By Robert J. Hanlon
Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.
— Robert J. Hanlon
This adage, known as Hanlon’s Razor, was submitted by Robert J. Hanlon of Scranton, Pennsylvania, to Arthur Bloch’s Murphy’s Law Book Two: More Reasons Why Things Go Wrong! (1980).
According to Quote Investigator, Hanlon was a computer programmer at the Tobyhanna Army Depot who had read the original Murphy’s Law book and decided to submit one of his own concoctions.
Similar sentiments have been expressed for centuries:
Misunderstandings and neglect occasion more mischief in the world than even malice and wickedness.
—- Goethe, The Sorrows of Young Werther (1774)
You have attributed conditions to villainy that simply result from stupidity.
—- Robert A. Heinlein, Logic of Empire (1941)