Dunces Quotes - Page 2

• Few human creatures would consent to be changed into any of the lower animals for a promise of the fullest allowance of a beast's pleasures; no intelligent human being would consent to be a fool, no instructed person would be an ignoramus, no person of feeling and conscience would be selfish and base, even though they should be persuaded that the fool, the dunce, or the rascal is better satisfied with his lot than they are with theirs.

  John Stuart Mill

  Selfish, Animal, Intelligent

  John Stuart Mill, Jeremy Bentham, John Troyer (2003). “The Classical Utilitarians: Bentham and Mill”, p.101, Hackett Publishing

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• A Zen master used to say, It is clear and so it is hard to see. A dunce once searched for a fire with a lighted lantern. Had he known what fire was, he could have cooked his rice much sooner.

  Rajneesh

  Fire, Used, Masters

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• In fame's temple there is always a niche to be found for rich dunces, importunate scoundrels, or successful butchers of the human race.

  Johann Georg Ritter von Zimmermann

  Successful, Race, Temples

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• The ears, which master the face of a dunce, are that part of the head which most publishes stupidity.

  Alexander Theroux

  Stupidity, Faces, Ears

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• The use of proverbs is characteristic of an unlettered people. They are invaluable treasures to dunces with good memories.

  John Hay

  Memories, People, Use

  John Hay (1897). “Castilian Days”

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• Wit, who never once Forgave a brother, shall forgive a dunce.

  Charles Churchill

  Brother, Forgiving, Wit

  Charles Churchill, James L. Hannay (1866). “Poetical Works: With a Memoir by James L. Hannay and Copious Notes by W. Tooke”, p.124

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• Your dunce who can't do his sums always has a taste for the infinite.

  George Eliot

  Atheism, Taste, Infinite

  George Eliot (1866). “Felix Holt: The Radical”, p.53

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• In our wide world there is but one altogether fatal personage, the dunce,--he that speaks irrationally, that sees not, and yet thinks he sees.

  Thomas Carlyle

  Thinking, Stupidity, World

  Thomas Carlyle (1872). “Works”, p.286

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• The basis of your religion is injustice. The Son of God the pure, the immaculate, the innocent, is sacrificed for the guilty. This proves his heroism, but no more does away with man's sin than a school boy's volunteering to be flogged for another would exculpate a dunce from negligence.

  Lord Byron

  School, Son, Boys

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• Nothing can confound a wise man more than laughter from a dunce.

  Lord Byron

  Funny, Happiness, Wise

  Lord Byron (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Lord Byron (Illustrated)”, p.2328, Delphi Classics

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• sanity, in my opinion, is an achievement. I have seen very few well-balanced people in my life who were not dunces.

  Corra May Harris

  People, Achievement, Opinion

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• ...And another item from the growing file of people who voluntarily wear dunce caps... You'll be talking cordially to someone and make an offhand reference, 'I recently read where--' and they'll cut you off and say, 'Oh, I don't read'... This is a tragedy on so many different levels. First, because they don't read, they don't know enough to keep it to themselves. Next, and this is the most amazing part, they use a demeaning tone like I'm the stupid one for wasting time with books.

  Tim Dorsey

  Stupid, Book, Cutting

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• I have known several persons of great fame for wisdom in public affairs and councils governed by foolish servants. I have known great ministers, distinguished for wit and learning, who preferred none but dunces. I have known men of valor cowards to their wives. I have known men of cunning perpetually cheated. I knew three ministers who would exactly compute and settle the accounts of a kingdom, wholly ignorant of their own economy.

  Horace Walpole

  Men, Wife, Ignorant

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• Only by himself, with one acre and a house, will a dunce be a dunce. Once he manages to gain power, he'll turn into a scoundrel.

  Franz Grillparzer

  House, Stupidity, Acres

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• It is curious that some learned dunces, because they can write nonsense in languages that are dead, should despise those that talk sense in languages that are living.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Writing, Language, Nonsense

  Charles Caleb Colton (1832). “Lacon: Or Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think”

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• There is no dunce like a mature dunce.

  George Santayana

  Stupidity, Mature

  George Santayana (2015). “Character and Opinion in the United States”, p.30, Sheba Blake Publishing

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• As far as talent goes, Marilyn Monroe was so minimally gifted as to be almost unemployable, and anyone who holds to the opinion that she was a great natural comic identifies himself immediately as a dunce.

  Clive James

  Opinion, Talent, Natural

  Clive James (2009). “Reliable Essays: The Best of Clive James: Reliable Essays:The Best of Clive James”, p.167, Pan Macmillan

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• There is no one who is without faults, and who is not in some way a burden to others, whether he is a superior or a subject, an old man or a young one, a scholar or a dunce.

  Robert Bellarmine

  Men, Saint, Way

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• The Society of North American Magic Realists welcomes its newest, most dazzling member, Louis Maistros. His debut novel is a thing of wonder, unlike anything in our literature. It startles. It stuns. It stupefies. No novel since CONFEDERACY OF DUNCES has done such justice to New Orleans. If Franz Kafka had been able to write like Peter Straub, this might have been the result.

  Donald Harington

  Writing, New Orleans, Justice

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• The fact is that previously they were simply dunces and now they've suddenly become nihilists.

  Ivan Turgenev

  Facts, Nihilist

  Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev, Richard Freeborn (1998). “Fathers and Sons”, p.54, Oxford University Press, USA

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• Waiting for the Electricity is a wildly original and ambitious debut, a novel that tackles cultural clashes with satirical hilarity. I haven't read a first novel this promising since The Confederacy of Dunces.

  Jill Ciment

  Waiting, Ambitious, Hilarity

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• Of praise a mere glutton, he swallow'd what came, And the puff a dunce, he mistook it for fame; Till his relish grown callous, almost to displease, Who pepper'd the highest was surest to please.

  Oliver Goldsmith

  Puff, Peppers, Flattery

  Oliver Goldsmith (1839). “Poetical Works”, p.145

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• VITUPERATION, n. Saite, as understood by dunces and all such as suffer from an impediment in their wit.

  Ambrose Bierce

  Understanding, Suffering, Wit

  Ambrose Bierce (2009). “The Devil's Dictionary: Easyread Super Large 20pt Edition”, p.462, ReadHowYouWant.com

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• ETHNOLOGY, n. The science that treats of the various tribes of Man, as robbers, thieves, swindlers, dunces, lunatics, idiots and ethnologists.

  Ambrose Bierce

  Science, Men, Thieves

  Ambrose Bierce (2016). “The Devil's Dictionary: The Devil World”, p.57, 谷月社

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• Rebukes are easy from our betters,
  From men of quality and letters;
  But when low dunces will affront,
  What man alive can stand the brunt?

  Jonathan Swift

  Men, Quality, Alive

  Jonathan Swift, “The Sick Lion And The Ass”

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