Intelligence Quotes

“In the republic of mediocrity, genius is dangerous.”
― Robert G. Ingersoll

“Nothing limits intelligence more than ignorance; nothing fosters ignorance more than one's own opinions; nothing strengthens opinions more than refusing to look at reality.”
― Sheri S. Tepper, The Visitor

“[Chess] is a foolish expedient for making idle people believe they are doing something very clever, when they are only wasting their time. ”
― George Bernard Shaw, The Irrational Knot

“As an orangutan cannot embrace higher mathematics or comprehend the architecture and operation of a computer, we humans __ so good at loudly proclaiming our intelligence and applauding our own doltish displays of cerebral gymnastics __ cannot begin to understand the true structure and functioning of the Universe.”
― John Rachel, 12-12-12

“Enough about my beauty," Buttercup said. "Everybody always talks about how beautiful I am. I've got a mind, Westley. Talk about that.”
― William Goldman, The Princess Bride

“The role of genius is not to complicate the simple, but to simplify the complicated.”
― Criss Jami, Killosophy

“Kindness is strength. Good-nature is often mistaken for virtue, and good health sometimes passes for genius. Anger blows out the lamp of the mind. In the examination of a great and important question, every one should be serene, slow-pulsed, and calm. Intelligence is not the foundation of arrogance. Insolence is not logic. Epithets are the arguments of malice.”
― Robert Green Ingersoll , The Christian Religion: An Enquiry

“We ought to regard the present state of the universe as the effect of its antecedent state and as the cause of the state that is to follow. An intelligence knowing all the forces acting in nature at a given instant, as well as the momentary positions of all things in the universe, would be able to comprehend in one single formula the motions of the largest bodies as well as the lightest atoms in the world, provided that its intellect were sufficiently powerful to subject all data to analysis; to it nothing would be uncertain, the future as well as the past would be present to its eyes. The perfection that the human mind has been able to give to astronomy affords but a feeble outline of such an intelligence.”
― Pierre Simon de Laplace

“[T]he more clamour we make about 'the women's point of view', the more we rub it into people that the women's point of view is different, and frankly I do not think it is -- at least in my job. The line I always want to take is, that there is the 'point of view' of the reasonably enlightened human brain, and that this is the aspect of the matter which I am best fitted to uphold.”
― Dorothy L. Sayers, The Letters of Dorothy L. Sayers 1899-1936: The Making of a Detective Novelist

“Ah! how little knowledge does a man acquire in his life. He gathers it up like water, but like water it runs between his fingers, and yet, if his hands be but wet as though with dew, behold a generation of fools call out, 'See, he is a wise man!' Is it not so?”
― H. Rider Haggard, She: A History of Adventure

“Mobs have passions, not brains.”
― Dan Simmons, The Fall of Hyperion

“Armed neutrality makes it much easier to detect hypocrisy.”
― Criss Jami, Killosophy

“In pursuit of happiness, smart people often end up dumbing down themselves.”
― Erol Ozan

“My desire for knowledge is intermittent; but my desire to bathe my head in atmospheres unknown to my feet is perennial and constant.”
― Henry David Thoreau, Civil Disobedience and Other Essays

“Wisdom is nothing more than confirmed imagination: just because one did not study for his exam does not mean that he should leave it blank.”
― Criss Jami, Killosophy

“A lack of illusion is golden, and it is quite possible that creativity is the highest form of intelligence. One might further develop oneself in the creative sense and, therefore, at times, find some degree of shame more so than pride when having always followed that of the safe and ever-praised academia.”
― Criss Jami, Killosophy

“The willingness to change one’s mind in the light of new evidence is a sign of rationality not weakness.”
― Stuart Sutherland, Irrationality

“I happen to feel that the degree of a person's intelligence is directly reflected by the number of conflicting attitudes she can bring to bear on the same topic.”
― Lisa Alther

“Military guys are rarely as smart as they think they are, and they've never gotten over the fact that civilians run the military.”
― Maureen Dowd

“The hallmark of intelligence is not whether one believes in God or not, but the quality of the processes that underlie one’s beliefs.”
― Alister McGrath

“Some people will insult your intelligence by suddenly being nice or nicer to you once you make it … or they think you have.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana

“I am not familiar with your personal lives, except to know you are scientists representing Iran.”
― Karl Braungart, Fatal Identity

“The best people are always the worst. They drive everyone mad by being so good at second-guessing everything bad.”
― Criss Jami, Healology

“We all make mistakes, but intelligence enables us to do it on purpose.”
― Will Cuppy

“Intelligence arouses fear and respect, the lack of it keeps one on the narrow minded road of disrespect, stupidity and inferiority complex.”
― Michael Bassey Johnson

“Do go on,' he said. 'There's nothing I enjoy more than listening to a highly trained intelligence leapfrogging common sense and coming to the wrong conclusions. It gives me renewed faith in parliamentary democracy.”
― Tom Sharpe, Wilt On High

“I don’t know enough to be serious,” he said carefully. “But I’d like to know enough to have options.”
― Roshani Chokshi, The Gilded Wolves

“I visualized myself pulling on my mental thinking cap, jamming it down around my ears as I had taught myself to do. It was a tall, conical wizard's model, covered with chemical equations and formulae: a cornucopia of ideas.”
― Alan Bradley, The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie

“Are IQ tests sacrosanct? Or do you think there is only one kind of intelligence? What about creativity? Or intuitive or emotional intelligence?”
― Abhaidev, The Influencer: Speed Must Have a Limit

“Why do smart people exist, if not to figure out convoluted problems?”
― Mikhail Bulgakov, The Master and Margarita