Folly and stupidity - Quotes from Science Fiction

A lot of quotations carefully collected from a very big amount of books and divided by categories.

Have fun reading it, this is really interesting and breathtaking!

Why do you think that foolishness is bad? If human foolishness had been as carefully nurtured and cultivated as intelligence has been for centuries, perhaps it would have turned into something extremely precious.

- Yevgeny Zamiatin, We (1924), translated by Mirra Ginsburg (1972)

''Men are fools,'' he confided to Khambee. ''Trouble and misfortune are all the reward they get for their struggles.''

- Raymond Z. Gallun, ''Derelict'' (1935)

''By proving that death is just a cyclic condition of continued individual existence, these people have conquered their last enemy.'' ''Last enemy but one,'' Verkan Vall corrected. ''They still have one enemy to go, an enemy within themselves. Call it semantic confusion, or illogic, or incomprehension, or just plain stupidity.''

- H. Beam Piper, ''Last Enemy'' (1950)

I'm impatient with stupidity. My people have learned to live without it.

- Edmund H. North, The Day the Earth Stood Still (film, 1951)

''I've been a fool all down the line.'' [. . .] ''At least you were a fool about the right things.''

- Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451 (1954)

The first thing you learn in life is you're a fool. The last thing you learn in life is you're the same fool.

- Ray Bradbury, DandelionWine (1957)

Don't take it so hard, kid . . . ''Jeder macht eine kleine Dummheit.'' (Everyone makes a little dumbness.)

- William S. Burroughs, Naked Lunch (1959)

That took more than ordinary dullness, the kind of stupidity that can only result from long practice and hard study.

- Philip K. Dick and Ray Nelson, The Ganymede Takeover (1967)

Terrans are known for their stupidity.

- Philip K. Dick, Galactic Pot-Healer (1969)

As far as Unc Kaan was concerned, everyone was an idiot, including his faculty colleagues and his assistants. And the students? The height of idiocy.

- Arkady Strugatsky and Boris Strugatsky, Prisoners of Power (1969), translated by Helen Saltz Jacobson (1977)

Folly springs from weakness, and weakness from ignorance, from ignorance of the correct path.

- Arkady Strugatsky and Boris Strugatsky, Prisoners of Power (1969), translated by Helen Saltz Jacobson (1977)

Never underestimate the power of human stupidity.

- Robert A. Heinlein, Time Enough for Love (1973)

There are two kinds of fool. One says, ''This is old, and therefore good.'' And one says, ''This is new, and therefore better.''

- John Brunner, The Shockwave Rider (1975)

If stupidity kills, why aren't you dead? [. . .] Obviously stupidity is a survival trait.

- Philip K. Dick, Valis (1981)

If it's true that there are billions of universes stacked alongside one another, the thickness of a thought apart, then there must be people elsewhere. But whatever they are, no matter how mightily they try, no matter how magnificent the effort, they surely can't manage to be as godawfully stupid as us.

- Terry Pratchett, Pyramids (1989)

A common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely foolproof was to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools.

- Douglas Adams, Mostly Harmless (1992)

I used to think I was stupid, and then I met philosophers.

- Terry Pratchett, Small Gods (1992)

At times the man could be as dense as a neutron star.

- P. N. Elrod, ''Fugitives'' (1995)

Real stupidity beats artificial intelligence every time.

- Terry Pratchett, Hogfather (1996)