Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people.

Heard an interesting quote attributed to Theodore Roosevelt:

Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people.

As is often the case, this is a misattribution and the original quote was earlier and in slightly different form.  The original idea was, according to Quote Investigator, from Henry Thomas Buckle in England a good deal before 1901.  

Men and women range themselves into three classes or orders of intelligence; you can tell the lowest class by their habit of always talking about persons; the next by the fact that their habit is always to converse about things; the highest by their preference for the discussion of ideas.

 "Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people" is the emergent order version - short, crisp, memorable. 

Regardless of its origin, it is not strictly accurate.  Great minds have the capacity to function at all three levels but the hierarchy is about right.  And it reflects a social status hierarchy.

It reflects an older and more circumscribed world.  Discussing people was open and available to everyone.  Discussing events was a little higher up the class hierarchy.  Only those with a modicum of education and access to news and information were able to discuss events. 

And ideas?  Definitely at the top of the hierarchy; people with the wealth (and capacity) to obtain the higher education available to 1-5% of the population which would allow the acquisition of knowledge and modes of critical thinking to discuss ideas.  

The neat, crisp and appealing adage has some degree of truth to it but it also has some deep class presumption in it as well.