A Quote by Arthur C. Clarke

Never attribute to malevolence what is merely due to incompetence

Arthur C. Clarke

Quote Topics

Attribute Due Incompetence Malevolence Merely Never

Quote Author

Arthur C. Clarke
English - Writer
December 16, 1917 - March 19, 2008

I've always lived by this philosophy, when it comes to conspiracies, never to attribute to deviousness that which can be explained by incompetence.

Dean Devlin

The whole gospel of Karl Marx can be summed up in a single sentence: Hate the man who is better off than you are. Never under any circumstances admit that his success may be due to his own efforts, to the productive contribution he has made to the whole community. Always attribute his success to the exploitation, the cheating, the more or less open robbery of others. Never under any circumstances admit that your own failure may be owing to your own weakness, or that the failure of anyone else may be due to his own defects - his laziness, incompetence, improvidence, or stupidity.

Henry Hazlitt

Never attribute to malice what can be explained by incompetence. Think about it. People aren't out to get you, they're just stupid.

Jane Espenson

A certain combination of incompetence and indifference can cause almost as much suffering as the most acute malevolence.

Bruce Catton

All the 'too close to call' announcements are not due to incompetence ... It's caution.

Chris Matthews

I am, as I've said, merely competent. But in an age of incompetence, that makes me extraordinary.

Billy Joel

Incompetence plus incompetence equals incompetence.

Laurence J. Peter

For four years, I listened to stories of intelligence failures, and it wasn't due to incompetence of anyone in the system, but that the system is so arcane.

Charles Bass

Whenever you're faced with an explanation of what's going on in Washington, the choice between incompetence and conspiracy, always choose incompetence.

Charles Krauthammer

I have also seen children successfully surmounting the effects of an evil inheritance. That is due to purity being an inherent attribute of the soul.

Mahatma Gandhi

I have never stuck up for any criminal. I have merely asked for the orderly administration of an impartial justice...Due legal process is my own safeguard against being convicted unjustly. To my mind, that's government. That's law and order.

Erle Stanley Gardner

If there be one attribute of the Deity which astonishes me more than another, it is the attribute of patience. The Great Soul that sits on the throne of the universe is not, never was, and never will be, in a hurry. In the realm of nature, every thing has been wrought out in the august consciousness of infinite leisure; and I bless God for that geology which gives me a key to the patience in which the creative process was effected.

J. G. Holland

The misfortunes which God is represented in the book of Job as allowing Satan to inflict on Job, merely to test his faith, are indications, if not of positive malevolence, at least of a suspicious and ruthless insecurity, which is characteristic more of a tyrant than of a wholly powerful and benevolent deity.

A.J. Ayer

Authoritarianism and secrecy breed incompetence; the two feed on each other. It's a vicious cycle. Governments with authoritarian tendencies point to what is in fact their own incompetence as the rationale for giving them yet more power.

Josh Marshall

One of the reasons for conspiracy theories is an assumption that people in high places always know what they are doing. When they do something that makes no sense, devious reasons are imagined by conspiracy theorists, when in fact it may be due to plain old ignorance and incompetence.