Quotes About Intellect

The task of thought is to break through the coercion of logic by its own means.

The books that help you most are those which make you think the most. A great book that comes from a great thinker is a ship of thought, deep freighted with truth and beauty.

No great intellectual thing was ever done by great effort.

Wide differences of opinion in matters of religious, political, and social belief must exist if conscience and intellect alike are not to be stunted, if there is to be room for healthy growth.

All the resources we need are in the mind.

The visible, in-your-face manifestations of oppression have been mostly eliminated. But you scarcely can find a Black student who cannot recall or give you a litany of instances when he or she was automatically assumed to be intellectually incompetent.

The greatest intellectual achievement of men should be not only in understanding the importance of the reason, but to consciously and boldly overthrow it as and when the welfare of others' warrants it. Why should anybody think about others welfare? This is because the reason's practical worth is only with respect to others. Instinct is often enough to take care of an individual, but the reason is necessary to meet the societal requirements and also to derive benefits from it.

There is no expedient to which a man will not go to avoid the labor of thinking.

Wonder is the desire of knowledge.

If, then, the final happiness of man does not consist in those exterior advantages which are called goods of fortune, nor in goods of the body, nor in goods of the soul in its sentient part, nor in the virtues of practical intellect, called art and prudence, it remains that the final happiness of man consists in the contemplation of truth.

Hominem unius libri timeo

In like manner humanity understood is only in this or that man; but that humanity be apprehended without conditions of individuality, that is, that it be abstracted and consequently considered as universal, occurs to humanity inasmuch as it is brought under the consideration of the intellect, in which there is a likeness of the specific nature, but not of the principles of individuality.

For this reason truth is defined by the conformity of intellect and thing; and hence to know this conformity is to know truth.

For there are some who have such a presumptuous opinion of their own ability that they deem themselves able to measure the nature of everything; I mean to say that, in their estimation, everything is true that seems to them so, and everything is false that does not. So that the human mind, therefore, might be freed from this presumption and come to a humble inquiry after truth, it was necessary that some things should be proposed to man by God that would completely surpass his intellect.

Objection 1: It seems that God does not know evil things. For the Philosopher (De Anima iii) says that the intellect which is not in potentiality does not know privation. But "evil is the privation of good," as Augustine says (Confess. iii, 7). Therefore, as the intellect of God is never in potentiality, but is always in act, as is clear from the foregoing (A[2] ), it seems that God does not know evil things.

On the contrary, The Philosopher holds the intellect to be the higher power than the intellect.

If anybody would make me the greatest king that ever lived, with palaces and gardens, and fine dinners, and wine and coaches, and beautiful clothes, and hundreds of servants, on condition that I would not read books, I would not be a king. I would rather be a poor man in a garret with plenty of books than a king who did not love reading.

One need not disavow the gifts of intellect in giving thought to their Giver

Human reasoning is created by God with a capacity for reaching toward God by thinking, choosing, and speaking.

Faith's premises are felt to be so valuable that they deserve the best intellectual reflection possible to confirm argumentatively what faith already knows inwardly

It is a strange trade that of advocacy. Your intellect, your highest heavenly gift is hung up in the shop window like a loaded pistol for sale.

That there should one Man die ignorant who had capacity for Knowledge, this I call a tragedy.

Literature is the thought of thinking souls.

The greatest university of all is a collection of books.