Douglas Hofstadter Quotes

Every 10 years, I know less about love and relationships. The smarter I get, the less I know.

Truth lies within a little and certain compass, but error is immense.

He who wars, walks in a mist, through which the keenest eyes cannot always discern the right path.

My aim is to be as open and as incomprehensible as possible. There has to be a perfect balance between open and shut.

I'm not stupid. I can tell what's what.

They say the smart dog obeys but the smarter dog knows when to disobey.

A man of clear ideas errs grievously if he imagines that whatever is seen confusedly does not exist; it belongs to him, when he meets with such a thing, to dispel the midst, and fix the outlines of the vague form which is looming through it.

If your work is so smart that only smart people get it, it's not that smart.

Intelligence complicates. Wisdom simplifies.

Being nice doesn’t make you stupid. It makes you feel good because you know you are gracious enough to forgive and smart enough to realize how distasteful some people can be.

Sometimes it isn't easy to be sane, smart, and responsible. Sometimes it sucks. Sucks wang. Camel wang. But that doesn't turn wrong into right or stupid into smart.

There are only two things as complicated as insurance accounting and I have no idea what they are.

Don't be smart. Smart is only a polished version of dumb. Try intelligence. It will surely see you through.

I know a lot of successful people and none of them are stupid.

Who let the dogs out? Who, who.

Liz, I like you very much," he says. "Oh," she says, "I like you very much, too!" Owen is not sure if she means "O" for Owen, or just plan "Oh." He is not sure what difference it would make in either case. He feels the needs to clarify. "When I said 'I like you very much,' I actually meant 'I love you.'" "O," she says, "I actually meant the same thing." She closes the car door behind her. "Well," he says to himself, driving back to his apartment, "isn't that something?

Vladimir: I don't understand. Estragon: Use your intelligence, can't you? Vladimir uses his intelligence. Vladimir: (finally) I remain in the dark.

I really had no idea you'd be this stupid but then again you were the only person that really got me

The minute a thing is long and complicated, it confuses. Whoever wrote the Ten Commandments made 'em short. They may not always be kept, but they are understood.

I had a naiveté that I would remember the things that I had written already, but I was getting lost in the forest of my own ideas and having to find my way out.

To an untrained eye, need and love were as easily mistaken for each other as the real master's painting and a forgery.

Why?' is always the most difficult question to answer. You know where you are when someone asks you 'What's the time?' or 'When was the battle of 1066?' or 'How do these seatbelts work that go tight when you slam the brakes on, Daddy?' The answers are easy and are, respectively, 'Seven-thirty in the evening,' 'Ten-fifteen in the morning,' and 'Don't ask stupid questions.

When happiness points in one direction while wisdom, truth, integrity, and common sense point in another, that's when really smart people start doing really stupid things.

I am but mad north-north-west. When the wind is southerly, I know a hawk from a handsaw.

My natural tendency is to complicate everything--and then to spray words and ideas onto everything afterwards. I've had to develop the habit of keeping things simple.