Charles Bukowski said it best:
doubt is the burden of the thoughtful. Confidence, unfortunately, often belongs to the clueless.
doubt is the burden of the thoughtful. Confidence, unfortunately, often belongs to the clueless.
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Solution lies in the space between the doubtful and the confident.
Bertrand said it better.
I think this was Bertrand Russell?
Kurt Vonnegut
Mit dem Wissen wachst der Zweifel.—
Doubt grows up with knowledge
‘The best lack all conviction,
While the worst are full of passionate intensity’
Everyone need each other!
--Annie Savoy
"the best lack all conviction,
while the worst are full of passionate intensity"
Suggestion to everyone in 2025: Read more Bukowski!
We only know so far,.. and every time we go 1 tiny baby step forward, we think again that we know it all now. and live by it.
https://quoteinvestigator.com/2015/03/04/self-doubt/#google_vignette
"The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity."
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Saw it on Facebook
Plato, I believe.
AND
👇this
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
...
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
English prof Robert B Parker this poem to title 2 of his Spenser novels. Interesting Wikipedia article.
“The fundamental cause of the trouble is that in the modern world the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt.” 1932
But, weirdly I'm capable of making statements with such certainty that some people might actually believe me.
I try to avoid that behaviour, I don't want to manipulate.
"The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity."
"The Second Coming" 1919
“The best lack all conviction, while the worst
are full of passionate intensity”.
At the end of the poem Yeats asks, “what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?” Change “Bethlehem” to “White House” and see 2025.
“I don’t know, but I’ll fight like hell to help those who are affected.”
"Doubt is not a pleasant condition. But certainty is an absurd one."
- Voltaire, letter to Frederick the Great, 28 November 1770
“No, but i seem to feel better when they’re not around.”
-Henry Chinaski
Does that mean I became an idiot?
Look, you planted doubt inme.
I'm intelligent again!
Socrates (or one of those fellows).
"The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity."
Good engineering companies do FMEAs, so all doubts are voiced. In politics its called an investigative commission.
Confidence is quiet.
Arrogance x ignorance = maga….
If intelligent people doubt their own conclusions, they're not that intelligent.
The problem is stupid people keep vilifying knowledge because they need to be able to be successful when they do stupid things.
That's what the "land of opportunity" means today.
At best, if Bukowski ever did write or say that, he was paraphrasing a poem published in 1920 by W. B. Yeats. It's remarkable how few people seem to know this, bc the poem was taught to generations of schoolkids.
Full quote: "The fundamental cause of trouble in the world today is that the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt."
The connotation of "cocksure" lands viscerally for me these days...
Will have to consider that but requires giving up painting.
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
.....
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43290/the-second-coming
Many ultra successful people in the business world are not intelligent but rather sociopathic.
i think intelligent folks weigh rewards with effects on others and say “would be great for me, but it’s unethical, so no”.
substitute SOCIOPATHS for stupid ones. Sociopaths say “it’s great for me, so yes”. Ethics & peripheral effects never even enter the equation.
William Butler Yeats
slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?”
#Portrait #Art
by my father
Carl Köhler (1919-2006).
Bukowski said it so very poetically though.
—Mark Twain
-Confucius
Just Open you're Fucken Mouth and remove All Doubts Of unfortunate thoughtful Burdens often mistaken hate by love ..🖕🖕🚬💨🐔
🙄hmmph ..wonder why
Yes im dislexic And well disliked .
Or, could it be rather more nuanced ?
🤔
And vice versa. I think it’s indiscriminate and individualistic.