Quotes About Intelligence

People feel deep anxiety finding out that someone they thought was stupid is actually more intelligent than they are.

They will envy you for your success, for your wealth, for your intelligence, for your looks, for your status—but rarely for your wisdom.

If the student is smart, the teacher takes the credit.

An erudite is someone who displays less than he knows; a journalist or consultant, the opposite.

I noticed that very intelligent and informed persons were at no advantage over cabdrivers in their predictions, but there was a crucial difference. Cabdrivers did not believe that they understood as much as learned people - really, they were not the experts and they knew it. Nobody knew anything, but elite thinkers thought that they knew more than the rest because they were elite thinkers, and if you're a member of the elite, you automatically know more than the nonelite.

our representation of the standard criminal might be based on the properties of those less intelligent ones who were caught.

When the person is highly intelligent, he can astonish you with the most far-fetched, yet completely plausible interpretations of the most innocuous remark. If

Mathematics is not just a numbers game, it is a way of thinking.

The best test of whether someone is extremely stupid (or extremely wise) is whether financial and political news makes sense to him.

Luck is far more egalitarian than even intelligence. If people were rewarded strictly according to their abilities, things would still be unfair—people don't choose their abilities. Randomness has the beneficial effect of reshuffling society's cards, knocking down the big guy.

I noticed that very intelligent and informed persons were at no advantage over cabdrivers in their predictions, but there was a crucial difference. Cabdrivers did not believe that they understood as much as learned people—really, they were not the experts and they knew it. Nobody knew anything, but elite thinkers thought that they knew more than the rest because they were elite thinkers, and if you're a member of the elite, you automatically know more than the nonelite.

Once in a while you encounter members of the human species with so much intellectual superiority that they can change their minds effortlessly.

not to be swayed by well-sounding remarks. I remind myself of Einstein's remark that common sense is nothing but a collection of misconceptions acquired by age eighteen. Furthermore, What sounds intelligent in a conversation or a meeting, or, particularly, in the media, is suspicious.

Charlatan" was held to be a synonym for empirick. The word "empiric" designated someone who relied on experiment and experience to ascertain what was correct. In other words, trial and error and tinkering. That was held to be inferior—professionally, socially, and intellectually. It is still not considered to be very "intelligent.

Mother Nature knows more than he will ever know, not the other way around.

I remind myself of Einstein's remark that common sense is nothing but a collection of misconceptions acquired by age eighteen. Furthermore, What sounds intelligent in a conversation or a meeting, or, particularly, in the media, is suspicious. Any

Let us remember that economists are evaluated on how intelligent they sound, not on a scientific measure of their knowledge of reality.

Nature is all about the exploitation of optionality; it illustrates how optionality is a substitute for intelligence.

So class envy doesn't originate from a truck driver in South Alabama, but from a New York or Washington, D.C., Ivy League–educated IYI (say Paul Krugman or Joseph Stiglitz) with a sense of entitlement, upset some "less smart" persons are much richer.

my wish is for people in general to remain fools of randomness (so I can trade against them), yet for there to remain a minority intelligent enough to value my methods and hire my services.

Double a man's erudition; you will halve his citations.

Je préférerais être bête et antifragile qu'extrêmement intelligent et fragile, à n'importe quel moment.

was not intelligent enough, nor strong enough, to even try to fight my emotions.

we are simply not wise enough to be trusted with knowledge.