The problem with the world is that the intelligent people are full of doubts, while the stupid ones are full of confidence.

The exact broad wording has not been traced to a Bukowski publication or recording in this research. Zitatforschung’s article dated 21 August 2020 reproduces a Twitter attribution dated 21 July 2011; this is the earliest dated occurrence of the wording found in this run, but the tweet itself was not independently opened. A Bukowski forum thread begun on 30 January 2012 directly documents the same attribution already circulating without a reference. A forum contributor reports searching his books for the relevant phrase without finding it; that is the contributor’s search, not an independently replicated exhaustive corpus search. The atlas currently holds no Bukowski full texts, so this run cannot claim an exhaustive search of his writings. Quote Investigator identifies two distinguishable antecedents: Russell’s article of 10 May 1933 and Bukowski’s interview with Alden Mills in Arete, July/August 1989, reprinted in Sunlight Here I Am (2003), p. 244. The latter concerns the confidence of poor writers and doubts of good writers. Those publications were not seen directly here, so they are secondary evidence only. The broad internet sentence may be a generalization of Bukowski’s interview answer, a reworking of Russell, or a convergence of the two; no transmission proving one of those possibilities was found. Apocryphal describes the unsupported exact wording, not a finding that Bukowski never expressed a related thought.

1. 10 May 1933Before it · credited to Bertrand RussellBertrand Russell contrasts the certainty of foolish people with the doubts of intelligent ones in an article responding to events in Germany; this is an earlier expression of the thought, not proof of the internet sentence’s authorship.Bertrand Russell, Stupidity Rules, San Francisco Examiner, 10 May 1933; subsequently reprinted as The Triumph of Stupidity, p. 10, column 7. Checked on another researcher’s citation, not seen first-hand. Source
2. July 1989Before it · credited to Charles BukowskiIn an interview with Alden Mills, Bukowski makes a related distinction between confident bad writers and doubtful good writers; this is narrower than the later internet sentence.Alden Mills, Charles Bukowski, Arete, July/August 1989, pp. 66–69, 73, 76–77; reprinted in Charles Bukowski, Sunlight Here I Am: Interviews & Encounters: 1963–1993, edited by David Stephen Calonne (Sun Dog Press, 2003), reprint p. 244; interview begins on p. 240. Checked on another researcher’s citation, not seen first-hand. Source
3. 21 July 2011Earliest found · credited to Charles BukowskiA Twitter post credits the broad internet wording to Bukowski; this is the earliest dated occurrence located by the secondary researcher and found in this run, not an established first use anywhere.Twitter post dated 21 July 2011, reproduced in Zitatforschung’s article on the purported Bukowski aphorism, 21 August 2020. Checked on another researcher’s citation, not seen first-hand. Source
4. 30 January 2012Spread · credited to Charles BukowskiThe opening post of a Bukowski forum discussion reproduces the broad wording and asks whether the already circulating Bukowski attribution has a source.Bukowski forum, discussion headed intelligent people are full of doubts quote, begun 30 January 2012. Checked in a full-text transcription. Source

This circulates as a general observation attributed to Bukowski, without a book, poem or interview location. Two different documented antecedents complicate that attribution: Bertrand Russell discussed the political danger of overconfident stupidity in 1933, while Bukowski discussed confidence among bad writers and uncertainty among good ones in a 1989 interview. Neither reference establishes that Bukowski uttered the broad wording reproduced here.

Self-assurance is not evidence of intelligence: people who recognize difficulties may be less certain than people who do not.

The circulating line should not be treated as a verbatim Bukowski quotation, or as a scientific rule that confident people must be unintelligent. The related Bukowski interview remark concerns writers specifically, and Russell’s earlier argument concerns the political catastrophe unfolding in Germany in 1933.

No direct Bukowski source for this exact general wording was established. The related interview observation is not evidence that he said every later generalization of it.

Doubt, Society, Reason, Wisdom

• Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth. (not found) Marcus Aurelius
• Anyone taken as an individual is tolerably sensible—as a member of a crowd, he at once becomes a blockhead. (misattributed) Bernard Baruch
• If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. (not found) Bernard Baruch
• A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes. (not found) Mark Twain
• Men are disturbed not by the things which happen, but by the opinions about the things. Epictetus

• quoteinvestigator.com/2015/03/04/self-doubt
• falschzitate.blogspot.com/2020/08/das-problem-dieser-welt-ist-dass-die.html
• bukowskiforum.com/threads/intelligent-people-are-full-of-doubts-quote.7039

“The problem with the world is that the intelligent people are full of doubts, while the stupid ones are full of confidence.” Attributed to Charles Bukowski. No. The broad sentence has not been traced to a Bukowski source. A related 1989 interview remark concerns writers, while Russell expressed a similar thought in 1933; how the internet wording arose remains uncertain. Quotogeny, https://quotogeny.com/q/intelligent-people-are-full-of-doubts/ (checked 25 October 2026).

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