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Topics/Thinking

Quotes about intelligence

113 quotes from 85 people

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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
If there are no stupid questions, then what kind of questions do stupid people ask? Do they get smart just in time to ask questions.
Scott Adams1957–2026
A prosperous fool is a grievous burden.
Aeschylus525–456 BCFragment 392 (220 Smyth), from an unidentified play. Included in Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
- Money
Necessity is the mother of invention.
Aesop620–564 BCAesop’s Fables (6th century BC), The Kites and the Swans – The Monkey and the DolphinIn context
- Ideas
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
I am a woman, but I’m not a fool.
And what of natural intelligence I own
Has been filled out with the remembered precepts
My father and the city-elders taught me.
Aristophanes446–386 BCLysistrata (411 BC), spoken by LysistrataIn context
- Women
The basic stimulus to the intelligence is doubt, a feeling that the meaning of an experience is not self-evident.
W. H. Auden1907–1973Forewords and Afterwords (1973), “The Protestant Mystics”
- Thinking
Vanity working on a weak head, produces every sort of mischief.
Jane Austen1775–1817Emma (1815), Volume I, Chapter VIIIIn context
- Pride
Where people wish to attach, they should always be ignorant. To come with a well-informed mind is to come with an inability of administering to the vanity of others, which a sensible person would always wish to avoid.
Jane Austen1775–1817Northanger Abbey (1817), Chapter 14In context
- Knowledge
You don’t realize that you’re intelligent until it gets you into trouble.
James Baldwin1924–1987“James Baldwin: Reflections of a Maverick” interview (27 May 1984)
Persons without minds are like weeds that delight in good earth; they want to be amused by others, all the more because they are dull within.
Honoré de Balzac1799–1850The Vicar of Tours (1832), Ch. I
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)
- Science
“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
“It must be inconvenient to be made of flesh,” said the Scarecrow, thoughtfully; “for you must sleep, and eat and drink. However, you have brains, and it is worth a lot of bother to be able to think properly.”
L. Frank Baum1856–1919The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900), Chapter VIn context
A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep.
Saul Bellow1915–2005To Jerusalem and Back: A Personal Account (1976), p. 127