Quotes About Intellectuals

Two little provincial intellectuals, that was what they were, and that is the dreariest and oddest thing that can exist on earth.

that's ONE thing that's wrong with intellectuals and writers - they don't feel a hell of a lot except their own comfort or their own pain. which is normal but shitty.

I've seen too many intellectuals lately. I get very tired of the precious intellects who must speak diamonds every time they open their mouths. I get tired of battling for each space of air for the mind. That's why I stayed away from people for so long, and now that I am meeting people, I find that I must return to my cave.

He visto últimamente demasiados intelectuales. Estoy harto ya de esos genios insignes que tienen que soltar diamantes cada vez que abren la boca. Estoy harto de luchar por cada espacio de aire libre para la mente. Por eso estuve apartado de todos tanto tiempo, y ahora, al volver a ver a la gente, descubro que debo volver a mi cueva, hay otras cosas además de la mente: hay insectos, y palmeras y pimenteros de mesa, y yo tendré un pimentero de mesa en mi cueva, para reírme.

I remember a funny dinner at my brother's, where, amongst a few others, were Babbage and Lyell, both of whom liked to talk. Carlyle, however, silenced every one by haranguing during the whole dinner on the advantages of silence. After dinner Babbage, in his grimmest manner, thanked Carlyle for his very interesting lecture on silence.

I think that one possible definition of our modern culture is that it is one in which nine-tenths of our intellectuals can't read any poetry.

a city is better off with bad laws, so long as they remain fixed, than with good laws that are constantly being altered, that lack of learning combined with sound common sense is more helpful than the kind of cleverness that gets out of hand, and that as a general rule states are better governed by the man in the street than by intellectuals.

As a corollary, they (Greek intellectuals) believed that knowledge for its own sake was meaningless, its mere accumulation a waste of time. Knowledge must lead to understanding.

OvÅ¡em psát a vyjadÃ…â"¢ovat se s plným vÄ›domím o svém omezeném vlivu je u intelektuál?, alespo? podle prvního zdání, výjime?nÄ› bezú?elný podnik – a pÃ…â"¢itom je to to nejlepÅ¡í, v co m?žeme doufat.

Western intellectual enthusiasm for Communism tended to peak not in times of 'goulash Communism' or 'Socialism with a human face', but rather at the moments of the regime's worst cruelties: 1935–39 and 1944–56. Writers, professors, artists, teachers and journalists frequently admired Stalin not in spite of his faults, but because of them. It was when he was murdering people on an industrial scale

This sort of faith was widespread in Kohout's generation. As Milosz would observe, Communism operated on the principle that writers need not think, they need only understand. And even understanding required little more than commitment, which was precisely what young intellectuals in the region were looking for.

This familiarity of revolutionary violence in the French imaginaire, together with sepia-tinted memories of the old Franco-Russian alliance, pre-disposed intellectuals in France to greet Communist apologetics for Soviet brutality with a distinctly sympathetic ear.

where the 'Chicago boys' got their ideas, we shall find that the greatest influence was exercised by a handful of foreigners, all of them immigrants from central Europe: Ludwig von Mises, Friedrich Hayek, Joseph Schumpeter, Karl Popper, and Peter Drucker.

Yet how can we make sense of an ideology that appeals to skinheads and intellectuals; denounces the bourgeoisie while forming alliances with conservatives; adopts a macho style yet attracts many women; calls for a return to tradition and is fascinated by technology; idealizes the people and is contemptuous of mass society; and preaches violence in the name of order? Fascism, as Ortega y Gasset says, is always 'A and not A'.

The RSS attitude of spurning the intellect and denouncing the intellectuals has worked as a self-fulfilling prophecy: since they left the intellectual field entirely to their enemies, the available intellectuals would not be "of any use to the nation", meaning not sympathizing to the RSS programme. The political Hindu movement has paid a heavy price for this silly anti-intellectual prejudice.

That's the point. If these Labour MP's were really working men, they'd have some sense. But most of 'em, or at least the ones I've met, seem to be half-baked intellectuals who've specialized in economics or some such dreary muck.

The intellectuals of this era are simply blind to the reality of consciousness. Consciousness is who we are, how we think, and how we know.

Ideas are not intellectuals' toys: ideas have consequences, for good and for ill, in what even intellectuals sometimes call "the real world".

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

I hate intellectuals. They are from the top down. I am from the bottom up.

There are innumerable instances suggesting that modern intellectuals do not believe themselves, that they don't really believe what they say, that they say certain things only in order to assure themselves that they possess opinions and ideas that are different from those that are entertained by the common herd of men.

'Capitalism' is a dirty word for many intellectuals, but there are a number of studies showing that open economies and free trade are negatively correlated with genocide and war.

The Class war will find me on the side of the educated bourgeoisie.

Intellectuals try to keep going. But their situation is very difficult. Those who have had the courage to voice their opposition have often paid a very high price.