Ever feel like you’re surrounded by stupid people? Do you find it difficult to meet like-minded individuals? Do you find it totally frustrating when others don’t understand your ideas or feelings?

Here’s a collection of 77 quotes to remind you that you’re not alone, and that we all have to deal with rude, arrogant, or selfish people from time to time. Stupidity isn’t rare, and depending on your personality type and level of intelligence, you may find it too draining to interact with foolish people too often.


People are stupid quotes

Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I’m not sure about the universe.

— Albert Einstein

Stupid people don’t always know that they’re stupid. They may be aware that something is wrong, they may notice that things don’t usually turn out the way they imagined, but very few of them think it’s because of them. That they’re the root of their own problems, so to speak. And that sort of thing can be very difficult to explain.

— Jonas Karlsson

Primitive life is very common and intelligent life is fairly rare. Some would say it has yet to occur on Earth.

— Stephen Hawking

At least two thirds of our miseries spring from human stupidity, human malice, and those great motivators and justifiers of malice and stupidity.

— Aldous Huxley

Idiots are of two kinds: those who try to be smart and those who think they are smart.

— Raheel Farooq

Stupidity is a more dangerous enemy of the good than malice. One may protest against evil; it can be exposed and, if need be, prevented by use of force. Evil always carries within itself the germ of its own subversion in that it leaves behind in human beings at least a sense of unease. Against stupidity we are defenseless.

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

It’s only because of their stupidity that they’re able to be so sure of themselves.

— Franz Kafka

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

— Gustave Flaubert

It’s the fools that make all the trouble in the world, not the wicked.

— Lucy Maud Montgomery

The problem with the world is that intelligent people are full of doubt, while stupid people are full of confidence.

— Charles Bukowski

You have to do stuff that average people don’t understand because those are the only good things.

— Andy Warhol

Evil isn’t the real threat to the world. Stupid is just as destructive as evil, maybe more so, and it’s a hell of a lot more common. What we really need is a crusade against stupid — that might actually make a difference.

— Jim Butcher

The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits.

— Albert Einstein

Real misanthropes are not found in solitude, but in the world; since it is experience of life, and not philosophy, which produces real hatred of mankind.

— Giacomo Leopardi

People are afraid of things they don’t understand. They don’t know how to relate. It threatens their security, their existence, their career, their image.

— Bill Laswell

Some people are like clouds: when they go away, it’s a brighter day.

— Unknown

Most people do not listen with the intent to understand; they listen with the intent to reply.

— Stephen Covey

So don’t you worry, you pretty, little mind — people throw rocks at things that shine.

— Taylor Swift

People’s intelligence tends to be in inverse proportion to their number. People don’t tend to get smarter as they get into bigger groups.

— Robyn Hitchcock

It is, after all, impossible in the modern world to shield everyone from nonsense and stupidity.

— Lawrence Krauss

Since I no longer expect anything from mankind except madness, meanness, and mendacity; egotism, cowardice, and self delusion, I have stopped being a misanthrope.

— Irving Layton

Stupidity is infinitely more fascinating than intelligence. Intelligence has its limits while stupidity has none.

— Claude Chabrol

Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else’s opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.

— Oscar Wilde

Gossipers quotes

Great minds discuss ideas. Average minds discuss events. Small minds discuss people.

— Eleanor Roosevelt

Loose tongues are worse than wicked hands.

— Jewish proverb

Often, those who criticize others reveal what they themselves lack.

— Shannon Alder

The problem with the world is that not everyone has a brain, but everyone does have a tongue.

— Raheel Farooq

Gossip reflects the insecurity of those who initiate it.

— Oprah Winfrey

People are insecure, so they talk about other people, so that they won’t be talked about. They point out flaws in other people to feel good about themselves.

— Blake Lively

Fake friends believe in rumors. Real friends believe in you.

— Yolanda Hadid

A stupid man’s report of what a clever man says can never be accurate, because he unconsciously translates what he hears into something he can understand.

— Bertrand Russell

It is just as cowardly to judge an absent person as it is wicked to strike a defenseless one. Only the ignorant and narrow-minded gossip, for they speak of persons instead of things.

— Lawrence Lovasik

People who judge harshly, criticize, and condemn others through gossip, rumor, or bad word of mouth are setting themselves up for the same unfair trials.

— Scott Allan

Always remember: rumors are carried by haters, spread by fools, and accepted by idiots.

— Ziad Abdelnour

Gossip is always a personal confession either of malice or imbecility.

— Josiah Gilbert Holland

Don’t worry about those who talk behind your back: they are behind you for a reason.

— Unknown

Naysayers and haters quotes

Consider the track record of your naysayers. How many dreams have they successfully brought into this world?

— Sarah Ban Breathnach

When people undermine your dreams, predict your doom, or criticize you, remember: they’re telling their story, not yours.

— Cynthia Occelli

Don’t waste your time with explanations: people only hear what they want to hear.

— Paulo Coelho

When a great genius appears in the world you may know him by this sign: that the dunces are all in confederacy against him.

— Jonathan Swift

Anyone can find the dirt in someone. Be the one that finds the gold.

— Proverbs 11:27

My advice to anyone being picked on for being different or for working towards a dream is to remember it’s never personal. These people don’t actually dislike you at heart. They’re just going through difficult things in their own personal life.

— Cassadee Pope

Don’t give up. There are too many naysayers out there who will try to discourage you. Don’t listen to them. The only one who can make you give up is yourself.

— Sidney Sheldon

Follow your heart and chase your dreams until you catch them. Negative people who say you can’t do something are only speaking for themselves.

— Jake Pitts

People who are constantly negative have a tendency of rubbing off that negativity to others. It’s not just annoying, it’s unhealthy. Surround yourself with positive people and positive attitudes.

— Louise Allen

Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great.

— Mark Twain

Don’t worry about the people who aren’t happy for you. They probably aren’t happy for themselves either.

— Unknown

If someone is trying to bring you down, it only means that you’re above them.

— Bella Thorne

Haters are the people who will broadcast your failures and whisper your success.

— Will Smith

The only people who ever tell you that you can’t do something are the ones who haven’t done it themselves — the ones who failed.

— Chris Jericho

Never let anything come in between you and your passion. Let negative people and backstabbers be the reason you put wood into your fire and motivate you to reach above and beyond.

— Arsi Nami

Naysayers have little power over us — unless we give it to them.

— Arianna Huffington

I always joke about letting the haters motivate you. Everybody has had that in their life, people who doubt them or make them feel less than they are. It just takes faith and belief in yourself, and you’ve got to dig deep into that. That has to come from you — nobody’s going to give you that.

— Jennifer Lopez

Don’t let negative and toxic people rent space in your head. Raise the rent and kick them out.

— Zig Ziglar

People who project negativity typically have low self esteem. They feel badly about themselves, and their negativity is simply a reflection of those feelings.

— Hendrie Weisinger

Ignore stupid people quotes

I’ve learned two things the hard way: you can’t fix stupid; and you shouldn’t use up your patience to fix stupid.

— Karen Baquiran

Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.

— Robert Hanlon

Silence is the best response to a fool.

— Unknown

Never argue with stupid people, they will drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience.

— Mark Twain

Throughout life people will make you mad, disrespect you, and treat you bad. Let God deal with the things they do, because hate in your heart will consume you too.

— Will Smith

The best way to counterattack a hater is to make it blatantly obvious that their attack has had no impact on you.

— Tim Ferriss

Speak your heart. If they don’t understand, the message was never meant for them anyway.

— Yasmin Mogahed

No matter how smart you are, you can never convince someone stupid that they are stupid.

— Unknown

The world doesn’t understand me, and I don’t understand the world, that’s why I’ve withdrawn from it.

— Paul Cezanne

If people don’t get it, that’s not your issue. You live for your happiness and no one else’s.

— Scott Mescudi

Never waste your time trying to explain who you are to people who are committed to misunderstanding you.

— Dream Hampton

How to be happy: ignore people who think they know more about you than you do.

— John Edward

Don’t waste your energy trying to convince people to understand you. Your time is too valuable to try to prove yourself to people.

— Joel Osteen

You cannot argue stupidity, you just have to accept it patiently as one of those things.

— Nevil Shute

Short people are stupid quotes

I’ve always believed that a person is smart; it’s people that are stupid.

— Marilyn Manson

A fool sees not the same tree that a wise man sees.

— William Blake

The two most common elements in the universe are hydrogen and stupidity.

— Harlan Ellison

People think you’re crazy if you talk about things they don’t understand.

— Elvis Presley

Talk sense to a fool and he calls you foolish.

— Euripides

I am patient with stupidity, but not with those who are proud of it.

— Edith Sitwell

Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.

— George Carlin

It is impossible to defeat an ignorant man in argument.

— William Gibbs McAdoo

What people don’t understand, they laugh at.

— Geraldine McCaughrean

Any fool can criticize, complain, and condemn — and most fools do.

— Dale Carnegie