Quotes About Intellect

they have nothing to fight me with, save the brute force of their numbers. I have my mind.

No hay pensamientos malvados, señor Rearden —dijo Francisco suavemente—, excepto uno: negarse a pensar.

The eyes were dark and startling. They held such a wealth of intellect and of twinkling gaiety that his glasses seemed to be worn not to protect his eyes but to protect other men from their excessive brilliance.

Desde la necesidad más simple hasta la más alta abstracción religiosa, desde la rueda hasta el rascacielos, todo lo que somos y todo lo que tenemos procede de un solo atributo del hombre: la función de su mente razonadora.

Thinking is something one doesn't borrow or pawn.

The self you have betrayed is your mind; self-esteem is reliance on one's power to think. The ego you seek, that essential 'you' which you cannot express or define, is not your emotions or inarticulate dreams, but your intellect, that judge of your supreme tribunal whom you've impeached in order to drift at the mercy of any stray shyster you describe as your 'feeling.

Los defensores del alma humana estaban preocupados por los sentimientos de sus semejantes; los defensores del cuerpo tuvieron como solo objetivo el estómago, pero ambos se unieron para luchar contra la mente. Sin embargo, nadie, ni el más ruin de los seres humanos, puede renunciar totalmente a su cerebro.

Go read a book, she would say. Then come back and tell me something you learned.

I noticed that my mother paid for her intellectual freedom with chronic financial struggles and occasional personal chaos

The senses are the devil's playground, the arena into which he will try to lure men away from Faith and into the conceits of the intellect or the delusions of carnality.

He reads next to nothing. It might interfere with his knowledge of the universe.

Sometimes I think the urge to believe in our own worldview is our most powerful intellectual imperative, the mind's equivalent of feeding, fighting, and fornicating. People will eagerly twist facts into wholly unrecognizable shapes to fit them into existing suppositions. They'll ignore the obvious, select the irrelevant, and spin it all into a tapestry of self-deception, solely to justify an idea, no matter how impoverished or self-destructive.

Sometimes I think the urge to believe in our own worldview is our most powerful intellectual imperative, the mind's equivalent of feeding, fighting, and fornicating. People will eagerly twist facts into wholly unrecognizable shapes to fit them into existing suppositions. They'll ignore the obvious, select the irrelevant, and spin it all into a tapestry of self-deception, solely to justify an idea, no matter how impoverished or self-destructive. And

Sometimes I think the urge to believe in our own worldview is our most powerful intellectual imperative, the mind's equivalent of feeding, fighting, and fornicating. People will eagerly twist facts into wholly unrecognizable shapes to fit them into existing suppositions. They'll ignore the obvious, select the irrelevant, and spin it all into a tapestry of self-deception, solely to justify an idea, no matter how impoverished

How many men have failed to stay intellectually sharp and so gave up ground in their professions to others with more active minds? How many have lost money through uninformed investments or have not taken opportunities in expanding fields or have missed promotions because they had not bothered to learn about new technologies or what changes social media, for example, would bring to their jobs?

The dumbing down of the country reflects itself on Broadway. The shows get dumber, and the public gets used to them.

Voltaire said that no problem could withstand the assault of sustained thinking. And he was right.

If there is any enlightenment that I have been awakened to, it is that men's minds are dominated by their little aches and pains. We want to think that we are more than that, that we control our lives with our intellect. But now, without civilization clouding the issue, I wonder to what extent intellect is controlled by instinct and culture is the result of raw gut reactions to life.

If there is any enlightenment that I have been awakened to, it is that men's minds are dominated by their little aches and pains. We want to think that we are more than that, that we control our live with intellect. But now, without civilization clouding the issue, I wonder to what extent intellect is controlled by instinct and culture is the result of raw gut reactions to life.

Few people think more than two or three times a year," Shaw reportedly said.

The absurdly talented George Bernard Shaw—a world-class writer and a founder of the London School of Economics—noted this thought deficit many years ago. "Few people think more than two or three times a year," Shaw reportedly said. "I have made an international reputation for myself by thinking once or twice a week." We too try to think once.

Shaw reportedly said. "I have made an international reputation for myself by thinking once or twice a week.

emotion is the enemy of rational argument.

Freakonomics is out to dazzle you with facts; The Armchair Economist is out to dazzle you with logic.