A Quote by Ambrose Bierce

RASCALITY, n. Stupidity militant. The activity of a clouded intellect. — © Ambrose Bierce
RASCALITY, n. Stupidity militant. The activity of a clouded intellect.
Rascality has limits; stupidity has not.
And not only the pride of intellect, but the stupidity of intellect. And, above all, the dishonesty, yes, the dishonesty of intellect. Yes, indeed, the dishonesty and trickery of intellect.
It is only the man whose intellect is clouded by his sexual impulse that could give the name of the fair sex to that undersized, narrow-shouldered, broad-hipped, and short-legged race.
The question now is: Can we understand our stupidity? This is a test of intellect, not of character.
For contemplation is both the highest form of activity (since the intellect is the highest thing in us, and the objects that it apprehends are the highest things that can be known), and also it is the most continuous, because we are more capable of continuous contemplation than we are of any practical activity.
Look into the eyes of a chicken and you will see real stupidity. It is a kind of bottomless stupidity, a fiendish stupidity. They are the most horrifying, cannibalistic and nightmarish creatures in the world.
In Madeleine's face was a stupidity Mitchell had never seen before. It was the stupidity of all normal people. It was the stupidity of the fortunate and the beautiful, of everybody who got what they wanted in life and so remained unremarkable.
Joy gives us wings! In times of joy our strength is more vital, our intellect keener, and our understanding less clouded. We seem better able to cope with the world and to find our sphere of influence.
We do each have an intellect but there's a universal intellect which is the same for everybody, as it were. And this single intellect is grasping the platonic forms.
Stupidity—The top of the list for Satanic Sins. The Cardinal Sin of Satanism. It’s too bad that stupidity isn’t painful. Ignorance is one thing, but our society thrives increasingly on stupidity. It depends on people going along with whatever they are told. The media promotes a cultivated stupidity as a posture that is not only acceptable but laudable. Satanists must learn to see through the tricks and cannot afford to be stupid.
The animal is one with its life activity. It does not distinguish the activity from itself. It is its activity. But man makes hislife activity itself an object of his will and consciousness. He has a conscious life activity. It is not a determination with which he is completely identified.
It's usually easier to rouse stupidity to action than to arouse wisdom to effort, for wisdom sees alternatives while stupidity lacks the imagination to do this. All sinister interests in a country can depend ultimately upon the strength of stupidity.
He knew when to compromise. Yet he never compromised his principles. He was a militant. Yet a militant who knew how to plan, assess concrete situations and emerge with rational solutions to problems.
Self-denial is not a virtue; it is only the effect of prudence on rascality.
The intellect searches out the Absolute order of things as they stand in the mind of God, and without the colors of affection. The intellectual and the active powers seem to succeed each other, and the exclusive activity of the one generates the exclusive activity of the other. There is something unfriendly in each to the other, but they are like the alternate periods of feeding and working in animals; each prepares and will be followed by the other.
There is reason to believe that voluntary activity, more than highly developed intellect, distinguishes humans from the animals which stand closest to them.
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