Quotes About Intellect

faith in the intellect...is the only faith yet sanctioned by its fruits

Books — the best antidote against the marsh-gas of boredom and vacuity.

Books - the best antidote against the marsh-gas of boredom and vacuity.

after Spinoza, philosophers know that they are using language to clarify language, like cutters using diamonds to shape other diamonds. Language is seen no longer as a road to demonstrable truth, but as a spiral or gallery of mirrors bringing the intellect back to its point of departure.

My place is in the realm of ideas – the brainwork, as it were. I put my brain at your disposal for the formation of schemes and stratagems, and then you, the muscular ones, carry them out.

The active night of the spirit is characterized by similar disciplines and restraints applied to the intellect, memory, will, and imagination. John's primary example here is of practicing the virtues. He says that the three theological virtues (faith, hope, and love) are instrumental in freeing the spirit from its attachments. Faith darkens and empties the intellect, hope frees the memory, and love liberates the will.

To know a man's library is, in some measure, to know a man's mind.

My mother was an excellent woman. Pious, virtuous. Kind. But she was not the intellectual equal of my father. Not by any means. I do not speak of book learning. I speak of a certain innate quality of mind, a superior understanding. Because she had it not, their companionship was - diminished. Father looked to his books, rather than to his wife.

Instinct is the nose of the mind.

I make all my decisions on intuition. I throw a spear into the darkness. That is intuition. Then I must send an army into the darkness to find the spear. That is intellect.

Modern man's besetting temptation is to sacrifice his direct perceptions and spontaneous feelings to his reasoned reflections; to prefer in all circumstances the verdict of his intellect to that of his immediate intuitions.

When a man begins to reason, he ceases to feel.

The brain is not, and cannot be, the sole or complete organ of thought and feeling.

The intellect is always fooled by the heart.

The job of intellectuals is to come up with ideas, and all we've been producing is footnotes.

Will and intellect are one and the same thing.

An intellectual is someone whose mind watches itself.

The brain is the citadel of sense perception.

The intellect of man is forced to choose Perfection of the life or of the work.

Leisure is the mother of philosophy.

An improper mind is a perpetual feast.

Human behavior flows from three main sources: desire, emotion, and knowledge.

Happy are those lovers who, when their senses require rest, can fall back upon the intellectual enjoyments afforded by the mind! Sweet sleep then comes, and lasts until the body has recovered its general harmony. On awaking, the senses are again active and always ready to resume their action.

Reading is to the mind, what exercise is to the body.