Quotes about intelligence
113 quotes from 85 people
Arthur Schopenhauer1788–1860The World as Will and Representation, vol. 2 (trans. E. F. J. Payne), p. 230
Terry Pratchett1948–2015Foreword to The Ultimate Encyclopedia of Fantasy (1998) by David Pringle, and The Definitive Illustrated Guide to Fantasy (2003) by David PringleWhat has to be overcome is not difficulty of the intellect but of the will.
Ludwig Wittgenstein1889–1951Philosophical Occasions 1912-1951 (1993), Ch. 9: Philosophy (chapters 86–93 of the so called Big Typescript), p. 161One man that has a mind and knows it can always beat ten men who havnt and dont.
George Bernard Shaw1856–1950The Apple Cart (1928), Act IThe voice of the intellect is a soft one, but it does not rest until it has gained a hearing.
Sigmund Freud1856–1939The Future of an Illusion (1927)I’m not smart. I try to observe. Millions saw the apple fall but Newton was the one who asked why.
Bernard Baruch1870–1965New York Post (24 June 1965)
Philip Roth1933–2018The Counterlife (1986), Ch. 5
W. H. Auden1907–1973Forewords and Afterwords (1973), “The Protestant Mystics”
Pierre Trudeau1919–2000Approaches to Politics (1970)
Graham Greene1904–1991The Human Factor (1978), Pt. III, ch. 3 (1978)- LLaozi580–501 BCTao Te Ching, Ch. 33, tr. Stephen Mitchell (1988)
John Ruskin1819–1900Fors Clavigera, letter xxxvii, (1 January 1874)
George Orwell1903–1950Review of A Coat of Many Colours: Occasional Essays by Herbert Read, Poetry Quarterly (Winter 1945)The very nature of intelligence is sensitivity, and this sensitivity is love.
Jiddu Krishnamurti1895–1986Letters to the Schools (1981, 1985), Vol. I, p. 113Men of the most brilliant intelligence can be born, live and die in error and falsehood.
Simone Weil1909–1943Human Personality (1943), p. 69