Quotes About Intellect

Thinking is hard work, which is why you don't see many people doing it.

Thinking is hard work, which is why you don't see many people doing it.

I've known my dad my whole life, and my dad is probably one of the most intellectually sober and smart people that I've ever encountered. So to have somebody manipulate and mischaracterize him - it was sort of a harsh lesson in politics.

It is easy to remove the mind from harping on the lost illusion of immortality. The disciplined intellect fears nothing and craves no sugar-plum at the day's end, but is content to accept life and serve society as best it may.

I loved math. I was such a nerd! I really enjoyed working through problems and finding the solution.

I've always been fascinated by real scientists - Albert Einstein, Isaac Newton, and so many others - how they've come up with solutions to very complicated problems that nobody else can seem to figure out.

If God has made the world a perfect mechanism, He has at least conceded so much to our imperfect intellect that in order to predict little parts of it, we need not solve innumerable differential equations, but can use dice with fair success.

I like to figure things out and solve problems.

Devising a mechanism is a lot like solving a puzzle - and gives you the same kind of kick.

There is nothing so absurd that some philosopher has not already said it.

Some people stay in the academic world just to avoid becoming self-aware. You can quote me on that.

Some people have quick retention. I'm not one of those.

One of the things I reject in our cultural divisions is the clash between faith and reason, and I would say the same about mystery and intellect. They are somehow mysteriously akin to each other.

Chess is a lot of fun for me. Football is a physical game, and in chess you can just beat someone mentally - you outwit somebody, outmaneuver them, think ahead of them.

...love comes from the head and not the heart. Of the entire body, only the head matters.

Your knowledge can stir the world, your intellect can move it, your wisdom can shake it, but only your love can truly change it.

Public enemy number one for these men was a girl with a book

They were apoplectically suspicious of higher learning—especially for girls. Public enemy number one for these men was a girl with a book.

Harriet, an atheist, was championing the rights of true believers. She could argue anything, any position. Yasmin—despite her sinking feeling—admired the way Harriet's mind darted, her panoramic intellect, her insatiable curiosity. Ma and Baba had a new thought only once a decade. That was probably an overestimate. Their views never changed. Baba had no time for religion and now was the time for him to say so out loud. Come on, Baba! Speak!

All books are investments (p.134)

If I am a man of some reading, I am a man of no retentiveness.

Good books are over your head; they would not be good for you if they were not. And books that are over your head weary you unless you can reach up to them and pull yourself up their level.

You must tackle books that are beyond you, or, as we have said, books that are over your head. Only books of that sort will make you stretch your mind. And unless you stretch, you will not learn.

When we speak of someone as "well-read," we should have this ideal in mind. Too often, we use that phrase to mean the quantity rather than the quality of reading. A person who has read widely but not well deserves to be pitied rather than praised. As Thomas Hobbes said, "If I read as many books as most men do, I would be as dull-witted as they are.