Quotes About Intellects

There are three classes of intellects: one which comprehends by itself; another which appreciates what others comprehend; and a third which neither comprehends by itself nor by the showing of others; the first is the most excellent, the second is good, the third is useless.

Philosophy is the art of lucidly formulating problems. Inventing solutions is not an occupation of serious intellects.

I find you want me to furnish you with argument and intellects too. No, sir, these, I protest you, are too hard for me.

There are one-story intellects, two-story intellects, and three-story intellects with skylights. All fact collectors with no aim beyond their facts are one-story men. Two-story men compare reason and generalize, using labors of the fact collectors as well as their own. Three-story men idealize, imagine, and predict. Their best illuminations come from above through the skylight.

hence the conclusion is frequently implied and often explicitly drawn that the Puritans looked upon philosophy as a sensual indulgence, upon classical authors as contemptible heathens, upon science as a work of the Devil and a hindrance to faith. Neither the friends nor the foes of the Puritans have shown much interest in their intellects, for it has been assumed that the Puritan mind was too weighted down by the load of dogma to be worth considering in and for itself.