Quotes About Intellect

Money demands that you sell, not your weakness to men's stupidity, but your talent to their reason.

Geceleri bile, daha ÅŸimdiden, uykumda matematik yap?yorum. Dün gece örneÄŸin, iki defa uyan?p ka??da kaleme sar?ld?m. Yaln?zl?k hayal alemini, matematik de soyutlama kabiliyetini aç?yor; korkunç ÅŸeyler hayal ediyorum. Hayret, insan nas?l da kendini verdiÄŸi bilimle özdeÅŸleÅŸiyor. -Ali Nesin

Any single historical event is too complex to be adequately known by anyone. It transcends all the intellectual capacities of men. Our practice is to wait until a sufficient number of details have been forgotten. Of course things seem simpler then! Our memories work that way; we retain the facts which are easiest to think about.

And though there are doubtless crises in affairs, dark and terrible moments, when a more creative intellect is needful to propose, a more dictatorial will is necessary to carry out, a sudden and daring resolution; though in times of inextricable confusion—perhaps the present is one of them—a more abstruse and disentangling intellect is required to untwist the raveled perplexities of a complicated world.

Wit is part of the machinery of the intellect.

Drawing is rather like playing chess: your mind races ahead of the moves that you eventually make.

Rational thought will always trump medieval dogma.

The mathematician has reached the highest rung on the ladder of human thought.

My mother cared more about how you reasoned than about the conclusions you reached.

The novels that have fascinated me most are the ones that have reached me less through the channels of the intellect or reason than bewitched me.

I was that kid with the glasses and the hungry expression who haunted every library book sale and used bookstore in town: the one who always has a book in one hand and is reaching for the next book with the other. There's one in every town.

Some people, however long their experience or strong their intellect, are temperamentally incapable of reaching firm decisions.

In exceptional boardrooms, the intellectual rigor generated by a challenging question is both an accepted norm and a precursor to reaching informed decisions. This is the crucial edge that sets apart boards that lead from boards that follow.

One time I happened to use the word 'denigrate' onstage, and it didn't get any reaction. So as I continued my act, the left side of my brain was fast-forwarding to see if I had any other big words coming up.

I can't add. I don't understand basic science. Or anything else. But I can read anything. I've always been able to, and I've always liked to. Even if I didn't understand it, I liked to.

The funny thing is, I'm not really a big reader, not a big fan of books in the first place.

I was a precocious reader.

I am not a big reader to begin with.

I've always been a big reader.

I am an avid reader.

I'm not a writer. I like being a reader.

Every story makes a promise to the reader. Actually, two promises, one emotional and one intellectual, since the function of stories is to make us both feel and think.

Only a reader can become a writer. Develop a lively intellect and the ability to become interested in anything, no matter how mundane it might seem at first. Look for the story. Develop an eye for detail. Feed your mind and your brain: learn as much as you can about everything you can.

My father was an engineer - he wasn't literary, not a writer or a journalist, but he was one of the world's great readers.