Quotes About Intelligence

I have something to say to the religionist who feels atheists never say anything positive: You are an intelligent human being. Your life is valuable for its own sake. You are not second-class in the universe, deriving meaning and purpose from some other mind. You are not inherently evil—you are inherently human, possessing the positive rational potential to help make this a world of morality, peace and joy. Trust yourself.

But when our faith causes us to check our brains at the door, we have fallen far from the God who gave us the capacity for reason.

Smart people don't have the luxury of playing stupid.

Great minds are always feared by lesser minds.

But if we stop learning stuff," I protested, "we'll get dumber." "In your case," Andrea told me, "that would be impossible.

The Most Genius Idea!

tortoise always manages to win the race by using its brains.

Andrea was right. "Dumb" is not a nice word. In fact, there's only one word in the English language that's worse than dumb. "Dumbhead.

Miss Daisy was really dumb! Even I know what you get when you multiply four times four. But that smarty-pants-I-know-everything-girl Andrea Young beat me to it and got called on first.

Football Players Are Really Dumb

Spy Museum.

Mensa does not permit applicants to take its IQ test twice, because the organization ascribes to the view that intelligence doesn't change much, so there's really no point in retaking it. Either you got it or you don't. And they require test takers to show a license or other official photo identification. That put a crimp in my plan to take the same test before and after my training regimen,

Twenty-two of those studies specifically found improvements in fluid intelligence or reasoning, while the remaining fifty-three found a variety of other significant benefits in abilities such as attention, executive function, working memory, and reading.

The overturning of the pernicious dogma that our intelligence is unchangeable holds enormous implications for every level of society: young and old, rich and poor, genius and cognitively disabled alike. No one is saying that cognitive training can turn an intellectually disabled person into a genius.

But don't let the trendiness fool you. A multitude of studies suggest that the ancient practice of mindfulness meditation actually holds promise as a way to improve cognitive abilities, to increase attention, expand working memory, and raise fluid intelligence. Some of the best are by one of the most respected psychologists in the United States, Michael Posner, professor emeritus at the University of Oregon and former chair of its psychology department.

Yet in Jaeggi and Buschkuehl's study, after just four weeks of doing the N-back, the students' scores on a measure of fluid intelligence increased, on average, by 40 percent.

I may be dead, but I ain't stupid.

Much of the new money, on top of the already existing multi-billion-dollar budgets of the intelligence community and the military agencies, went into classified budget annexes under a new catch-all category called "GWOT" (pronounced Gee-Watt), for the Global War on Terror.2

The library is what keeps us a step ahead of the apes.

How do you know when you're getting dumber? It gets harder, and harder to tell, doesn't it?

If anyone tells you it's impossible to be fabulous and smart and make a ton of money using math, well, they can just get in line behind you - and kiss your math.

Look at Jessica Simpson. She's famous for being dumb. I guess it started with Marylyn Monroe, and she actually wasn't that dumb, but that's how she was perceived - and that's what got popular.

Find your self-respect now. Don't dumb yourselves down. Think of yourself as capable and worthy of finding a guy who is going to respect you, too. It's so important, I mean, and the confidence you get from feeling smart and tackling something like mathematics, which is a challenge, right? Math is hard.

Stupidity is the monocle of Intelligence.