Quotes About Intelligence

I'm not the smartest fellow in the world, but I can sure pick smart colleagues.

I have an unshaken conviction that democracy can never be undermined if we maintain our library resources and a national intelligence capable of utilizing them." [ Letter to Herbert Putnam ; in: Waters, Edward N.: Herbert Putnam: the tallest little man in the world ; Quarterly Journal of the Library of Congress 33:2 (April 1976), p. 171]

I don't mind the disapproving ones so much. It's the tolerant ones I can't stand, the ones who smile at Rose, who speak to her ever so slowly and gently. They don't realize how very intelligent Rose really is. They're just terrifically pleased with themselves. Look at me! they all but shout. See how broad-minded I am! How wonderfully progressive, how fantastically twentieth century!

Never punch from the elbow." "Of course not," I said. "Only a stupidibus would fight like that." Guess what? I can punch as well as make people laugh.

If we look straight and deep into a chimpanzee's eyes, an intelligent self-assured personality looks back at us. If they are animals, what must we be?

There are lots of wonderful cognitive adaptations out there that we don't have or need. This is why ranking cognition on a single dimension is a pointless exercise. Cognitive evolution is marked by many peaks of specialization. The ecology of each species is key. The

Harry Harlow, a well-known American primatologist, was an early critic of the hunger reduction model. He argued that intelligent animals learn mostly through curiosity and free exploration, both of which are likely killed by a narrow fixation on food. He poked fun at the Skinner box, seeing it as a splendid instrument to demonstrate the effectiveness of food rewards but not to study complex behavior.

There are lots of wonderful cognitive adaptations out there that we don't have or need. This is why ranking cognition on a single dimension is a pointless exercise. Cognitive evolution is marked by many peaks of specialization. The ecology of each species is key.

No self-respecting scientist would talk of "souls," but to deny animals any intelligence and consciousness came close enough.

Ernst Mayr characterized the Cartesian view of animals as dumb automatons.2

Their earlier poor performance had had more to do with the way they were tested than with their mental powers. Elephants

of amazing intelligence, they learn quickly and remember easily with few repetitions. There is often an uncanny understanding of what is wanted and needed of them at any given time. Bred to love people, they bond very tightly to their owners."24 Instead

There is no single form of cognition, and there is no point in ranking cognitions from simple to complex. A species's cognition is generally as good as what it needs for its survival. (p. 200)

He prefers to point with a stick and will go out of his way to bring one with him, thus anticipating our test and his self-invented need for a tool. But

The difference in mind between man and the higher animals, great as it is, certainly is one of degree and not of kind. —Charles Darwin

What is the largest land mammal doing with three times as many neurons as our own species?

In the same way that humans have a "handy" intelligence, which we share with other primates, elephants may have a "trunky" one. There

Ironically, the study of animal cognition not only raises the esteem in which we hold other species, but also teaches us not to overestimate our own mental complexity. We

The difference in mind between man and the higher animals, great as it is, certainly is one of degree and not of kind. —Charles Darwin (1871)

This is clearly not so. Pigeons, for example, do better than humans at mentally rotating visual images, and some birds have an amazing memory for the location of hidden objects. Clark's nutcrackers store up to 33,000 seeds in caches distributed over many square kilometers and find most of the caches again months later.28As someone who occasionally forgets where he has parked an item as large and significant as his car, I am impressed by these peanut-brained birds.

Charles Darwin's well-known observation that the mental difference between humans and other animals is one of degree rather than kind.

When a bachelor of philosophy from the Antilles refuses to apply for certification as a teacher on the grounds of his color I say that philosophy has never saved anyone. When someone else strives and strains to prove to me that black men are as intelligent as white men I say that intelligence has never saved anyone: and that is true, for, if philosophy and intelligence are invoked to proclaim the equality of men, they have also been employed to justify the extermination of men.

When someone strives & strains to prove to me that black men are as intelligent as white men, I say that intelligence has never saved anyone; and that is true, for, if philosophy and intelligence are invoked to proclaim the equality of men, they have also been employed to justify the extermination of men.

If philosophy and intelligence are invoked to proclaim the equality of men, they have also been employed to justify the extermination of men.