W. Somerset Maugham Quotes

"Mediocrity" doesn't mean average intelligence, it means an average intelligence that resents and envies its betters.

The melancholy thing about the world is that it is full of stupid people; and the world is run for the benefit of the stupid and common.

Cynicism is what passes for insight among the mediocre [journalists]

What makes a fool is an inability to take even his own good advice.

Think about how stupid the average person is and then realize that half of them are stupider than that.

For people at the bottom who are really doing badly — those in the bottom 10th or 15th percentile — they think their work falls in the 60th or 55th percentile, so, above average. People at the bottom still think they're outperforming other people.

They called me 'Mr. Average' in school.

People are not evil; they are schlemiels.

There are more fools than wise men, and even in a wise man there is more folly than wisdom.

I think I'm a fairly average person, I think I have only a medium IQ. I didn't go to college, obviously.

Cynicism makes you feel smart, I know it, even when you aren't smart.

I am far more provoked at being thought foolish by foolish people, than pleased at being thought sensible by sensible people; and the average proportion of the numbers of each is not to my advantage.

Fools need advice most, but wise men only are the better for it.

Only a fool can believe people are basically good

What makes us so bitter against people who outwit us is that they think themselves cleverer than we are.

Generally among intelligent people are found nothing but paralytics and among men of action nothing but fools.

Remember, half the people you know are below average.

There had never been a shortage of fools in the world

Reason is so unreasonable, that few people can say they are in possession of it.

Nonsense! The most hopelessly stupid man is he who is not aware that he is wise.

People are almost always better than their neighbors think they are.

People generally treat me like I'm very intelligent and really, I'm much less intelligent than she is. Scully is insanely intelligent.

Do you think that the things people make fools of themselves about are any less real and true than the things they behave sensibly about? They are more true: they are the only things that are true.

We live in a culture that has, for centuries now, cultivated the idea that the skeptical person is always smarter than one who believes. You can almost be as stupid as a cabbage as long as you doubt.

There are many different kinds of doubt. When we doubt the future, we call it worry. When doubt other people we call is suspicion. When we doubt ourselves we call it inferiority. When we doubt God we call it unbelief. When we doubt what we hear on television we call it intelligence! When we doubt everything we call it cynicism or skepticism.