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Quotes about intelligence

113 quotes from 85 people

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Ignorance and confidence are constant companions.
John McAfee1945–2021Into the Heart of Truth (2001)
- Knowledge
It is a failure of human imagination and human arrogance to assume that we will never build things smarter than ourselves.
Sam Altmanborn 1985“The Merge”, blog post (2017)
- Technology
The mediocre mind is incapable of understanding the man who refuses to bow blindly to conventional prejudices and chooses instead to express his opinions courageously and honestly.
Albert Einstein1879–1955Letter to Morris Raphael Cohen, professor emeritus of philosophy at the College of the City of New York, defending the appointment of Bertrand Russell to a teaching position (19 March 1940).
- Courage
Just because some of us can read and write and do a little math, that doesn’t mean we deserve to conquer the Universe.
Kurt Vonnegut1922–2007Hocus Pocus (1990)
- Pride
We are not smart! We buy shit from smart people!
Joe Roganborn 1967Joe Rogan: Live (2006), “The Devolution of Stupid People”
- Comedy
Vanity working on a weak head, produces every sort of mischief.
Jane Austen1775–1817Emma (1815), Volume I, Chapter VIIIIn context
- Pride
There is no confusion like the confusion of a simple mind
F. Scott Fitzgerald1896–1940The Great Gatsby (1925), Chapter VIIIn context
“I have been Foolish and Deluded,” said he, “and I am a Bear of No Brain at All.”
A. A. Milne1882–1956Winnie-the-Pooh (1926), Chapter IIIIn context
- Comedy
There is no intelligence where there is no change and no need of change.
H. G. Wells1866–1946The Time Machine (1895), Chapter XIIIIn context
- Change
No one would have believed in the last years of the nineteenth century that this world was being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than man’s and yet as mortal as his own; that as men busied themselves about their various concerns they were scrutinised and studied, perhaps almost as narrowly as a man with a microscope might scrutinise the transient creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water.
H. G. Wells1866–1946The War of the Worlds (1898), Book One: The Coming of the Martians, Chapter IIn context
- Science
Yet across the gulf of space, minds that are to our minds as ours are to those of the beasts that perish, intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic, regarded this earth with envious eyes, and slowly and surely drew their plans against us.
H. G. Wells1866–1946The War of the Worlds (1898), Book One: The Coming of the Martians, Chapter IIn context
- Envy
“All the same,” said the Scarecrow, “I shall ask for brains instead of a heart; for a fool would not know what to do with a heart if he had one.”
“I shall take the heart,” returned the Tin Woodman; “for brains do not make one happy, and happiness is the best thing in the world.”
L. Frank Baum1856–1919The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900), Chapter VIn context
- Happiness
- Love
Pain and suffering are always inevitable for a large intelligence and a deep heart. The really great men must, I think, have great sadness on earth
Fyodor Dostoyevsky1821–1881Crime and Punishment (1867), Part III, Chapter VIn context
- Emotion
A fool with a heart and no brains is just as unhappy as a fool with brains and no heart.
Fyodor Dostoyevsky1821–1881The Idiot (1869), Part I, Chapter VIIIn context
- 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