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.