Quotes About Intelligence

Directorate S seeks to provide a thorough, reliable history of how the C.I.A., I.S.I., and Afghan intelligence agencies influenced the rise of a new war in Afghanistan after the fall of the Taliban, and how that war fostered a revival of Al Qaeda, allied terrorist networks, and, eventually, branches of the Islamic State.

Clinton's relationship with the CIA during his first term: distant, mutually ill-informed, and strangely nonchalant.

They had provided insights for the article in the President's Daily Brief received by George W. Bush on August 6, 2001, headlined BIN LADIN DETERMINED TO STRIKE IN US. "It's Bin Laden," Blee insisted to his colleagues. They were still arguing among themselves at 9:03 a.m. when United Airlines Flight 175 struck the World Trade Center's South Tower.6

Was it conceivable that Bin Laden could live so close to the army's highest seat of officer education for six years without anyone in uniform or in I.S.I. being aware of his presence? Kayani later insisted that it was the case. The compound was not actually visible from the academy. Pakistanis did not routinely get to know their neighbors in the way that many Americans did, he argued to American visitors.

With apparent sincerity, he added, "No intelligence organization of Pakistan is capable of indoctrinating a man to blow himself up."21

Where are they?" he would ask Afghan intelligence counterparts. "Everywhere." "What villages?" "All of them." "When?" "Every day." "What about the mountains?" "In the mountains too."30 The only way to pinpoint Taliban positions was through reconnaissance by force, which meant driving around until "somebody shoots at you

This was I.S.I. in microcosm: an institution well practiced at manipulating the C.I.A. and the Taliban simultaneously.

One view at the highest levels of the U.S. embassy in Kabul by summer's end was that Karzai "was a very clever madman—just because he was insane doesn't mean he was stupid.

Fortunately for Obiang, coup-prone African governments rolling in oil but lacking in arms and intelligence to defend their bounty had a discreet alternative to the Pentagon and the C.I.A. for defense support: Israel.

I love Sherlock Holmes. I've got all his books, leather-bound. What I thought was great about Sherlock Holmes was that not only was he a supersleuth, he was also a hard worker. Not only did he go out and solve the crimes, he came home and wrote it all down. Fantastic. That's why I admire him.

Intelligence involves a great deal more than the ability to follow rules ( which is what chess-playing program does). It is also the ability to make up the rules for oneself, when they are needed, or to learn new rules through trial and error.

These are the methods of crude men. They can't face the challenge that a safe presents to them. They can't face the safe on its own terms. So they do what? Same thing men have been doing for thousands of years, right? They resort to violence." He grabbed the dolly and tucked it under the safe. "No patience. No skill. No intelligence. Just brute strength. They have to break something. It's the only way they know.

I'm an optimist in the sense that I believe humans are noble and honorable, and some of them are really smart. I have a very optimistic view of individuals.

What I don't understand is how come I got seven thousand chromosomes that make me smart and not a single one that makes me cool.

I'd just like to meet a girl with a head on her shoulders. I hate necks.

I like a woman with a head on her shoulders. I hate necks.

The place was believed to have so many of Cheng's spies working there, gathering information and sending it back to Beijing, that some in the US intelligence community now referred to it not as "Chinatown," but as "Cheng's Town.

Before we work on artificial intelligence why don't we do something about natural stupidity?

Teachers started recognizing me and praising me for being smart in science and that made me want to be even smarter in science!

Wherever smart people work, doors are unlocked.

In some parts of life, like mathematics and science, yeah, I was a genius. I would top all the top scores you could ever measure it by.

If you read the same things as others and say the same things they say, then you're perceived as intelligent. I'm a bit more independent and radical and consider intelligence the ability to think about matters on your own and ask a lot of skeptical questions to get at the real truth, not just what you're told it is.

There's nothing worse than a smartass who pretends not to understand hyperbole.

A stupid person can make only certain, limited types of errors; the mistakes open to a clever fellow are far broader. But to the one who knows how smart he is compared to everyone else, the possibilities for true idiocy are boundless.