Quotes About Intelligence

I won't insult your intelligence by suggesting that you really believe what you just said.

One of the indictments of civilizations is that happiness and intelligence are so rarely found in the same person.

An education isnt how much you have committed to memory, or even how much you know. Its being able to differentiate between what you do know and what you dont. Its knowing where to go to find out what you need to know; and its knowing how to use the information you get.

Here is the secret of inspiration: Tell yourself that thousands and tens of thousands of people, not very intelligent and certainly no more intelligent than the rest of us, have mastered problems as difficult as those that now baffle you.

It is impossible to defeat an ignorant man in argument.

You can acquire a lot of knowledge without ever going to school.

As Kahn put it, the secret of investing could be expressed in one word: "safety." And the key to making intelligent investment decisions was always to begin by asking, "How much can I lose?

I don't have any wonderful insights that other people don't have. I just have slightly more consistently than others avoided idiocy. Other people are trying to be smart. All I'm trying to be is non-idiotic. I find that all you have to do to get ahead in life is to be non-idiotic and live a long time. It's harder to be non-idiotic than most people think.

Our civilization will, of course, be "playing God" in an ultimate sense of the phrase: evolving a greater intelligence than currently exists on earth. It behooves us to be a considerate creator, wise to the world and its fragile nature, sensitive to the needs for stable footings that will prevent backsliding -- and keep that house of cards we call civilization from collapsing.

When book and reader's furrowed brow meet, it isn't always the book that's stupid.

If we had the true and complete history of one man - which would be the history of his head - we would sign the warrants and end ourselves forever, not because of the wickedness we would find within that man, no, but because of the meagerness of feeling, the miniaturization of meaning, the pettiness of ambition, the vulgarities, the vanities, the diminution of intelligence, the endless trivia we'd encounter, the ever present dust.

It appears that there is now a drive on to make the world safe for morons[,]

I don't deny that there are problems in the intelligence world, but I would argue that in the UK we try to uphold the highest standards in the world.

Wit is the salt of conversation, not the food.

The people who work in intelligence work are more conscious, more apt to be attentive.

Not all intelligence can be artificial now, so if we make a mistake, the consequences are no longer simply located within an institution or a national culture.

ìCommon sense and a sense of humor are the same thing, moving at different speeds. A sense of humor is just common sense, dancing.

But the person who scored well on an SAT will not necessarily be the best doctor or the best lawyer or the best businessman. These tests do not measure character, leadership, creativity, perseverance.

The interior of a teenager's mind is an endless war between Stupid and Clever.

What about you, Mr. Glover. The smartest man in the room is usually the quietest. What do you think about all this?" "I think you killed your wife.

Scientists used to think that whatever the very early universe might have been like, given sufficient time and some luck, intelligent life forms would eventually evolve somewhere. As a result of discoveries over the last fifty years or so, we now know that that assumption was wrong; in fact, quite the opposite is true.

Intelligence is not a prerequisite for safe flying, but an acceptance of human fallibility is, and the two are generally linked.

In certain ways I am deeply stupid. I don't say this out of modesty. I believe that I'm more intelligent than the average human being, though perhaps intelligence should not be looked at as a single gauge, like a speedometer, but as a full array of tachometers, odometers, altimeters, and the rest.

intelligence should not be looked at as a single gauge, like a speedometer, but as a full array of tachometers, odometers, altimeters,