Quotes About Intelligence

Il n'y a pas de vanité intelligente.

There's no such thing as intelligent vanity. It's an instinct. And you'll never find a man who is not first and foremost vain.

Dinosaurs lasted so much longer than we have, or probably will, yet their brains were so little. Meaning that stupidity is a good strategy for survival? Our level of intelligence could be a maladaptation, a wrong turn, an aberration.

Strong faith is more important than high intelligence. Moral force is the only force that can accomplish great things in the world

The general plot of life is sometimes shaped by the different ways genuine intelligence combines with equally genuine ignorance.

Don't you know that it is only the very foolish folk who talk sense all the time? (Anne)

E la gente ride di me perché uso parole grosse. Ma se si hanno in testa idee grosse, bisogna usare parole grosse per esprimerle, non trova?

We are writing for children...not idiots.

My day passes between logic, whistling, going for walks, and being depressed. I wish to God that I were more intelligent and everything would finally become clear to me - or else that I needn't live much longer.

Our greatest stupidities may be very wise.

be expectant, do not be dull, but bring the lost fullness of your intelligence to this endeavor as you come quietly into the presence of wild things. -- Haupt quoting Darwin

Humans are more creative, physically hale, and less depressed after walking in a forest; wandering barefoot upon the earth improves podiatric health and increases the physical intelligence of our whole being. Our bodies, minds, and spirits stand in ancient communion with the soil.

But unlike most birds, crows also appear to fly for reasons that defy scientific explanation, though to us it seems obvious. They fly for fun. Any windy day will fling crows into the air like leaves, diving, wheeling, rising, tumbling. I see them, and think that if I were a bird, I would want to fly like a crow—with enough of a brain to love it. It might even make it worth it having to eat dead city rats if I could fly like that.

Crows can get us out of bed. And they can do a lot more than that for us if we allow them.

Good news. Maybe the insects would handle it. Since the dinosaurs didn't have it in them. The insects might be naturals at revolution, with their hive minds. Their brainless, decentralized intelligence. That was the answer. Insects. Even more ancient than the birds. A formidable legion.

A double life is not surprising: it's almost inevitable with intelligent women of Dickinson's homebound generation.

What Emily rejects is not religion, but coercion. Signalling from behind her public failure is an intelligence collected enough to combat bullies who want to take over her mind and hardwire into it a formulaic 'tale'—the 'tale' of all fundamentalist faiths that close down the right to freedom of judgement.

intelligence nowadays is all about application: it is the ability 'to take in a complex system and learn its rules on the fly'. For young people, this ability is second nature. Any fool knows that, if you need a new and unfamiliar VCR programmed in a hurry, you commandeer any small passing child to do it.

Go the window: the street is empty. You may hear running footsteps, or a sigh. In a minute or two the whistles have moved away in the direction of the Tinmarket or the Margarethestrasse. Next day some minor prince is discovered in the gutter with his throat cut, and all you are left with is the impression of secret wars, lethal patience, an intelligent manouevring in the dark.

Outside, a dog sprawls among the empty tables, its body rocking with the evening heat. Someone has given it a hamburger which first it guards, then, eventually, eats. It's some kind of winter dog, a malamute perhaps, a dog of marvellous subtle greys and whites. Also of transparent intelligence, and less transparent motive. The beauty of an animal like this appears to fix it in our expectations. But while its beauty says one thing, its heart may say another.

A prince who is not wise himself will never take good advice.

Thinking I'm a moron gives people something to feel smug about, Charles Wallace said. Why should I disillusion them?

Almost all the joyful things of life are outside the measure of IQ tests.

We know you have a great mind and all, Mother, but you don't have much sense.