Intelligence Quotes

The declining of responsibility for the self can also be hidden behind a pseudo-objectivity. A patient may make astute observations about himself and give a fairly accurate report of what he dislikes in himself. On the surface it seems as though he is perceptive and honest about himself. But he may be merely the intelligent observer of a fellow who is inhibited, fearful, or arrogantly demanding. Hence, since he is not responsible for the fellow he observes, the hurt to his pride is cushioned—all the moreso because the flashlight of his pride is focused on his faculty for keen observations.

~ Karen Horney

The highest form of human intelligence is to observe yourself without judgment.

~ Jiddu Krishnamurti

Richard seemed to like our morning conversations about Brecht and Althusser and Andre Gorz, but later on he turned the group against me for being too cerebral and acting like a boy. And weren't all these passionate interests and convictions just evasions of a greater truth, my cunt? I was an innocent, a de-gendered freak, 'cause unlike Liza Martin, who was such a babe she refused to take her platforms off for Kundalini Yoga, I hadn't learned the trick of throwing sex into the mix.

~ Chris Kraus

You are very kind and very intelligent and those elements are not always found together. Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt, Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune, and my mother - yes, you belong in that category. Here, give me a kiss.

~ Maya Angelou

In this world where value is unknown, but the price of anything is marked, where the creation of self has been abandoned for the search for self, the behavior diagnosed as antisocial is often too quickly ascribed to intelligence when thrust into contact with widespread conformity, and refuses.

~ Glenn Hefley

I see the impossible work being done by of my friends at the federal agencies, the Pentagon, NATO, Five Eyes and the intelligence community. They are doing the impossible, for the ungrateful and with a fraction of the budgets required to render a viable defense.

~ James Scott

Fine words have the power to make even the stupidest person sound intelligent.

~ Marty Rubin

Behave like men, and not like witless sheep...

~ Dante Alighieri

The moment you establish a line of communication between two points, you subtly change both. That is also true for the way the brain is affected by the mind.

~ David Amerland

The best minds have their soft spots and sometimes feel somewhat bruised by the scant respect of logic.

~ Victor Hugo

Genius has now all-but disappeared from public view; partly because intelligence (which is strongly genetic) is in decline in the West, partly because social institutions no longer recognize or nurture genius, and partly because the modern West is actively hostile to genius.

~ Bruce Charlton

In the strange anomaly of my existence, feelings with me had never been of the heart, and my passions always were of the mind.

~ Edgar Allan Poe

Intelligence...[is] not marathon rac[e]: there is no fixed criteria for success, no start or finish lines -- and running sideways or backwards, might secure victory.

~ Siddhartha Mukherjee

Though the children did not know Levin well and did not remember when they had last seen him, they did not feel towards him any of that strange shyness and antagonism so often felt by children towards grown-up people who 'pretend,' which causes them to suffer as painfully. Pretence about anything sometimes deceives the wisest and shrewdest man, but, however cunningly it is hidden, a child of the meanest capacity feels it and is repelled by it.

~ Leo Tolstoy

You are Timeless Being and Awareness...You are not touched by any of this.

~ Bert Mccoy

the future belongs to those societies that treat new ideas as delicate, fragile and immensely valuable pathways to the future.

~ Carl Sagan

My mind rebels at stagnation. Give me problems, give me work, give me the most abstruse cryptogram, or the most intricate analysis, and I am in my own proper atmosphere. I can dispense with artificial stimulants. But I abhor the dull routine of existence. I crave for mental exaltation.

~ Arthur Conan Doyle

Russell commented that the development of such gifted individuals (referring to polymaths) required a childhood period in which there was little or no pressure for conformity, a time in which the child could develop and pursue his or her own interests no matter how unusual or bizarre.

~ Carl Sagan

As in all such technological nightmares, the principal task is to foresee what is possible; to educate use and misuse; and to prevent its organizational, bureaucratic and governmental abuse.

~ Carl Sagan

This sort of information gathering is precisely what we call play. And the important function of play is thus revealed: it permits us to gain, without any particular future application in mind, a holistic understanding of the world, which is both a complement of and a preparation for later analytical activities.

~ Carl Sagan

Dartmouth College employs computer learning techniques in a very broad array of courses. For example, a student can gain a deep insight into the statistics of Mendelian genetics in an hour with the computer rather than spend a year crossing fruit fliesin the laboratory.

~ Carl Sagan

When all is said and done, the invention of writing must be reckoned not only as a brilliant innovation but as a surpassing good for humanity. And assuming that we survive long enough to use their inventions wisely, I believe the same will be said of the modern Thoths and Prometheuses who are today devisingcomputers and programs at the edge of machine intelligence.

~ Carl Sagan

The entire evolutionary record on our planet, particularly the record contained in fossil endocasts, illustrates a progressive tendency toward intelligence. There is nothing mysterious about this:smart organisms by and large survive better and leave more offspring than stupid ones.

~ Carl Sagan

Natural selection has served as a kind of intellectual sieve, producing brains and intelligences increasingly competent to deal with the laws of nature.

~ Carl Sagan

Took me a few years to understand what intelligence is; Took me an entire lifetime to understand ignorance. I still haven't found an explanation for ignorance, because the ignorant are too ignorant to justify their ignorance.

~ Robin Sacredfire

If only stupid people could have the mere intelligence to shut up while discussing serious matter, the world would go along so much better !

~ Laure Lacornette

Some people get offended by what I write, by what I do with my life and by what I say to those they never saw. And they also get offended when told they are too stupid to have the right to judge anyone. These poor souls don't know that respect and intelligence are correlated.

~ Daniel Marques

Intelligence and effort can be no compensation for ugliness.

~ Hanif Kureishi

Most people I meet are stupid. Now, nobody likes to be labeled as stupid because they don’t want to know the truth about themselves, that they’re more useful dead than alive. The vast majority of those that meet me for the first time don’t believe that I’ve worked as a College Professor, or that I make a living as a writer. In fact, many have stopped talking to me because they believe I make a living doing something illegal, something criminal. It’s easier for them to believe that I’m just a criminal, than to accept that I’m one of the most famous bestselling writers in the entire planet. The ones that reach the next level, will ask me if I belong to any secret organization, if I speak to demons or if I channel the dead, or even if I steal information from the internet and other authors. Now, what they can’t see, is that the more they talk such things, the more they show me their real nature. They are very, really very, stupid. They can’t see an elephant in front of their nose; they can’t see an intelligent human being in front of their face; they are indeed very stupid and that’s a fact, not an assumption.

~ Robin Sacredfire

Why do you think you are always right? Asks a dumb person that can't understand why I make a living as a self-help author or why she is wasting my time and I will never speak to her ever again.

~ Robin Sacredfire

Why is the eye considered a reliable judge when it knows nothing of love or intelligence?

~ Richelle E. Goodrich

Cyber hygiene, patching vulnerabilities, security by design, threat hunting and machine learning based artificial intelligence are mandatory prerequisites for cyber defense against the next generation threat landscape.

~ James Scott

And despite the insignificance of the instant we have so far occupied in cosmic time, it is clear that what happens on and near Earth at the beginning of the second cosmic year will depend very much on the scientific wisdom and the distinctly human sensitivity of mankind.

~ Carl Sagan

Intelligence without wisdom is nothing more than stupidity that looks smart.

~ Craig D. Lounsbrough

Just when you think you know.....you don't know.

~ Nanette Mathews

It is interesting that it is not the getting of any sort of knowledge that God has forbidden, but, specifically, the knowledge of the difference between good and evil-that is, abstract and moral judgments, which, if they reside anywhere, reside in the neocortex.

~ Carl Sagan

pg. 58. As a kid, I always assumed the know-it-alls on Jeopardy! were obviously the smartest people in America. If you were smart, that's how you showed it: by knowing all your state flowers and kings of Saxony. But what if Rob's right and that's a different, much shallower kind of intelligence? Is my mountain of flash cards all for naught?

~ Ken Jennings

Our difficulties in understanding or effectuatingcommunication with other animals may arise from our reluctance to grasp unfamiliar ways of dealing with the world.

~ Carl Sagan

Just because you consider yourself a genius doesn't mean you are smart.

~ Mark W Boyer

At forty two years, Sona Kilroy stood tall and strapping, a powerful figure. Rising to the rank of Admiral in the Corsair fleet was no easy feat. It took intelligence, talent, determination, resilience, creative thinking, brute force, and sheer cunning to achieve – and perhaps also a large slice of luck.

~ Christina Engela