"There is no one thoroughly despicable. We cannot descend much lower than an idiot; and an idiot has some advantages over a wise man"
About this Quote
Hazlitt’s jab lands because it refuses the comfort of moral absolutism. “There is no one thoroughly despicable” sounds like a humanist balm, then he undercuts it with a darker, funnier claim: the floor of human worth isn’t evil, it’s idiocy. In Hazlitt’s hands, “idiot” isn’t just a slur; it’s a category that exposes how society distributes sympathy. We can hate the villain because we grant him agency. The idiot, by contrast, slips the courtroom logic of blame. He is, perversely, protected by his incapacity.
The second line twists the knife: “an idiot has some advantages over a wise man.” Hazlitt is not romanticizing stupidity so much as mocking the burdens of intelligence. The wise man sees consequences, absorbs embarrassment, calculates social risk, and becomes self-policing. The idiot is unencumbered. He can be happy without reasons, bold without strategy, untouched by the corrosive awareness that Hazlitt, a professional observer of human vanity, knew too well.
Context matters: Hazlitt wrote in a period obsessed with character, improvement, and rational self-mastery, when “good sense” was treated as both moral duty and social currency. His contrarian streak punctures that Enlightenment confidence. The subtext is a critique of respectability: wisdom can be a form of captivity, while stupidity can function as an accidental refuge. It’s a line designed to make the reader feel briefly superior, then realize Hazlitt is laughing at that impulse too.
The second line twists the knife: “an idiot has some advantages over a wise man.” Hazlitt is not romanticizing stupidity so much as mocking the burdens of intelligence. The wise man sees consequences, absorbs embarrassment, calculates social risk, and becomes self-policing. The idiot is unencumbered. He can be happy without reasons, bold without strategy, untouched by the corrosive awareness that Hazlitt, a professional observer of human vanity, knew too well.
Context matters: Hazlitt wrote in a period obsessed with character, improvement, and rational self-mastery, when “good sense” was treated as both moral duty and social currency. His contrarian streak punctures that Enlightenment confidence. The subtext is a critique of respectability: wisdom can be a form of captivity, while stupidity can function as an accidental refuge. It’s a line designed to make the reader feel briefly superior, then realize Hazlitt is laughing at that impulse too.
Quote Details
| Topic | Wisdom |
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