Quotes / Know-Nothing Know-It-All

Literature

If someone has 'been around the block a few times', it may mean they didn't have enough sense to just give up and park in the lot.

— Mike Nelson's Mind Over Matters

Do you see a man wise in his own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for him.

—The Bible, Proverbs 26:12

"There are few people in England, I suppose, who have more true enjoyment of music than myself, or a better natural taste. If I had ever learnt, I should have been a great proficient."

—Lady Catherine, Pride and Prejudice

Live-Action TV

Martin: Do you have any medical training?
Gavin Dibbs: Oh, me? No, no, no no...But I read the trades, and you pick things up, don't you?
Martin: No.

—Doc Martin, "Preserve the Romance"

"Well ya see, Norm, it’s like this... A herd of buffalo can only move as fast as the slowest buffalo. And when the herd is hunted, it is the slowest and weakest ones at the back that are killed first. This natural selection is good for the herd as a whole, because the general speed and health of the whole group keeps improving by the regular killing of the weakest members. In much the same way, the human brain can only operate as fast as the slowest brain cells. Excessive intake of alcohol, as we know, kills brain cells. But naturally it attacks the slowest and weakest brain cells first. In this way, regular consumption of beer eliminates the weaker brain cells, making the brain a faster and more efficient machine. That’s why you always feel smarter after a few beers."

—Cliff Clavin, Cheers

Robert: I'll tell you what I've found to be the key to a great marriage...
Raymond: —Says the man who married a stripper, then divorced a stripper, then married a regular person, then hung in there for three whole months.

— Everybody Loves Raymond

Mulder: He just wants some dating advice.
Scully: From whom?
Mulder: Yours truly. Scully? You there?
Scully: Mulder, when was the last time you went on a date?
Mulder: I will talk to you later. (hangs up)

—The X-Files, "The Rain King"

Harold: Welcome to the Experts portion of the show, where we examine those three little words that men find so hard to say...
Studio Audience: I! DON'T! KNOW!

— Intro to every "The Experts" sketch, The Red Green Show

Richie: Wait! I know what we need! Music! Of course! What shall we have? (...) Molière! Molière! He could bash out a tune or two! (mistakenly hums a Vivaldi tune) ...and the other twiddly bits. He was Scottish, you know?

Eddie: Who? Vivaldi?

Richie: No, Eddie! I'm talking about composers! Honestly, it's football, football, football with you, isn't it?!

— Bottom, Culture

Charlie: Look buddy, I know a lot about the law and various other lawyerings, uh, I'm well educated, well versed. I know that situations like this, real-estate wise, they're very complex.
Lawyer: Actually, they're pretty simple. The forms are all standard boilerplate.
Charlie: Okay. Well we're all hungry. We'll get to our hot-plates soon enough. Let's talk about the contract here.
Lawyer: I'm sorry, I forgot. Where did you go to law school again?
Charlie: Well I could ask you that very same question.
Lawyer: I went to Harvard.
Charlie: Ah, mhm.
Lawyer: How about you? Hm? Uh?
Charlie: I'm pleading the fifth, sir.
Lawyer: I'd advise that you do that.
Charlie: And I'll take that advice into cooperation, alright? Now what say you and I go toe-to-toe on bird-law and see how comes out the victor?
Lawyer: You know, I don't think I'm going to do anything close to that and I can see clearly you know nothing about the law. It seems like you have a tenuous grasp of the English language in general.
Charlie: I, uh, well, filibuster!
Lawyer: Do you.. Do you know what that word means?
Charlie: Ah-yup!
Lawyer: Yeah, whats that mean?
Charlie: uhhhhhhh. AHHHHHHH!!! (proceeds to slam through the door)

— It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia

Music

The man that knows something knows that he knows nothing at all.

— Erykah Badu, "On and On"

Talk like a big business tycoon
You're just a hot air balloon
So no-one gives you a damn
You're just an overgrown schoolboy
Let me tan your hide

— Queen, "Death on Two Legs"

Stand-Up Comedy

"You can't call yourself a 'think tank' if all your ideas are stupid."

—Bill Maher on the Heritage Foundation

"Paula Abdul judging a singing contest is like Christopher Reeve judging a dance contest."

—Chris Rock on American Idol

"What's Dubya doing now? He's a motivational speaker... It's kind of like having Lindsay Lohan as a guidance counselor."

— Robin Williams, Weapons of Self-Destruction

"There's a kind of notion that everyone's opinion is equally valid. My arse! A bloke who's been a professor of dentistry for 40 years doesn't have a debate with some idiot who removes his teeth with string and a door!"

— Dara Ó Briain, "Respectful Insolence"

Video Games

"Too many people have opinions on things they know nothing about. And the more ignorant they are, the more opinions they have."

— Thomas Hildern, Fallout: New Vegas

"Those who think they are all-knowing know nothing of what they do not."

— Zenyatta after killing an enemy Sombra, Overwatch

The Fact Sphere is not defective. Its facts are wholly accurate and very interesting.

— Fact Sphere, Portal 2

"Mourn not for Crispin, a simpleton's idea of a clever man, and a poor man's idea of a rich one."

— Crispin's tombstone, Divinity: Original Sin II

"How's it taste, idiot!? Man, I'm gonna relish this FOREVER! All those times you acted so high and mighty... Well, guess what? You're not!! Face it! You're just as big a dumbass as the rest of us!!"

— Susie upon solving a puzzle that Berdly couldn't figure out, Deltarune

Webcomics

Peasant: We should improve society somewhat.
Mister Gotcha: Yet you participate in society. Curious! I am very intelligent.

—"Mister Gotcha"

Web Original

You can see that insecurity play out on pregame shows week after week in the form of strained laughter... These are all men who must know they're wasting your time, and must therefore inflate themselves on the air in order to hide that fact. Take it from someone who knows: The more that you suspect you're a fraud, the louder you'll talk.

—Drew Magary, "It Took A Blackout To Show You How Truly Useless NFL Broadcasters Are"

Tsoukalos graduated from Ithaca College in Ithaca, New York in 1998 with a degree in communication and sports information. That makes him uniquely qualified to speak on matters concerning the movie Jerry Maguire, but not so much regarding anything else.

—Rational Wiki on UFOlogist Giorgios Tsoukalos

Jeffrey Lyons is the most reliable movie critic in the world... if you do the opposite of everything he says. He is a man so impressively wrong that you would do well to stay as far away from his advice as you can.

—Miles Antwiler on Miracle at St. Anna

You see, this shrieking TV woman began by saying that she is not a doctor or medical professional of any kind, which already had me skeptical about whatever she was going to shout next. But then she delivered her position on why parents shouldn’t vaccinate their children in a much louder voice than my doctor, and it put some serious doubts in my mind. Would someone less sure of herself be able to be quite so loud? It seems unlikely.

—The Onion, "My Doctor Told Me I Should Vaccinate My Children, But Then Someone Much Louder Than My Doctor Told Me I Shouldn’t"

"Trump University" is proof that you can't make words explode, no matter how violently you combine opposites. Donald Trump can lose money in a casino when he owns it. He doesn't learn from his mistakes, he bankrupts or sues them, and the only thing he can teach people is that they shouldn't have given him their money, a lesson his educational dialysis facility taught well.

—Cracked, "5 Reasons Why Donald Trump Is the Biggest Troll Alive"

For weeks now, Nate Silver has been morphing before our eyes into exactly the kind of bloviator he made his name mocking... offering up a mix of bad policy ideas (elite colleges should admit as many legacy students and children of rich donors as they want) and sanctimonious tone policing with the unyielding, over-the-spectacles glare of an imaginary Concerned of Brooklyn Heights.

—Aaron Timms, "The Fall of Nate Silver", The New Republic

In the wild, the VeghEsther typically lurks in the shadows until it sees a less experienced user upon which it can prey. Upon sight, it immediately forces its prey to listen to an incoherent lecture about how a specific Tales game works... These lectures generally would be informative and useful if the information were not completely fabricated and backed up by baseless assumptions. To protect oneself, one must block out all it says, which is, unfortunately, a lot. If it does not leave, one should promptly beg it to stop, which it will likely not do. Then, one may either run screaming with one's tail between one's legs, or flame it and risk a warning. Another way is just ignore him completely and focus on the main topic.

—Namco Tales Wiki

Back when I first started cooking on the internet, there was a self-identified professional chef who used to really love coming at me in the comments - and this is back when I still had a bad habit of indulging that kind of stuff - and anyway, this chef just insisted that salt has this really, really profound effect on the boiling temperature of water for pasta. And I'll never forget what he said. I cited some science indicating that salt doesn't do that much in terms of boil temperature and all that, and he said "I don't care what a scientist tells me. I can see with my own two eyes that when I put the salt in, the water boils harder." I put the salt in, and the water goes whoosh; from this, "Chef" deduced that the salt is making the water a lot hotter, and hotter is better. And I kinda felt the guy's frustration, because here's the problem. Your eyes are really good at telling you whether something is happening; they're not as good at telling you why it's happening.

—Adam Ragusea, When should you salt pasta water? How much?

"it's really interesting that everyone on here who is demonstrably lacking in all actual knowledge of epidemiology, financial markets, or economics has extremely strong opinions on these subjects that they believe with absolute certainty and feel the need to share. fascinating."

— @JohnWinthrop9◊ on Twitter

You know, of course, what the most grating and infuriating human behavior is. It is not when another person is simply being unreasonable. It is when that person is constantly insisting that they are Just Being Reasonable, and wondering why you're acting so crazy and irrational, while they themselves are in fact being extremely goddamn unreasonable. It is not when they are just wrong, but when they top it off by patronizingly explaining your own views to you, purporting to refute them, while not having the faintest understanding of what those views actually are.
Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker is that guy. He thinks many people are very unreasonable, and makes sweeping claims about their irrationality and moral imbecility, but often doesn't bother to listen to what they actually say. While insisting for page upon page on the necessity of rationality, he irrationally caricatures and mocks ideas he hasn't tried to understand. Then, when the people who believe those ideas become upset, he sees this as further proof of their emotion-driven thinking, and becomes even more convinced that he is right. It is a pattern displayed by many of those who are critics of "social justice" and the political left. [...] Pinker, however, takes it to an extreme: Nobody has ever tried to look more Reasonable while being so ignorant and condescending.

—Nathan J. Robinson, "The World's Most Annoying Man", Current Affairs

Western Animation

"I don't need any serving suggestions from you, you barbecue-wrecking, know-nothing know-it-all!"

— Homer Simpson, The Simpsons, "Lisa the Vegetarian"

"Creating scientifical inventions is easy! All you do is slap a bunch of junk together and cross your fingers!"

— Timon, Timon & Pumbaa, "Pig-Malion"

I have approximate knowledge of many things.

—The Demon Cat, Adventure Time

Sandy: Astrology ain't scientific! You can't go spouting off any old cockamamie thing and call it science!
Patrick: Well... but I have a lab coat.

—The Patrick Star Show, "Dr. Smart Science"

Mighty Eagle: I see all, and know all. What are your names?

Chuck: If you know all, why don't you know who we are?

The Angry Birds Movie

Real Life

"You know it's time to sell when shoeshine boys give you stock tips. This bull market is over."

—Joseph P. Kennedy (attributed)

Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance.

— H. L. Mencken

Although it is true that Ms. Kael can hardly resist a restatement, or a repetition, or a meaningless amplification (“ditsey little twitches,” “ruthless no soul monsters”; “incomprehensible bitch,” “obnoxious smartass”); although she seems at times to have a form of prose hypochondria, palpating herself all over to see if she has a thought, and publishing every word of the process by which she checks to see whether or not she has one; it is also, equally, true that she can hardly resist any form of hyperbole, superlative, exaggeration...

—Renate Adler, "House Critic"

To the left of the fireplace, a chiaroscuro Neapolitan painting by Viola. "Typical of early eighteenth-century South German painting," boomed the journalist Joe Alsop. As Joe was an expert on everything, he was generally wrong on everything, particularly on his subject, politics. For thirty years we were losing to Communism, according to Joe.

—Gore Vidal, Palimpsest

"Somebody's gotta stand up to experts."

—Don McLeroy, former chairman of the Texas Board of Education

In saying I have 'no training' he has lied. I have a Cambridge degree in classical architecture.

—Viscount Christopher Monckton, climatologist[?]

"He's the worst kind of idiot: the idiot who thinks he's a genius."

—Tom Jackson, ESPN, on then-St. Louis Rams coach Mike Martz

The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge.

—Daniel Boorstin

"Those who know do not speak. Those who speak do not know."

— Laozi

"I would rather hire a man with enthusiasm than a man who knows everything."

— John D. Rockefeller

"He who knows all the answers has not been asked all the questions."

— Confucius

"It is not enough to wear the mantle of Galileo; that you be persecuted by an unkind establishment. You must also be right."

— Miscellaneous (attributed to Robert L. Park)

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