Famously Said Random quote

Topics/Thinking

Quotes about intelligence

113 quotes from 85 people

Most readBy personPage 4 of 8

I don’t think there’s anything unique about human intellience. All the nuerons in the brain that make up perceptions and emotions operate in a binary fashion.
Bill Gatesborn 1955
Some people have a gift for stupidity, an almost mystic ability to withstand any form of logic.
DGDavid Gemmell1948–2006
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
The intelligent man finds almost everything ridiculous, the sensible man hardly anything.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe1749–1832
Our worst enemies here are not the ignorant and the simple, however cruel; our worst enemies are the intelligent and corrupt.
Graham Greene1904–1991The Human Factor (1978), Pt. III, ch. 3 (1978)
- Enemies
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity.
Robert A. Heinlein1907–1988Time Enough for Love (1973)
You have attributed conditions to villainy that simply result from stupidity.
Robert A. Heinlein1907–1988Logic of Empire (p. 335)
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway1899–1961Marita in Ch. 11
- Happiness
Such is the nature of men, that howsoever they may acknowledge many others to be more witty, or more eloquent, or more learned; Yet they will hardly believe there be many so wise as themselves: For they see their own wit at hand, and other mens at a distance.
Thomas Hobbes1588–1679Leviathan (1651), Part I: Of Man, Chapter XIIIIn context
- Wisdom
An intellectual is a person who has discovered something more interesting than sex.
Aldous Huxley1894–1963
There is no slavery but ignorance. Liberty is the child of intelligence.
Robert G. Ingersoll1833–1899The Liberty of Man, Woman and Child (1877)
- Liberty
Curiosity is one of the permanent and certain characteristics of a vigorous intellect.
Samuel Johnson1709–1784The Rambler (1750–1752), No. 103 (12 March 1751)
The true, strong, and sound mind is the mind that can embrace equally great things and small.
Samuel Johnson1709–1784Life of Johnson (Boswell) (1778)
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
The very nature of intelligence is sensitivity, and this sensitivity is love.
Jiddu Krishnamurti1895–1986Letters to the Schools (1981, 1985), Vol. I, p. 113
- Love