Intelligence Quotes

I am not convinced within myself that to its core and as a whole, humanity has, as some like to assume, progressed a great deal over the millennia. Human technology? Of course. Human beings? Hardly.

~ Criss Jami

Beauty fades, dumb is forever.

~ Judy Sheindlin

Beauty is a sign of intelligence.

~ Andy Warhol

A bore or an uggo might manage not to get up anyone's nose, but if a girl's got brains and looks and personality, she's going to piss someone off, somewhere along the way.

~ Tana French

I'm forty-nine, not fifteen, and I've made my peace with myself. Had I been handsome and stupid when I was fifteen, or twenty-one, as, at that time in life, I wished I had been, I would undoubtedly now no longer be handsome--but I'd still be stupid. So, in the long run, I've won out.

~ Isaac Asimov

Beauty, real beauty, ends where an intellectual expression begins

~ Oscar Wilde

Character. Intelligence. Strength. Style. That makes beauty.

~ Diane Von Furstenberg

The principle of any science is invisible, theoretical, as is our idea of Spirit. No one has seen God; no one has seen Life; what we have seen is the manifestation of Life. No one has seen Intelligence; we experience it. No one has ever seen Causation; we can see what It does, we deal with Its effects. We do not see Beauty. The artist feels beauty and depicts it as best he can, and the result of his effort is what we call the beautiful...We do not see Life, we experience living. Causation is invisible.

~ Ernest Holmes

Ninety-nine percent of everything that goes on in most Christian churches has nothing whatsoever to do with the actual religion. Intelligent people all notice this sooner or later, and they conclude that the entire one hundred percent is bullshit, which is why atheism is connected with being intelligent in people's minds.

~ Neal Stephenson

The aim is to love God because the pure heart loves loving God and because the true mind knows He deserves it. Unlike the accusations and beliefs of the critics and skeptics, it is neither an obligation of duty; nor a fear of damnation; nor a wish for power; nor a desire to appear more righteous than others; nor because God needs it; but because through all love, truth, reason, faith, honesty, and joy in and beyond oneself and the universe, He is worthy.

~ Criss Jami

We must exude a sense of proportional gratitude that humankind’s exquisite texture is composed of a feeling soul and an intelligent will, which people refer to as memory of the heart.

~ Kilroy J. Oldster

And don’t forget, if you are very intelligent but load yourself with bad characters, nobody will follow you.

~ Israelmore Ayivor

He who has never imitated anyone is known as one with intelligence.

~ Dada Bhagwan

I am so clever that sometimes I don't understand a single word of what I am saying.

~ Oscar Wilde

You might be poor, your shoes might be broken, but your mind is a palace.

~ Frank Mccourt

Quotation is a serviceable substitute for wit.

~ Oscar Wilde

Men have called me mad; but the question is not yet settled, whether madness is or is not the loftiest intelligence– whether much that is glorious– whether all that is profound– does not spring from disease of thought– from moods of mind exalted at the expense of the general intellect.

~ Edgar Allan Poe

It takes something more than intelligence to act intelligently.

~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky

I'd take the awe of understanding over the awe of ignorance any day.

~ Douglas Adams

The pendulum of the mind oscillates between sense and nonsense, not between right and wrong.

~ C.g. Jung

I not only use all the brains that I have, but all I can borrow.

~ Woodrow Wilson

The ability to observe without evaluating is the highest form of intelligence.

~ Jiddu Krishnamurti

All truly great thoughts are conceived while walking.

~ Friedrich Nietzsche

I make mistakes like the next man. In fact, being--forgive me--rather cleverer than most men, my mistakes tend to be correspondingly huger.

~ J.k. Rowling

Be less curious about people and more curious about ideas.

~ Marie Curie

Nothing whets the intelligence more than a passionate suspicion, nothing develops all the faculties of an immature mind more than a trail running away into the dark.

~ Stefan Zweig

Reason is intelligence taking exercise. Imagination is intelligence with an erection.

~ Victor Hugo

I think of myself as an intelligent, sensitive human being with the soul of a clown which always forces me to blow it at the most important moments.

~ Jim Morrison

A stupid man's report of what a clever man says can never be accurate, because he unconsciously translates what he hears into something he can understand.

~ Bertrand Russell

Mary wished to say something very sensible, but knew not how.

~ Jane Austen

Intelligence without ambition is a bird without wings.

~ Walter H. Cottingham

I used to think that finding the right one was about the man having a list of certain qualities. If he has them, we'd be compatible and happy. Sort of a checkmark system that was a complete failure. But I found out that a healthy relationship isn't so much about sense of humor or intelligence or attractive. It's about avoiding partners with harmful traits and personality types. And then it's about being with a good person. A good person on his own, and a good person with you. Where the space between you feels uncomplicated and happy. A good relationship is where things just work. They work because, whatever the list of qualities, whatever the reason, you happen to be really, really good together.

~ Deb Caletti

The more stupid one is, the closer one is to reality. The more stupid one is, the clearer one is. Stupidity is brief and artless, while intelligence squirms and hides itself. Intelligence is unprincipled, but stupidity is honest and straightforward.

~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Crazy people are considered mad by the rest of the society only because their intelligence isn't understood.

~ Zhou Weihui

Man cannot survive except through his mind. He comes on earth unarmed. His brain is his only weapon. Animals obtain food by force. man had no claws, no fangs, no horns, no great strength of muscle. He must plant his food or hunt it. To plant, he needs a process of thought. To hunt, he needs weapons,and to make weapons - a process of thought. From this simplest necessity to the highest religious abstraction, from the wheel to the skyscraper, everything we are and we have comes from a single attribute of man -the function of his reasoning mind.

~ Ayn Rand

A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep.

~ Saul Bellow

I can normally tell how intelligent a man is by how stupid he thinks I am.

~ Cormac Mccarthy

A dozen more questions occurred to me. Not to mention twenty-two possible solutions to each one, sixteen resulting hypotheses and counter-theorems, eight abstract speculations, a quadrilateral equation, two axioms, and a limerick. That's raw intelligence for you.

~ Jonathan Stroud

Man is so intelligent that he feels impelled to invent theories to account for what happens in the world. Unfortunately, he is not quite intelligent enough, in most cases, to find correct explanations. So that when he acts on his theories, he behaves very often like a lunatic.

~ Aldous Huxley

Military intelligence is a contradiction in terms.

~ Groucho Marx