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Quotes about intelligence

113 quotes from 85 people

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What is Grand is necessarily obscure to Weak men. That which can be made Explicit to the idiot is not worth my care.
William Blake1757–1827Letter to Revd. Dr. Trusler (1799)
Some problems are so complex that you have to be highly intelligent and well informed just to be undecided about them.
Laurence J. Peter1919–1990Entry for September 24; as quoted in Respectfully Quoted: A Dictionary of Quotations (1993), ed. Suzy Platt, Library of Congress, , p. 78
- Decisions
True intelligence very readily conceives of an intelligence superior to its own; and this is why truly intelligent men are modest.
André Gide1869–1951“An Unprejudiced Mind,” pp. 311-312
An intellectual is a man who says a simple thing in a difficult way; an artist is a man who says a difficult thing in a simple way.
Charles Bukowski1920–1994Notes of a Dirty Old Man (1969)
- Art
To Generalize is to be an Idiot. To Particularize is the Alone Distinction of Merit — General Knowledges are those Knowledges that Idiots possess.
William Blake1757–1827Annotations to Sir Joshua Reynolds’s Discourses, pp. xvii–xcviii (c. 1798–1809)
- Knowledge
No Man is so much a Fool as not to have Wit enough sometimes to be a Knave; nor any so cunning a Knave, as not to have the Weakness sometimes to play the Fool.
George Savile, 1st Marquess of Halifax1633–1695Moral Thoughts and Reflections
- Character
Sherry is dull, naturally dull; but it must have taken him a great deal of pains to become what we now see him. Such an excess of stupidity, sir, is not in Nature.
Samuel Johnson1709–1784Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), Vol I (28 July 1763) p. 128
- Clever Jabs
Granted I am a babbler, a harmless vexatious babbler, like all of us. But what is to be done if the direct and sole vocation of every intelligent man is babble, that is, the intentional pouring of water through a sieve?
Fyodor Dostoyevsky1821–1881Notes from Underground (1864), Part 1, Chapter 5 (tr. Constance Garnett, 1918)In context
- Talking
A learned fool is more foolish than an ignorant one.
Molière1622–1673Les Femmes Savantes (1672), Act IV, sc. iii
- Education
If people did not sometimes do silly things, nothing intelligent would ever get done.
Ludwig Wittgenstein1889–1951Culture and Value (1980), p. 50e
The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly, is to fill the world with fools.
Herbert Spencer1820–1903Essays: Scientific, Political, and Speculative (1891), Vol. 3, Ch. IX, State-Tamperings with Money and Banks
- Responsibility
Never stay up on the barren heights of cleverness, but come down into the green valleys of silliness.
Ludwig Wittgenstein1889–1951Culture and Value (1980), p. 76e
- Advice
One man alone can be pretty dumb sometimes, but for real bona fide stupidity, there ain’t nothing can beat teamwork.
Edward Abbey1927–1989The Monkey Wrench Gang (1975), Seldom Seen Smith, page 313
- Comedy
To be stupid, selfish, and have good health are three requirements for happiness, though if stupidity is lacking, all is lost.
Gustave Flaubert1821–1880Letters to Madame Louise Colet, 13 August 1846
- Happiness
We spend our lives fighting to get people very slightly more stupid than ourselves to accept truths that the great men have always known.
Doris Lessing1919–2013The Golden Notebook (1962), Paul Tanner, in “Free Women: 1”
- Truth & Lies