Intelligence Quotes

You don't have to be a genius when you're surrounded by morons.

The more intelligent a man is, the more originality he discovers in men. Ordinary people see no difference between men.

The intelligence is proved not by ease of learning, but by understanding what we learn.

The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function.

It has yet to be proven that intelligence has any survival value.

It is not worth an intelligent man's time to be in the majority. By definition, there are already enough people to do that.

Truly great madness cannot be achieved without significant intelligence.

Sometimes I think the surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us.

There is no such thing as an underestimate of average intelligence.

There is nobody so irritating as somebody with less intelligence and more sense than we have.

I happen to feel that the degree of a person's intelligence is directly reflected by the number of conflicting attitudes she can bring to bear on the same topic.

To repeat what others have said, requires education; to challenge it, requires brains.

Readers are plentiful; thinkers are rare.

The ability to focus attention on important things is a defining characteristic of intelligence.

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

Beware when the great God lets loose a thinker on this planet.

One man that has a mind and knows it can always beat ten men who haven't and don't.

A mind too active is no mind at all.

Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocrities. The latter cannot understand it when a man does not thoughtlessly submit to hereditary prejudices, but honestly and courageously uses his intelligence and fulfills the duty to express the results of his thought in clear form.

Men fear thought as they fear nothing else on earth -- more than ruin -- more even than death.... Thought is subversive and revolutionary, destructive and terrible, thought is merciless to privilege, established institutions, and comfortable habit. Thought looks into the pit of hell and is not afraid. Thought is great and swift and free, the light of the world, and the chief glory of man.

Intelligence appears to be the thing that enables a man to get along without education. Education enables a man to get along without the use of his intelligence.

In our civilization, and under our republican form of government, intelligence is so highly honored that it is rewarded by exemption from the cares of office.

An intellectual is a man who takes more words than necessary to tell more than he knows.

An intellectual is a man who takes more words than necessary to tell more than he knows.

An intellectual is a person who has discovered something more interesting than sex.

We should take care not to make the intellect our god; it has, of course, powerful muscles, but no personality.

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

Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.

An intelligence test sometimes shows a man how smart he would have been not to have taken it.

An intelligence test sometimes shows a man how smart he would have been not to have taken it.

Some people have a gift for stupidity, an almost mystic ability to withstand any form of logic.

The intelligent man finds almost everything ridiculous, the sensible man hardly anything.

Today the greatest single source of wealth is between your ears.

It has been said that man is a rational animal. All my life I have been searching for evidence which could support this.

Providence protects children and idiots. I know because I have tested it.

The greatest lesson in life is to know that even fools are right sometimes.

The greatest lesson in life is to know that even fools are right sometimes.

Without the aid of trained emotions the intellect is powerless against the animal organism.

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

I prefer rogues to imbeciles, because they sometimes take a rest.

If there are no stupid questions, then what kind of questions do stupid people ask? Do they get smart just in time to ask questions.

Beauty is a sign of intelligence.

Skill is successfully walking a tightrope over Niagara Falls. Intelligence is not trying.

There are three kinds of intelligence: one kind understands things for itself, the other appreciates what others can understand, the third understands neither for itself nor through others. This first is excellent, the second good, and the third useless.

The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits.

I don't think there's anything unique about human intellience. All the nuerons in the brain that make up perceptions and emotions operate in a binary fashion.

The intellect is not a serious thing, and never has been. It is an instrument on which one plays, that is all.

So far as I can remember, there is not one word in the Gospels in praise of intelligence.

Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.