Carlo M. Cipolla famous quotes

Last updated: Sep 5, 2024

A stupid person is a person who causes losses to another person or to a group of persons while himself deriving no gain and even possibly incurring losses.
-- Carlo M. Cipolla

#Stupid #Loss #Groups
...quantity is not necessarily synonymous with quality and brilliant ideas are not a function of the number of titles printed.
-- Carlo M. Cipolla

#Ideas #Numbers #Quality
No matter how high are one's estimates of human stupidity, one is repeatedly and recurrently startled by the fact that:a) people whom one had once judged rational and intelligent turn out to be unashamedly stupid.b) day after day, with unceasing monotony, one is harassed in one's activities by stupid individuals who appear suddenly and unexpectedly in the most inconvenient places and at the most improbable moments.
-- Carlo M. Cipolla

#Stupid #Intelligent #People
The â€œVasco da Gama's eraâ€ ends in a nightmare in which men-Westerners and non-Westerners alike-are bewildered by this confusion and the old fancy of the apprenti sorcier becomes tragically actual.
-- Carlo M. Cipolla

#Men #Confusion #Fancy
Always and inevitably everyone underestimates the number of stupid individuals in circulation.
-- Carlo M. Cipolla

#Stupid #Numbers #Underestimate
Our daily life is mostly, made of cases in which we lose money and/or time and/or energy and/or appetite, cheerfulness and good health because of the improbable action of some preposterous creature who has nothing to gain and indeed gains nothing from causing us embarrassment, difficulties or harm. Nobody knows, understands or can possibly explain why that preposterous creature does what he does. In fact there is no explanation - or better there is only one explanation: the person in question is stupid.
-- Carlo M. Cipolla

#Stupid #Energy #Doe
As Dr. Chiang puts it, â€œwhile Buddha came to China on white elephants, Christ was borne on cannon balls.
-- Carlo M. Cipolla

#Elephants #White #Drs
The “Vasco da Gama's era” ends in a nightmare in which men-Westerners and non-Westerners alike-are bewildered by this confusion and the old fancy of the apprenti sorcier becomes tragically actual.
-- Carlo M. Cipolla

#Men #Confusion #Fancy
As Dr. Chiang puts it, “while Buddha came to China on white elephants, Christ was borne on cannon balls.
-- Carlo M. Cipolla

#Elephants #White #Drs

Nothing makes you feel more stupid than finding out you were wrong when you thought you were loved.
Over the past few years, the road to confrontation has shown its consequences: loss of innocent lives, destruction and fear. Most costly, however, was the loss of hope. The most precious gift that you can present to your peoples over the coming weeks is renewed hope born out of tangible progress on the ground.
To make a discovery is not necessarily the same as to understand a discovery. Not only Planck but also other physicists were intially at a loss as to what the proper context of the new postulate really was.
A group of white South Africans recently killed a black lawyer because he was black. That was wrong. They should have killed him because he was a lawyer.
I live in L.A. and I do have wonderful friends; I moved there when I was 19 so I developed a close knit group of friends, none of whom are actors, none of which are Australian, but I couldn't do it long term.
Canada has an experience of governance of which much of the world stands in dire need. It is a world of increasing dissension and conflict in which a significant contribution is the failure of different ethnic, tribal, religious, or social groups to search for, and agree upon, a common space for harmonious co-existence.
fair play is less characteristic of groups than of individuals.
I have never believed in being part of any one group or camp.
The conversation on global warming has been stalled because a shrinking group of denialists fly into a rage when it's mentioned.
I played guitar. I've always considered myself an actor, but I wasn't making a living as an actor. So I was in a couple of folk groups that managed to keep me in underwear and burritos.

Carlo M. Cipolla famous quotes

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