One thing that humbles me deeply is to see that human genius has its limits while human stupidity does not.

[Une chose qui m’humilie profondément est de voir que le génie humain a des limites, quand la bêtise humaine n’en a pas.]

Alexandre Dumas, fils (1824-1895) French writer and dramatist
(Attributed)
    (Source)

This is the earliest attribution of a phrase like this, given in the Great Universal Dictionary of the Nineteenth Century [Grand Dictionnaire Universel du XIXe Siècle], Vol. 2, "Stupidity [Bêtise]" (c. 1865, during Dumas' lifetime).

The limits of genius vs. limitless stupidity appears in a variety of forms and attributed to a wide variety of individuals. Variants:
  • "What distresses me is to see that human genius has limitations, and human stupidity has none."
  • "How despairing it is to see that human genius has limitations, while human stupidity has none."
  • "Two things are infinite: the Universe and Human Stupidity, and I'm not sure about the Universe."
    (Dubiously attributed to Einstein)
  • "The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits."
  • "Human genius has its limits, but stupidity does not."
  • "Genius may have its limitations, but stupidity is not thus handicapped."
    (Elbert Hubbard, ed., The Philistine, title epigraph (1906-09)
  • "Human stupidity is infinite."
    (Gustave Flaubert, letter (1880-02-19) to Guy de Maupassant)
For more discussion about this quotation, see: