniverseNatureBusinessEducationTeacherHuman NatureStupidHumorousInfiniteIntelligenceWittyStupidityMathFormerNot SureTwo ThingsHuman MindHilariousPhysicistTwo WaysStupid PeopleRelativityMath And ScienceScientific DiscoveryMystery Of LifeHuman KnowledgeGreat ScienceMind OpeningStupidity And IgnoranceHuman StupidityInfinite SpaceOpening Your MindScience EducationI Was StupidStupid FunnyGreat AuthorFunny SciencePeople StupidityBest ScienceIntellectual GrowthFunny And WittyInfinite UniverseScience TeacherStupidity And IntelligenceKnowledge ExperienceFunny WittyInfinite IntelligenceInfinite KnowledgeYour StupidIgnorant PersonThings Are Not What They SeemSpace ScienceStupid LifeHumanity And NatureI'm Only Human
Book:Bite-Size Einstein: Quotations on Just About Everything from the Greatest Mind of the Twentieth Century
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“The only thing that interferes with my learning is my education.”

InspirationalHumorFunnyEducationLearningIntelligenceEducationalPersonal DevelopmentInterfereEpicPhysicistHospitalityInsperationalSelf EducationLearnersGreat EducationGod LifeGreat EducationalInspirational EducationFormal EducationKnowledge EducationEducation And KnowledgeBest EducationStudent LearningInspirational EducationalKnowledge And LearningKnowledge LearningHuman StupidityInspiring EducationLearning KnowledgeInspirational LearningModern PhysicsScience EducationAdult EducationMotivational EducationCreativity And LearningIntelligence And EducationCreativity In EducationTechnical Education
Author:Albert Einstein
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“I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.”

KnowsWorldInspirationalHumansWarWisdomFunnyScienceHumanityFightingPeaceImaginationMilitaryWise WordsFutureWeaponsStonesSticksNuclearPhysicsWar Of The WorldsThoughtfulWorld War IiAnti WarAntiwarWorld War INuclear WeaponsWarfarePhysicistWwiiWorld War 2RelativityPeace WarNuclear WarApocalypticNo WarMake Peace Not WarPast Present FuturePost ApocalypticWorld War 1Military PowerPeace Not WarJust WarCall Of DutyWorld War TwoSticks And StonesNuclear ProliferationModern WarfareNuclear ArmsHuman StupidityHorror Of WarModern WarViolent DeathCauses Of WarHistorical MilitaryEndless WarModern Warfare 2Patriotism And WarDeclaring WarAtomic WeaponsAutomatic WeaponsMilitary WeaponsKnowing The FutureWar Plans
Book:Einstein's 1912 manuscript on the special theory of relativity
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“It is my conviction that killing under the cloak of war is nothing but an act of murder.”

WarPeaceMurderKillingConvictionPatriotismAnti WarAntiwarRelativityPeace WarCloaksGreat WarBeing At PeaceMilitarismIgnobleGreat MilitaryHuman StupidityCenteringReligion WarKilling ItReligion And WarAnti PatriotismSpinal CordPatriotism And WarUnjust WarPro WarKilling Someone
Book:Bite-Size Einstein: Quotations on Just About Everything from the Greatest Mind of the Twentieth Century
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“He who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would suffice.”

LoveLifeInspirationalHas BeensWarGodScienceEvilGivenMistakeBrainMusicIntelligentIntelligencePatriotismMarchConformityContemptAntiwarConformFilesRelativityNonconformityCordsBeing At PeaceMilitarismRankingToday's WorldIgnobleHeart And BrainGreat MilitaryHuman StupidityConformity And IndividualityUmbilical CordAnti PatriotismSpinal CordPatriotism And WarSpinal Cord Injuries
Author:Albert Einstein
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