It is similar in meaning to Orwell's line from Notes on Nationalism (1945): "One has to belong to the intelligentsia to believe things like that: no ordinary man could be such a fool." [0]
Full context:
The average intellectual of the Left believed, for instance, that the war was lost in 1940, that the Germans were bound to overrun Egypt in 1942, that the Japanese would never be driven out of the lands they had conquered, and that the Anglo-American bombing offensive was making no impression on Germany. He could believe these things because his hatred for the British ruling class forbade him to admit that British plans could succeed. There is no limit to the follies that can be swallowed if one is under the influence of feelings of this kind. One has to belong to the intelligentsia to believe things like that: no ordinary man could be such a fool. [1]
Comments
"Some ideas are so stupid that only intellectuals believe them."
-George Orwell
That's not an Orwell quote.
Full context:
[0]: https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/George_Orwell#Misattributed
[1]: https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwel...