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
About This Quote

This quote is often misquoted, but it's the original. Apocryphal or not, there are some hidden truths in it. First, when people translate what they hear into something they can understand, they lose the meaning of what was originally said. Second, when people put words into the mouths of people who are smarter than themselves, they can never be accurate because they don't recognize that the other person was smarter than themselves.

Source: A History Of Western Philosophy

Some Similar Quotes
  1. The man of knowledge must be able not only to love his enemies but also to hate his friends. - Friedrich Nietzsche
  2. We have become, by the power of a glorious evolutionary accident called intelligence, the stewards of life's continuity on earth. We did not ask for this role, but we cannot abjure it. We may not be suited to it, but here we are. - Stephen Jay Gould
  3. Any intelligent person knows that life is a beautiful thing and that the purpose of life is to be happy, " said my father as he watched the three beauties. "But it seems only idiots are ever happy. How can we explain this? - Orhan Pamuk
  4. He had just about enough intelligence to open his mouth when he wanted to eat, but certainly no more. - P.g. Wodehouse
  5. Ms. Wormwood: Calvin, can you tell us what Lewis and Clark did? Calvin: No, but I can recite the secret superhero origin of each member of Captain Napalm's Thermonuclear League of Liberty. Ms. Wormwood: See me after class, Calvin. Calvin: [retrospectively] I'm not dumb. I... - Bill Watterson
More Quotes By Bertrand Russell
  1. Of all forms of caution, caution in love is perhaps the most fatal to true happiness.
  2. To fear love is to fear life, and those who fear life are already 3-parts dead.
  3. Those who have never known the deep intimacy and the intense companionship of happy mutual love have missed the best thing that life has to give.
  4. Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind. These passions, like great winds, have blown me hither and thither, in a wayward course, over a great ocean...
  5. Remember your humanity, and forget the rest.
Related Topics