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Stupidity Is The Same As Evil If You Judge By The Results.
-Margaret Atwood
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Stupidity Is The Same

Margaret Atwood
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Stupidity Is The Same As Evil If You Judge By The Results.

Understanding the Quote: "stupidity is the same as evil if you judge by the results...."

This quote by Margaret Atwood reflects deeply on the theme of stupid. It connects to the universal human journey of purpose, motivation, and reflection. Often categorized under Stupid, Evil, Judging, the quote offers insight, emotional clarity, and intellectual inspiration to readers worldwide.

Whether you’re a student exploring new ideas, a leader trying to motivate your team, or someone seeking direction in life — this quote provides value. It resonates because it’s more than words — it’s a bridge between experience and wisdom. It shows how Margaret Atwood interprets life's core challenges and triumphs.

Lessons From the Quote

This quote teaches resilience and focus. It reminds readers that no matter where they stand in life, reflection and self-awareness lead to growth. Each word has meaning, and when studied, it becomes clear how impactful thoughtful language can be.

About Margaret Atwood

Margaret Atwood is celebrated for insightful thoughts on stupid and evil. Their legacy lives on through writings that guide, comfort, and inspire. Discover more on their profile page.

Actionable Takeaways

  • Reflect on how this quote applies to your current life path.
  • Share the message with someone who needs inspiration.
  • Write your thoughts on this quote in a journal or blog post.
  • Use it as a daily affirmation or reminder.

Closing Thoughts

Quotes like this endure because they capture universal truths. They comfort us in solitude and empower us in groups. Carry this quote forward — live by its wisdom, share its message, and keep its essence alive.

Views: 45220
Topic
Stupid
Evil
Judging
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Song
Odd
I Would Rather Dance As A Ballerina, Though Faultily, Than As A Flawless Clown.
Dance
Dancing
Flawless
If All Fossil Fuel Were To Go Poof! Tomorrow, The Result Would Be A Cataclysmic Social Upheaval, With Food Riots, Warlords, Shutdowns, Breakdown Of Social Order, Water Shortages, And Outbreaks Of Bloodshed And Disease.
Water
Tomorrow
Breakdown
Nature Is To Zoos As God Is To Churches.
Nature
Zoos
Church
What People Want Is Perfection," Said The Man. "in Themselves." "but They Need The Steps To It To Be Pointed Out," Said The Woman. "in A Simple Order," Said The Man. "with Encouragement," Said The Woman. "and A Positive Attitude.
Encouragement
Attitude
Simple
All You Have To Do, I Tell Myself, Is Keep Your Mouth Shut And Look Stupid. It Shouldn't Be That Hard.
Stupid
Looks
Mouths
The Internet Is 95 Percent Porn And Spam
Internet
Spam
Percent
If The National Mental Illness Of The United States Is Megalomania, That Of Canada Is Paranoid Schizophrenia.
United States
Canada
Mental Illness
I Am Not Running For Mayor Yet. But If It Comes To Be True That People Cannot Voice An Opinion Unless They Have Been Elected, Then We Are No Longer In A Democracy.
Running
Voice
People
My Own View Of Myself Was That I Was Small And Innocuous, A Marshmallow Compared To The Others. I Was A Poor Shot With A 22, For Instance, And Not Very Good With An Ax. It Took Me A Long Time To Figure Out That The Youngest In A Family Of Dragons Is Still A Dragon From The Point Of View Of Those Who Find Dragons Alarming.
Dragons
Views
Long
I'm A Novelist, And Idle Speculation Is What Novelists Do. How Odd To Spend One's Life Trying To Pretend That Non-existent People Are Real: Though No Odder, I Suppose, Than What Government Bureaucrats Do, Which Is Trying To Pretend That Real People Are Non-existent.
Real
Government
People
When Things Are Really Dismal, You Can Laugh, Or You Can Cave In Completely.
Laughing
Caves
And Each Of His Voices Left His Body In A Different Colored Soul And Floated Up Towards The Sun Still Singing.
Voice
Soul
Singing
The Animals Have No Need For Speech, Why Talk When You Are A Word.
Animal
Needs
Speech
You Meet The Same People On The Way Down That You Meet On The Way Up, But You're Going The Other Way.
People
Way
We Have Been Shark To One Another, But Also Lifeboat.
Sharks
Lifeboats
Has Beens
Some Of Our Earliest Writing, In Cuneiform, Was About Who Owes What.
Writing
Cuneiform
Never Pray For Justice, Because You Might Get Some.
Prayer
Umpires
Justice
Sons Branch Out, But One Woman Leads To Another.
Witty
Son
Branches
All Writers Must Go From Now To Once A Upon A Time; All Must Go From Here To There; All Must Descend To Where The Stories Are Kept; All Must Take Care Not To Be Captured And Held Immobile By The Past.
Past
Stories
Care
We Have Begun To Slam Doors, And To Throw Things. I Throw My Purse, An Ashtray, A Package Of Chocolate Chips, Which Breaks On Impact. We Are Picking Up Chocolate Chips For Days. Jon Throws A Glass Of Milk, The Milk, Not The Glass: He Knows His Own Strength, As I Do Not. He Throws A Box Of Cheerios, Unopened. The Things I Throw Miss, Although They Are Worse Things. The Things He Throws Hit, But Are Harmless. I Begin To See How The Line Is Crossed, Between Histrionics And Murder.
Impact
Glasses
Doors
Like Many Modern Poets, I Tend To Conceal Rhymes By Placing Them In The Middle Of Lines, And To Avoid Immediate Alliteration And Assonance In Favor Of Echoes Placed Later In The Poems.
Echoes
Lines
Favors
The Desire To Be Loved Is The Last Illusion. Give It Up And You Will Be Free.
Philosophical
Giving
Desire
The Heart Of Jesus Glowed, Because It Was Holy. Holy Things Glowed In General.
Jesus
Heart
Holy
Karen Wasn't Hard, She Was Soft, Too Soft. A Soft Touch. Her Hair Was Soft, Her Smile Was Soft, Her Voice Was Soft. She Was So Soft There Was No Resistance. Hard Things Sank Into Her, They Went Right Through Her, And If She Made A Real Effort, Out The Other Side. Then She Didn't Have To See Them Or Hear Them, Or Even Touch Them.
Real
Hair
Voice
The Interesting Thing About The Religious Component, For Me, Is That Jesus Hardly Mentions Sex At All. He's Pretty Interested In The Poor, He's Pretty Interested In Selling Your Worldly Goods And Storing Up Riches In Heaven. However, Religious Fundamentalists Have Made It All About Sex, And That's Like Saying, "look At The Sex And We're Just Not Going To Talk About What You May Be Doing In A Financial Way That Is Sinful."
Religious
Jesus
Sex
Why Are We Designed To See The World As Supremely Beautiful Just As We're About To Be Snuffed? Do Rabbits Feel The Same As The Fox Teeth Bite Down On Their Necks? Is It Mercy?
Beautiful
Teeth
Rabbits
I Am Not A Saint Or A Cripple, I Am Not A Wound; Now I Will See Whether I Am A Coward.
Coward
Saint
Cripples
Maybe That's What Love Is, I Thought: It's Being Pissed Off.
Love Is
Pissed Off
A Divorce Is Like An Amputation: You Survive It, But There's Less Of You.
Broken Heart
Lost Love
Divorce
I'm Working On My Own Life Story. I Don't Mean I'm Putting It Together; No, I'm Taking It Apart. If You'd Wanted The Narrative Line You Should Have Asked Earlier, When I Still Knew Everything And Was More Than Willing To Tell. That Was Before I Discovered The Virtues Of Scissors, The Virtues Of Matches.
Mean
Should Have
Together
No One Knows What Cuases An Outer Landscape To Become An Inner One.
Landscape
Knows
The Only Way You Can Write The Truth Is To Assume That What You Set Down Will Never Be Read. Not By Any Other Person, And Not Even By Yourself At Some Later Date. Otherwise You Begin Excusing Yourself. You Must See The Writing As Emerging Like A Long Scroll Of Ink From The Index Finger Of Your Right Hand; You Must See Your Left Hand Erasing It.
Truth
Writing
Hands
Our Biggest Technology That We Ever, Ever Invented Was Articulated Language With Built-out Grammar. It Is That That Allows Us To Imagine Things Far In The Future And Things Way Back In The Past.
Past
Technology
Way
Something Is Unfolding, Being Revealed To Me. I See That There's A Whole World Of Of Girls And Their Doings That Has Been Unknown To Me, And That I Can Be Part Of Without Making Any Effort At All. I Don't Have To Keep Up With Anyone, Run As Fast, Aim As Well, Make Loud Explosive Noises, Decode Messages, Die On Cue. I Don't Have To Think About Whether I Do These Things Well, As Well As A Boy. All I Have To Do Is Sit On The Floor And Cut Frying Pans Our Of The Eaton's Catalogue With Embroidery Scissors, And Say I've Done It Badly.
Girl
Running
Cutting
Plato Said That Poets Should Be Excluded From The Ideal Republic Because They Are Such Liars. I Am A Poet, And I Affirm That This Is True. About No Subject Are Poets Tempted To Lie So Much As About Their Own Lives; I Know One Of Them Who Has Floated At Least Five Versions Of His Autobiography, None Of Them True. I Of Course - Being Also A Novelist - Am A Much More Truthful Person Than That. But Since Poets Lie, How Can You Believe Me?
Plato
Liars
Lying
Science And Fiction Both Begin With Similar Questions: What If? Why? How Does It All Work? But They Focus On Different Areas Of Life On Earth.
Focus
What If
Doe
Farewells Can Be Shattering, But Returns Are Surely Worse. Solid Flesh Can Never Live Up To The Bright Shadow Cast By Its Absence. Time And Distance Blur The Edges; Then Suddenly The Beloved Has Arrived, And It's Noon With Its Merciless Light, And Every Spot And Pore And Wrinkle And Bristle Stands Clear.
Life
Distance
Farewell
... Remember That Forgiveness Too Is A Power. To Beg For It Is A Power, And To Withold Or Bestow It Is A Power, Perhaps The Greatest.
Remember
A Prison Does Not Only Lock Its Inmates Inside, It Keeps All Others Out. Her Strongest Prison Is Of Her Own Construction.
Doe
Locks
Inmates
He Was Deciding Whether To Cut Her Throat Or Love Her Forever.
Cutting
Forever
Throat
Human Understanding Is Fallible, And We See Through A Glass, Darkly. Any Religion Is A Shadow Of God. But The Shadows Of God Are Not God.
Glasses
Understanding
Shadow
When They're Gone Out Of His Head, These Words, They'll Be Gone, Everywhere, Forever. As If They Had Never Been.
Forever
Gone
Ifs
Everybody Acts As If They Have Free Will. They Act As If They Can Make These Decisions; Do They Know They Don't? I Think There's Been Some Back-down On The Idea That Everything Is Determined.
Thinking
Ideas
Decision
An Eye For An Eye Only Leads To More Blindness.
Inspirational
Life
Eye
This Is How The Girl Who Couldn't Speak And The Man Who Couldn't See Fell In Love.
Girl
Men
Speak
The Best Way Of Keeping A Secret Is To Pretend There Isn't One.
Keeping Secrets
Secret
Way
I Don't Want To Look At Something That Determines Me So Completely.
Looks
Want
Handmaids Tale
I Grew Up Amongst Biologists.
Grew Up
Grew
Biologist
The Society In 'the Handmaid's Tale' Is A Throwback To The Early Puritans Whom I Studied Extensively At Harvard Under Perry Miller, To Whom The Book Is Dedicated.
Book
Puritan
Harvard
Of Course (said Oryx), Having A Money Value Was No Substitute For Love. Every Child Should Have Love, Every Person Should Have It. . . . But Love Was Undependable, It Came And Then It Went, So It Was Good To Have A Money Value, Because Then At Least Those Who Wanted To Make A Profit From You Would Make Sure You Were Fed Enough And Not Damaged Too Much. Also There Were Many Who Had Neither Love Nor A Money Value, And Having One Of These Things Was Better Than Having Nothing.
Children
Should Have
Too Much
Speculative Fiction Encompasses That Which We Could Actually Do. Sci-fi Is That Which We're Probably Not Going To See.
Fiction
Sci Fi
Speculative Fiction
I Didn't Want Him To Become Gray And Multi-dimensional And Complicated Like Everyone Else. Was Every Heathcliff A Linton In Disguise?
Want
Complicated
Heathcliff
A Rat In A Maze Is Free To Go Anywhere, As Long As It Stays Inside The Maze.
Long
Mazes
Rats
More Of Your Brain Is Involved When Reading Than It Is When You Watch Television... Because You Are Supplying Just About Everything... You're A Creator.
Reading
Creativity
Brain
We Battled In Secret, Undeclared, And After A While I No Longer Fought Back Because I Never Won. The Only Defense Was Flight, Invisibility.
Secret
Defense
Invisibility
Without The Protection Of Surliness And Levity, All Children Would Be Crushed By The Past—the Past Of Others, Loaded Onto Their Shoulders. Selfishness Is Their Saving Grace.
Children
Past
Grace
When Demons Are Required Someone Will Always Be Found To Supply The Part, And Whether You Step Forward Or Are Pushed Is All The Same In The End.
Steps
Demon
Ends
Beginnings Are Sudden, But Also Insidious. They Creep Up On You Sideways, They Keep To The Shadows, They Lurk Unrecognized. Then, Later, They Spring.
Spring
Shadow
Sideways
She Knows Herself To Be At The Mercy Of Events, And She Knows By Now That Events Have No Mercy.
Events
Mercy
Knows
The Future Of Narrative? Built In, Part Of The Human Template. Not Going Away. The Future Of The Codex Book, With Pages And So Forth? A Platform For Transmitting Narratives.
Book
Going Away
Narrative
Women Are Human Beings, And Human Beings Are A Very Mixed Lot. I've Always Been Against The Idea That Women Were Victorian Angels, That They Could Do No Wrong. I've Always Thought It Was Horseshit And Does Nobody Any Good. Remember, Lizzie Borden Got Off Largely Because The Cultural Agenda Had Convinced People That Women Were Morally Superior To Men, So Lizzie Borden Was "incapable" Of Taking The Ax And Giving Her Mother 40 Whacks.
Mother
Angel
Men
­do Back Exercises. Pain Is Distracting.
Pain
Writing
Exercise
Writing... Is An Act Of Faith: I Believe It's Also An Act Of Hope, The Hope That Things Can Get Better Than They Are.
Believe
Writing
Get Better
I Learned To Read Very Early So I Could Read The Comics, Which I Then Started To Draw.
Draws
The Use Of "religion" As An Excuse To Repress The Freedom Of Expression And To Deny Human Rights Is Not Confined To Any Country Or Time.
Country
Rights
Expression
There Would Be No Sherlock Holmes If It Were Not For Serial Publication.
Would Be
Holmes
Publication
You Need A Certain Amount Of Nerve To Be A Writer.
Needs
Nerves
Certain
As An Artist Your First Loyalty Is To Your Art. Unless This Is The Case, You're Going To Be A Second-rate Artist. I Don't Mean There's Never Any Overlap. You Learn Things In One Area And Bring Them Into Another Area. But Giving A Speech Against Racism Is Not The Same As Writing A Novel. The Object Is Very Clear In The Fight Against Racism; You Have Reasons Why You're Opposed To It. But When You're Writing A Novel, You Don't Want The Reader To Come Out Of It Voting Yes Or No To Some Question. Life Is More Complicated Than That. Reality Simply Consists Of Different Points Of View.
Loyalty
Art
Writing
It's A Lifelong Failing: She Has Never Been Prepared. But How Can You Have A Sense Of Wonder If You're Prepared For Everything? Prepared For The Sunset. Prepared For The Moonrise. Prepared For The Ice Storm. What A Flat Existence That Would Be.
Life
Sunset
Ice
The Scroll Is Coming Back (twitter Is A Scroll.)
Coming Back
Walking Along Past The Store Windows, Into Which She Peers With Her Usual Eagerness, Her Usual Sense That Maybe, Today, She Will Discover Behind Them Something That Will Truly Be Worth Seeing, She Feels As If Her Feet Are Not On Cement At All But On Ice. The Blade Of The Skate Floats, She Knows, On A Thin Film Of Water, Which It Melts By Pressure And Which Freezes Behind It. This Is The Freedom Of The Present Tense, This Sliding Edge.
Past
Feet
Ice
Expectation Isn't The Same As Desire
Expectations
Desire
Money As Such Is, As Oscar Wilde Said, Perfectly Useless. You Can't Eat It, Drink It, Shelter Yourself From The Cold With It, Wear It, Or Make Love With It Unless Deeply Disturbed. In And Of Itself, It Has No Emotions, No Mind, And No Conscience. It Doesn't Put Out Flowers Or Have Children, And It Makes A Lousy Pet. It Has Meaning Only When It Circulates, And Is Exchanged For Other Things; And Money Doesn't Do That For Itself. People Do That, Using Money As A Symbolic Token.
Children
Flower
People
What Am I Living For And What Am I Dying For Are The Same Question.
Dying
I Am Afraid Of Falling Into Hopeless Despair, Over My Wasted Life, And I Am Still Not Sure How It Happened.
Fall
Despair
Hopeless
The Beginning Of Canadian Cultural Nationalism Was Not 'am I Really That Oppressed?' But 'am I Really That Boring?'
Boring
Oppressed
Nationalism
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