Intellectual Laziness Quotes

Criticism is a study by which men grow important and formidable at very small expense. The power of invention has been conferred by nature upon few, and the labour of learning those sciences which may, by mere labour, be obtained, is too great to be willingly endured; but every man can exert some judgment as he has upon the works of others; and he whom nature has made weak, and idleness keeps ignorant, may yet support his vanity by the name of critic.

The game of speculation is the most uniformly fascinating game in the world. But it is not a game for the stupid, the mentally lazy, the person of inferior emotional balance, or the get-rich-quick adventurer. They will die poor.

Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is probably the reason why so few engage in it.

The conventional view serves to protect us from the painful job of thinking.

Through shallow intellect, the mind becomes shallow, and one eats the fly, along with the sweets.

So little trouble do men take in the search after truth; so readily do they accept whatever comes first to hand.

People calculate too much and think too little.

I've never had a stupid student in my life. I never look down on my students. I never thought, "Look at these people." I might argue with them and I think that some of them might have misconceptions - that they might be infected by the intellectual laziness that is the foundation of American popular culture, and of capitalism, if you wish. But part of my job as a teacher is to work with that - against that.

I had always been impressed by the fact that there are surprisingly many individuals who never use their minds if they can avoid it, and yet are not stupid, and an equal number who obviously do use their minds but in an amazingly stupid way.

It’s never been so easy to pretend to know so much without actually knowing anything. We pick topical, relevant bits from Facebook, Twitter or emailed news alerts, and then regurgitate them. […] What matters to us, awash in petabytes of data, is not necessarily having actually consumed this content firsthand but simply knowing that it exists — and having a position on it, being able to engage in the chatter *about* it. We come perilously close to performing a pastiche of knowledgeability that is really a new model of know-nothingness.

In religion and politics people’s beliefs and convictions are in almost every case gotten at second-hand, and without examination, from authorities who have not themselves examined the questions at issue but have taken them at second-hand from other non-examiners, whose opinions about them were not worth a brass farthing.

Reading, after a certain age, diverts the mind too much from its creative pursuits. Any man who reads too much and uses his own brain too little falls into lazy habits of thinking.

I have little patience with scientists who take a board of wood, look for its thinnest part, and drill a great number of holes where drilling is easy.

Too often we... enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought.

Stupidity is no excuse of not thinking.

In my experience most mathematicians are intellectually lazy.

Few men think, yet all will have opinions.

Some people read only because they are too lazy to think.

I knew a man who carried his education in his vest pocket because there was more room there than in his head.

Few men have ever had a more labor saving contempt for learning.

Faith is the great cop-out, the great excuse to evade the need to think.

Words are wise men's counters, they do but reckon by them: but they are the money of fools, that value them by the authority of an Aristotle, a Cicero, or a Thomas, or any other doctor whatsoever, if but a man.

I always have a quotation for everything - it saves original thinking

Thinking is hard work, which is why you don't see many people doing it.

Every man prefers belief to the exercise of judgment.