The stupider one is, the clearer one is. Stupidity is brief and artless, while intelligence wriggles and hides itself. Intelligence is a knave, but stupidity is honest and straightforward.
 Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov (1880). copy citation

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Author Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Source The Brothers Karamazov
Topic stupidity honesty intelligence clarity
Date 1880
Language English
Reference
Note Translated by Constance Garnett
Weblink http://www.gutenberg.org/files/28054/28054-h/28054-h.html

Context


«To begin with, for the sake of being Russian. Russian conversations on such subjects are always carried on inconceivably stupidly. And secondly, the stupider one is, the closer one is to reality. The stupider one is, the clearer one is. Stupidity is brief and artless, [pg 259] while intelligence wriggles and hides itself. Intelligence is a knave, but stupidity is honest and straightforward. I've led the conversation to my despair, and the more stupidly I have presented it, the better for me.»
«You will explain why you don't accept the world?» said Alyosha.
«To be sure I will, it's not a secret, that's what I've been leading up to.” source

Meaning and analysis

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