Naive People Quotes & Sayings

There is a clear goal and it isn't to make money. The goal is to desperately try to make the best products we can. We are not naive - if you trust it, people like it, they buy it and we make money. This is a consequence. — Jonathan Ive

The field (of filmmaking) is suddenly sexy, ... so it's deluged with these wannabes who say 'I don't want to be a secret agent, I'll be a filmmaker.' I think a lot of people are really kind of naive. — John Landis

Evil people rely on the acquiescence of naive good people to allow them to continue with their evil. — Stuart Aken

Because I grew up with this naive expectation of people doing right, I get shocked by every little violation. — Dave Eggers

Too many people get lost in the game of having a good time and being naive about things. — Steve Brown

Naive people are, more or less by definition, unaware that they're naive. — David Foster Wallace

When I was getting my education, I fell in love with the writings of Peter Drucker. He was my hero. I had a naive belief that when I became a manager, it was going to be like Peter Drucker's books. That is, I was going to be the effective executive. I was going to talk to people about their goals. I was going to help them actualize. — Guy Kawasaki

People who are too optimistic seem annoying. This is an unfortunate misinterpretation of what an optimist really is.
An optimist is neither naive, nor blind to the facts, nor in denial of grim reality. An optimist believes in the optimal usage of all options available, no matter how limited. As such, an optimist always sees the big picture. How else to keep track of all that's out there? An optimist is simply a proactive realist.
An idealist focuses only on the best aspects of all things (sometimes in detriment to reality); an optimist strives to find an effective solution. A pessimist sees limited or no choices in dark times; an optimist makes choices.
When bobbing for apples, an idealist endlessly reaches for the best apple, a pessimist settles for the first one within reach, while an optimist drains the barrel, fishes out all the apples and makes pie.
Annoying? Yes. But, oh-so tasty! — Vera Nazarian

Some people think it's naive to think we can make love our new bottom line. What I believe is naive is thinking human civilization as we know it will survive another two hundred years if we do not. — Marianne Williamson

As a general rule, people, even the wicked, are much more naive and simple-hearted than we supposed. And we ourselves are, too. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

In most cases, people, even wicked people, are far more naive and simple-hearted than one generally assumes. And so are we. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

People are naive about such things, and they would rather write them off as evil than attempt to understand them. An unfortunate truth, but a truth nonetheless. — Erin Morgenstern

Maybe it's naive to say, but it almost seems like, in the past, people tried to sell you something you would actually need, like a hammer or a broom or a toothbrush. But now there's this notion that they can sell you anything. And all they have to do is convince you that you need it. — Tracy Chapman

Just after Kim Jong Il's death, the official news agency put out an article saying that under Kim Jong Il's rule, the people had been like naive children without a care in the world. — Brian Reynolds Myers

These days there are a lot of people who just want to be famous. I think that comes from a naive place, because those people generally don't know what it's like. — Catherine Keener

I think that I was slightly naive. I thought that if I showed people the beauty of the Arctic and the beauty of the polar bears that they would care so much that they would stand up and try to make a change. — Lewis Gordon Pugh

That propensity of lifting every problem from the plane of the understandable by means of some sort of mystic expression, is very Russian. I knew her well enough to have discovered her scorn for all the practical forms of political liberty known to the western world. I suppose one must be a Russian to understand Russian simplicity, a terrible corroding simplicity in which mystic phrases clothe a naive and hopeless cynicism. I think sometimes that the psychological secret of the profound difference of that people consists in this, that they detest life, the irremediable life of the earth as it is, whereas we westerners cherish it with perhaps an equal exaggeration of its sentimental value. But this is a digression indeed ... — Joseph Conrad

People have murdered each other, in massive wars and guerilla actions, for many centuries, and still murder each other in the present, over Ideologies and Religions which, stated as propositions, appear neither true nor false to modern logicians- meaningless propositions that look meaningful to the linguistically naive. — Robert Anton Wilson

I don't think these men know that it's illegal,"she said. "They're very liberal and they have daughters and I think we should talk to them."The gruff-voiced woman barked back, "Don't be a naive little girl. People who have power don't like to give up that power. — Lynn Povich

I think a lot of people may have a unique insight or some idea that they feel could be a great solution for a particular problem, but for some reason never have a chance to try or never have the courage or maybe the self-doubt. Really, it's best just to remain naive and continue to work on things and see if people have the same problems. — Chad Hurley

It is naive to believe that a steady diet of blatant immorality, played out nightly in our living rooms, has no effect on people. I am always curious when individuals insist that what they watch on television or in movie theaters doesn't affect them ... Are we really to believe that hours, leading to years, of television viewing will not affect attitudes about everything from family life to appropriate sexual relations? — Gordon B. Hinckley

When I saw Arnold say that he didn't need a union, because people in his position don't need it, I thought, this is a very naive way to present yourself. It's also kinda dumb about making movies. It doesn't realize how the union movement even helps the star. — Warren Beatty

People were so naive about plants, Ellie thought. They just chose plants for appearance, as they would choose a picture for the wall. It never occurred to them that plants were actually living things, busily performing all the living functions of respiration, ingestion, excretion, reproduction
and defense. — Michael Crichton

Whatever one thinks of President George W. Bush and his unilateralist crew, most of the people laughing at us do not think we are evil. What they think is that we are naive and incompetent. — Richard Reeves

I was born pretty lucky, an Aryan Australian, friendly girl, that gives you a lot of advantages in the world. I was unaware of people's fights or struggles for equality. I was really naive. — Sia Furler

I'm not naive, I know that bad things happen, but most people do the right thing most of the time. Most people wake up and they try to do what's right for their relationships, whether it's marriage or family. They try to do what's right for their job. They try to make a better world for those around them, and that's what I want to write about. — Nicholas Sparks

I am naive enough to read incessantly because I cannot, on my own, get to know enough people profoundly enough. — Harold Bloom

Maybe it's because I'm a little naive, but I do like to think that there aren't really very many truly bad people in the world. I think that everybody has their reasons for what they do, and if you really look through their eyes, you could probably understand them. — Stephenie Meyer

It was my duty to shoot the enemy, and I don't regret it. My regrets are for the people I couldn't save: Marines, soldiers, buddies. I'm not naive, and I don't romanticize war. The worst moments of my life have come as a SEAL. But I can stand before God with a clear conscience about doing my job. — Chris Kyle

Too often people view idealists as naive. — Jacqueline Novogratz

From naive, lonely princess to winner of hearts and minds less than a month, Jasmine managed to make people feel at ease with her while still maintaining her rule as leader. — Liz Braswell

I can not think for others or without others,nor can others think for me. Even if the people's thinking is superstitious or naive,it is only as they rethink their assumptions in action that they can change. Producing and acting upon their own ideas - not consuming those of others. — Paulo Freire

I'm not interested in building wealth, which is kind of naive and probably frowned on, living in America. It's something that people don't necessarily understand, but if I die poor, I die poor. — Richard C. Armitage

Because he believed in honesty and integrity, my father believed that others did as well. He believed in human decency and assumed others were just like him. He believed that most people, when given the choice, would do what was right, even when it was hard, and he believed that good almost always triumphed over evil. He wasn't naive, though. — Nicholas Sparks

I have to wonder if you're not being slightly naive here. I mean, are you saying that you want nothing for people? You have no motives? Everybody has motives. Name the person, the circumstances, I'll name the motive. Even saints have motives
to feel like saints, probably ... But still, the point of any relationship is obtaining something from another person. — Tom Rachman

The idea that if people are just friendly and demonstrate they want peace, that will be answered with good will - that is really naive. — Ayaan Hirsi Ali

When Hillary Clinton ran against Senator [Barack] Obama she thought him naive because he thought it was a good idea to talk to our enemies. I think those are exactly the people you have to talk to and you have to negotiate with. — Bernie Sanders

I was naive enough to believe it would be enough to replace the government. Well, I made fun of the people in the government and then realized that even if we got rid of them, they were replaced by exactly the same guys. — Damon Albarn

And Petschek had asked - because he was genuinely puzzled by this - why so many people, Americans especially, seemed to feel that happiness was an entitlement. By dint of his own experiences as a refugee and a wanderer, Petschek found the notion to be strangely naive and immature - especially here at the bottom of a chasm whose ramparts offered such irrefutable testimony not only to the smallness of human affairs but also to the universe's implacable indifference to those hopes and longings. Yet — Kevin Fedarko

You think one man's death forgives a world of sins? How naive can you be? My edicts require people to be good to each other. To obey the laws that I sent to Moses. Everybody breaks those laws every day. That's millions upon millions of sins every day. Why would I send my son, no matter how weak I think he was, to be killed for people who are not worthy of my respect? — Dylan Callens

Immediately on my arrival at the Project I began studying linguistics, because that seemed imperative to me. I was soon amazed to learn that, when it came to the primary, most fundamental concepts in this field - a field supposedly precise, quantified, mathematized - there was absolutely no agreement. Why, the authorities could not come together on so basic and preliminary a question as what exactly morphemes and phonemes were. But when I asked the appropriate people, in all sincerity, how in the world they could accomplish anything, given this state of affairs, my naive question was taken as a sneering insinuation. I — Stanislaw Lem

For a number of years, I'd been around the kind of people who financed movies and the kind of people who are there to make the deals for movies. But I'd always had this naive idea that everybody wants to make movies as good as they can be, which is stupid. — David Fincher

Positive thinking is no longer for drifters, dreamers and the perpetually naive. People who think positively see more opportunities, perform better, take more often correct and sound decisions, have more self-confidence, maintain better relations and have more trust placed in them — Herman Van Rompuy

Was it a risky move? Yes, but at that moment, the reason why I came out is I thought it wasn't going to be a big deal. Maybe I was naive. Maybe I thought it was 2014, and people will understand that there's gay NFL players. There's gay athletes everywhere. But I was clearly wrong. It was a huge deal. — Michael Sam

I think a lot of times we don't pay enough attention to people with a positive attitude because we assume they are naive or stupid or unschooled. — Amy Adams

Rationality belongs to the cool observer, but because of the stupidity of the average man, he follows not reason, but faith, and the naive faith requires necessary illusion and emotionally potent oversimplifications which are provided by the myth-maker to keep ordinary person on course. — Reinhold Niebuhr

When you are honest, loving, and kind people may think that you are weak, naive, and a fool but be loving, kind, and honest anyway. — Debasish Mridha

But, as the results presented in this book (and others) show, we are all far less rational in our decision making than standard economic theory assumes. Our irrational behaviors are neither random nor senseless-they are systematic and predictable. We all make the same types of mistakes over and over, because of the basic wiring of our brains. So wouldn't it make sense to modify standard economics and move away from naive psychology, which often fails the tests of reason, introspection, and-most important-empirical scrutiny?

Wouldn't economics make a lot more sense if it were based on how people actually behave, instead of how they should behave? As I said in the Introduction, that simple idea is the basis of behavioral economics, an emerging field focused on the (quite intrusive) idea that people do not always behave rationally and that they often make mistakes in their decisions. — Dan Ariely

I never accepted the plain truth that I myself could hold no interest, no appeal, for the cool, gracious old lady. It was a kind of rebuff that perhaps Americans, very warm, generous, naive people, are especially attuned to. I explained it to myself. Spiritually, we are fresh children, unable to realize that other peoples are infinitely older and wearier than we. We do not yet know much world-pain, except vicariously. Europeans who grow bored or exasperated with our enthusiasm are not simply feeling superior to us; there is also tolerance and understanding, which we are as yet incapable of recognizing. — M.F.K. Fisher

Belief in one god, praying, charity, the five pillars, ethical moral objectives and messages in the Koran, the history of Islam. There are basic tenants in Islam that we universally believe in but I think it's very naive to think that Sharia, that legal rulings are derived in a vacuum, that people do not bring their own histories and politics and social pledges to bear when they interpret the Koran. — Mark Durie

What naive garbage. People don't want freedom anymore
even those to whom freedom is a kind of religion are afraid of it, like trembling acolytes who make sacrifices to some pagan god. People want their governments to keep secrets from them. They want the hand of law to be brutal. They are so terrified by their own power that they will vote to have it taken out of their hands. Look at America. Look at the sharia states. Freedom is a dead philosophy, Alif. The world is returning to its natural state, to the rule of the weak by the strong. Young as you are, it's you who are out of touch, not me. — G. Willow Wilson

I don't care about convincing the people who think I'm naive or an idiot. I'm interested in how do I inspire the people who are open-minded that there's a different way of seeing the world. — Simon Sinek

We are encouraged to see honest people as naive, as potential losers. — Bell Hooks

Before Enron, I think people were a bit more naive about the way things worked, and I think Enron pulled the curtain back on unsavoury practices that turned out to be a lot more widespread. — Bethany McLean

Those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music." I love this quote because I want to be one of those people who dances to God's invisible music - that invisible reality where God works in response to His children's prayers, where angels dance, and where heaven prepares a glorious banquet for those just naive enough to believe in a Hero who will take us to a heaven where the celebration will never end. Our God delights to find even one such person. Own your sense of wonder, and the celebration of the stars and the unseen blessings of your life will always bring you a secret delight, an unquenchable song, and a bubbling joy that this world will never be able to quench. — Sally Clarkson

I was there to get a Ph.D. in English literature. That's not true. I was there to read a lot of books and to discuss them with bright, insightful, book-loving people, an expectation that I pretty quickly learned was about as silly as it could be.
Certainly there were other people who loved books, I'm sure there were, but whoever had notified them ahead of time that loving books was not the point, was, in fact, a hopelessly counterproductive and naive approach to the study of literature, neglected to notify me. It turned out that the point was to dissect a book like a fetal pig in biology class or to break its back with a single sentence or to bust it open like a milkweek pod and say, "See? All along it was only fluff," and then scatter it into oblivion with one tiny breath. — Marisa De Los Santos

Our goal is to desperately make the best products we can. We're not naive. We trust that if we're successful and we make good products, that people will like them. And we trust that if people like them, they'll buy them. And we figured out the operation and we're effective. We know what we're doing, so we'll make money, but it's a consequence. — Jonathan Ive

Hope is for people who can't see the Truth. — Jeff Lindsay

Balance in life is the key, as Aristotle taught us. Nobody likes a naive Pollyanna, but neither do we like to be around people who are constantly complaining and finding fault. — Mark Skousen

We look at the ancient Greeks with their gods on a mountain top throwing lightning bolts and say, 'Those ancient Greeks. They were so silly. So primitive and naive. Not like our religions. We have burning bushes talking to people and guys walking on water. We're ... sophisticated.' — Paul Provenza

Conservatives and those on the right are usually willing to settle for thinking themselves correct on political issues; those on the left have always needed to feel not so much that they are correct but that they are also good. Disagree with someone on the right and he is likely to think you obtuse, wrong, sentimental, foolish, a dope; disagree with someone one the left and he is more likely to think you selfish, cold-hearted, a sellout, evil-in league with the devil, he might say, if he didn't think religious terminology too coarse for our secular age. To this day one will hear of people who fell for Communism in a big way let off the hook because they were sincere; if one's heart is in the right place, nothing else matters, even if one's naive opinions made it easier for tyrants to murder millions. — Joseph Epstein

While we welcome people of all faiths in America we cannot be so naive as to expect all countries to do the same. But we cannot allow their cultural mores to snuff out our religious freedoms or the freedom of women to have equal rights. — Michael Huffington

Most people feel safe when assume no peeper.
That's the magic of holy privacy. — Toba Beta

It is naive to think that self-assertiveness is easy. To live self-assertively
which means to live authentically
is an act of high courage. That is why so many people spend the better part of their lives in hiding
from others and also from themselves. — Nathaniel Branden

I want to hear raucous music, to see faces, to brush against bodies, to drink fiery Benedictine. Beautiful women and handsome men arouse fierce desires in me. I want to dance. I want drugs. I want to know perverse people, to be intimate with them. I never look at naive faces. I want to bite into life, and to be torn by it. — Anais Nin

With me, what you see is what you get. Yes, call me naive, but I love life. I am happy, and for that, I make no apologies. I do like to see the best in people, and when someone is nice to my face, I tend to believe them. — Joyce Giraud

Because there's something about him - there's always been something about him that's intrigued me and I don't understand it. I wish I could ignore it but I can't. Because I look at him and wonder if maybe it's just me? Maybe I'm naive?
But I see layers, shades of gold and green and a person who's never been given a chance to be human and I wonder if I'm just as cruel as my own oppressors if I decide that society is right, that some people are too far gone, that sometimes you can't turn back, that there are people in this world who don't deserve a second chance and I can't I can't I can't
I can't help but disagree. — Tahereh Mafi

Douglas, you have an incredible capacity for missing the point. Will you listen to me, just for once? The debate does not matter. It's not about the issues. Albie might have been naive or ridiculous or pompous or all of those things, but you apologized. You said you were embarassed by him. You took the side of a bunch of arms-dealers! Bloddy bastard arms-dealers against your son - our son - and that was wrong, it was the wrong thing to do, because in a fight you side with the people you love. That's just how it is. — David Nicholls

They didn't beat me up too bad. I could tell they didn't want to put me in the hospital or anything. Mostly they just wanted to remind me that I was a traitor. And they wanted to steal my candy and the money. It wasn't much. Maybe ten bucks in coins and dollar bills. But that money, and the idea of giving it to poor people, had made me feel pretty good about myself. I was a poor kid raising money for other poor people. It made me feel almost honorable. But I just felt stupid and naive after those guys took off. — Sherman Alexie

Let us never forget, tyrants have succeeded throughout history because good, naive people just stood by and did nothing. — Enrico Lamet

I think it's important for people to realize that we were all young, all naive, and also we had lived in a time that had magic. — Patti Smith

This isn't a spotless life. There is much ahead, my immaculate little peach. And there is no way to say it other than to say it: marriage is indeed this horribly complex thing for which you appear to be ill prepared and about which you seem to be utterly naive. That's okay. A lot of people are. You can learn along the way. A good way to start would be to let fall your notions about "perfect couples." It's really such an impossible thing to either perceive honestly in others or live up to when others believe it about us. It does nothing but box some people in and shut other people out, and it ultimately makes just about everyone feel like shit. A perfect couple is a wholly private thing. No one but the two people in the perfect relationship know for certain whether they're in one. Its only defining quality is that it's composed of two people who feel perfectly right about sharing their lives with each other, even during the hard times. — Cheryl Strayed

I had no idea what to expect moving to New York. It's embarrassing to say, but I didn't even realize that people bought contemporary art ... that people actually paid for it ... I know that's really dumb. I was really naive. I had no idea artists made money. — Wade Guyton

It is a political fight between a group of well-financed, well-organized people whose freedom, livelihood, finances, reputations, or liberty is being threatened by disclosures of child sexual abuse and--on the other hand--a group of well-meaning, ill-organized, underfinanced, and often terribly naive academics who expect fair play. — Anna C. Salter

Alzheimer's is a horrible thing. Some people are naive about it. They think, 'Oh it's just your memory,' but my mother was in terrible pain. Your body closes down. She didn't know if she'd eaten or if she wanted to eat. She couldn't remember how to walk. Towards the end, she didn't know us. It came gradually, then it got worse. — Bonnie Tyler

Break a bone..and as the broken part heals it becomes the strongest part in it ... get hit by a virus, survive that and "supposedly" it can never get u again ... observe how ur skin that gets rubbed on a surface often becomes thicker and more rough with time ... remember how naive you were before and with each incident and accident with people that you've had ..it brought you to the "knowing better" person you are now ... you cant be stronger..if life doesn't try you every now and then ... and after each trial..it promises a stronger more immune version of you — Eman Farouk

Building codes are a good thing. People who throw rocks at inspectors are being naive. It's a lot like police officers; we want them around unless they stop us for a ticket. It's the same with inspectors. — Dan Phillips

But he did love people; he lived all his life, it seemed, with complete faith in people, and yet no one ever considered him either naive or a simpleton. There was something in him that told one, that convinced one (and it was so all his life afterwards) that he did not want to be a judge of men, that he would not take judgment upon himself and would not condemn anyone for anything. It seemed, even, that he accepted everything without the least condemnation, though often with deep sadness. Moreover, in this sense he even went so far that no one could either surprise or frighten him, and this even in his very early youth. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

It's no accident that most ads are pitched to people in their 20s and 30s. Not only are they so much cuter than their elders...but they are less likely to have gone through the transformative process of cleaning out their deceased parents' stuff. Once you go through that, you can never look at *your* stuff in the same way. You start to look at your stuff a little postmortemistically. If you've lived more than two decades as an adult consumer, you probably have quite the accumulation, even if you're not a hoarder...I'm not saying I never buy stuff, because I absolutely do. Maybe I'm less naive about the joys of accumulation. — Roz Chast

But at a certain point, and I don't really know ... people have asked me this. I don't know exactly what it was that pushed me towards directing, but I think it was a naive notion that if I directed I would be able to play all the roles. A kind of greed. — Peter Bogdanovich

I realized how naive I was. My aunt Tina was right: this stuff does exist, and it does hurt people, and although there are lots of people at Liberty who condemn violence against gays
including Dr. Falwell himself
the number of students who want to give them the Goliath treatment isn't zero. In fact, the number who live in my room isn't zero. — Kevin Roose

What you don't get necessarily at drama school is a gigantic mix of people. At university, there's people from every social background, and you get to go through that period of being naive and not quite sure who you're going to be. — Tom Riley

-"Do you know what it's like to be condemned to love?"
-"But isn't it always like that?" Svetlana asked, trembling with indignation. "When people love each other, when they find each other out of thousands and millions of people. It's always destiny!"
Once again I sensed that infinitely naive girl in her, the girl who couldn't hate anything except herself. The girl who was already beginning to disappear.
-"No, Sveta, haven't you ever heard love compared to a flower?"
-"Yes."
-"A flower can be grown, Sveta. But it can be bought too, or given as a gift."
-"Did Anton buy it?"
-"No," I said, a bit too sharply. "It was a gift. From destiny."
-"What difference does that make? If it is love?"
-"Sveta, cut flowers are beautiful, but they don't live for long. They're already dying, even the ones that are carefully placed in a crystal vase and given fresh water. — Sergei Lukyanenko

I've inspected your profile. You are not stupid. Misguided, idealistic, naive, certainly, but not stupid. You must know how societies work. You must at least have an inkling. They work on force, power and coercion. People don't behave themselves because they're nice. That's the liberal fallacy. People behave themselves because if they don't they'll be punished. All this is known. It isn't even debatable. Civilisation after civilisation, society after society, species after species, all show the same pattern. Society is control: control is reward and punishment. Reward is being allowed to partake of the fruits of that society and, as a general but not unbreakable rule, not being punished without cause. — Anonymous

Politics preys on people's naivety — Bangambiki Habyarimana

The common liberal orthodoxy that living close to the land leads to eco-awareness is historically naive, considering that Mesopotamia, northern Africa, and the Mayan civilization were ruined by people who had lived there quite a long while. — Gregory Benford

Biased people are seen as prejudicial and unfair, arrogant and overly confident of their position. Nobody wants to be identified as someone who is biased or opinionated. But make no mistake about it, all of us have a point of view; all of us hold opinions and ideas that color the way we see the world. Anyone who tells you that he (or she) is completely objective and devoid of presuppositions has another more important problem: that person is either astonishingly naive or a liar. — J. Warner Wallace

These people yapped loudly of race, of race consciousness, of race pride, and yet suppressed its most delightful manifestations, love of color, joy of rhythmic motion, naive, spontaneous laughter. Harmony, radiance, and simplicity, all the essentials of spiritual beauty in the race they had marked for destructions. — Nella Larsen

I wanted to save myself from that drug that contaminates the body and veins and not from the other drug, you know that drug that enters through your eyes and your private area, the one that settles into your heart to screw it up, that damn drug that naive people call love. The stupid drug that's just as dangerous and deadly as the one that you find on the streets wrapped up in little packages. — Jorge Franco

To be naive and easily deceived is impermissible, today more than ever, when the prevailing untruths may lead to a catastrophe because they blind people to real dangers and real possibilities. — Erich Fromm

How naive Lore had been, despite being the daughter of a father no one spoke of, despite the strange, incomplete conversations at her mother's deathbed; how again and again she was caught up short by the discovery that other people had stories they didn't tell, or told stories that weren't entirely true. How mostly you got odd chunks torn from the whole, impossible truly to understand in their damaged form. — Pamela Erens

People said it because other people said it. They did not know why it was being said and heard everywhere. They did not give or ask for reasons. 'Reason,' Dr. Pritchett had told them, 'is the most naive of all superstitions.'
'The source of public opinion?' said Claude Slagenhop in a public radio speech. 'There is no source of public opinion. It is spontaneously general. It is a reflex of the collective instinct of the collective mind. — Ayn Rand

One might conclude that only clever people remain free, but it's not so: foolish men also remain free if they know how to hide their folly. And the clever ones are locked away if they show their cleverness. The others who remain free are those who have the right to be whatever they want. My brother was a nobody, a happy man, not clever enough to be feared and not foolish enough for no one to know what he might do; he was too cowardly to be an outlaw, too naive to be bad, too lazy to be someone's enemy. In a word, he was destined by divine providence to be greeted by people without respect, to be recognized for his value without being asked to show it. — Mesa Selimovic

Naive people always trying to blame others for their constant heartbreak & failed relationships instead of looking in the mirror & re-evaluating themselves. It's YOU that needs to change. — David Reeves

During the 1960s, large groups of people who are normally passive and apathetic began to try to enter the political arena to press their demands.? The naive might call that democracy, but that's because they don't understand. The sophisticated understand that that's the crisis of democracy. — Noam Chomsky

Open mind all the way. Because people have had eyewitness accounts, they've seen things, they swear they've seen things, and I tend to believe in people rather than - maybe I'm a little naive, but my optimistic outlook on life is to sort of be positive and take everyone at face value. — Rhys Darby

Don't misunderstand me. The terrorist actions of Al-Qaeda were and are unmitigatedly evil. But the astonishing naivety which decreed that America as a whole was a pure, innocent victim, so that the world could be neatly divided up into evil people (particularly Arabs) and good people (particularly Americans and Israelis), and that the latter had a responsibility now to punish the former, is a large-scale example of what I'm talking about - just as it is immature and naive to suggest the mirror image of this view, namely that the western world is guilty in all respects and that all protestors and terrorists are therefore completely justified in what they do. In the same way, to suggest that all who possess guns should be locked up, or (the American mirror-image of this view) that everyone should carry guns so that good people can shoot bad ones before they can get up to their tricks, is simply a failure to think into the depths of what's going on. — N. T. Wright

Sentimental Humanitarianism: A Dangerous Temptation Gregg argues that sentimental humanitarianism: Reduces most debates to exchanges of feelings. Common responses to disagreements are "you can't say that" or "that's hurtful" or "that offends me." But in quoting British novelist Ian McEwan, Gregg says there is nothing virtuous about being offended. Is naive of human nature. It assumes everyone is of good will. Rather, Gregg says we have to acknowledge that there are some groups of people in which rational conversation is not possible. Doesn't take free choice seriously. It claims all evil emanates from bad education and unjust structures, but this is hardly the full story. Evil is a free choice of each individual, and Gregg says it's not something that can be explained away by the fact that someone is wealthier than — Anonymous

People, and not only Americans, are losing their sons, husbands, brothers, and fathers for no other reason than the profits of US armaments corporations, and the gullible American people seem proud of it. Those ribbon decals on their cars, SUVs and monster trucks proclaim their naive loyalty to the armaments industries and to the whores in Washington who promote wars. — Paul Craig Roberts

I have nothing against cosmetic procedures, but I don't want my face lasered. Also, people are naive about how much you can do with make-up and lighting, and I've learned from the best. — Marie Helvin