c2p-cmd/Good-Quotes-Authors huggingface dataset:
The great proliferation of museums in the nineteenth century was a product of the marriage of the exhibition as a way of awakening intelligent interest in the visitor with the growth of collections that was associated with empire and middle-class affluence. Attendance at museums was as much associated with moral improvement as with explanation of the human or natural world.
— Richard Fortey, Dry Store Room No. 1: The Secret Life of the Natural History Museum
I will use my mind, not just my regular brain lobes.
— Peter Bognanni, The House of Tomorrow
Muscle is good, but craft is better
— Wace, Roman de Brut
People wonder why I always dress professionally. I want to be admired for my intelligence, instead of my body.
— Bianca Frazier
A mind that trusts itself is light on its feet.
— Nathaniel Branden, Six Pillars of Self-Esteem
Intelligence is perhaps but a malady, -a beautiful malady; the oysters's pearl.
— Rémy de Gourmont, Philosophic Nights in Paris,: Being Selections from Promenades Philosophiques
The innocent supposition, entertained by most people, that even if they are not brilliant, they are not dumb, is correct only in a very relative sense.
— James Gould Cozzens, The Just and the Unjust
Modern intelligence won't accept anything on authority. But it will accept anything without authority.
— G.K. Chesterton, The Man Who Knew Too Much
Everybody who flashed the signs of loyalty he took to be loyal. Everybody who flashed the signs of intelligence he took to be intelligent. And so he had failed to see into his daughter, failed to see into his wife, failed to see into his one and only mistress—probably had never even begun to see into himself
— Philip Roth, American Pastoral
A person that has more intelligence than education always makes his own grade!
— Stanley Victor Paskavich
There can be no question that parrots have more intellect than any other kind of bird, and it is this that makes them such favourite pets and brings upon them so many sorrows. ...Men will buy them ... and carry them off to all quarters of the native town, intending, I doubt not, to treat them kindly; but "the tender mercies of the wicked are cruel", and confinement in a solitary cell, the discipline with which we reform hardened criminals, is misery enough to a bird with an active mind, without the superadded horrors of ... life in a tin case, hung from a nail in the wall of a dark shop... Why does the Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals never look into the woes of parrots?...However happy you make her captivity, imagination will carry her at times to the green field and blue sky, and she fancies herself somewhere near the sun, heading a long file of exultant companions in swift career through the whistling air. Then she opens her mouth and rings out a wild salute to all parrots in the far world below her.
— E.H. Aitken
An intelligence test sometimes shows a man how smart he would have been not to have taken it.
— Laurence J. Peter
Great minds with great ideas usually share in the midst of their persecution
— Jeremy Aldana
At Childerstown High School and at college he had never led his class nor taken prizes; but, without being aware that he did, he really blamed this on his failure to work hard, or any harder than he needed to. . . . What he did not know, what Paul Bonbright, among others, showed him, was that those abilities of his that got him, without distinction but also without much exertion, through all previous lessons and examinations, were not first rate abilities handicapped by laziness, but second rate, by no degree of effort or assiduity to be made the equal of abilities like Bonbright's.
— James Gould Cozzens, The Just and the Unjust
A critical attitude, like activity, is one of the fundamental characteristics of our time. Both are interdependent. If the critical attitude should dwindle, there would be more peace and less intelligence, to the benefit of the essential. Neither criticism nor activity, however, can steer the course in such a direction - this means that higher forces are involved.
— Ernst Jünger, The Glass Bees
Watson represents merely a step in the development of smart machines. Its answering prowess, so formidable on a winter afternoon in 2011, will no doubt seem quaint in a surprisingly short time.
— Stephen Baker, Final Jeopardy: Man vs. Machine and the Quest to Know Everything
Stay away from negative people. They have a problem for every solution.
— Albert Einstein, The World As I See It
I'm living in a world of goldfish.
— Mycroft Holmes
Do you want me to pretend that you are the AI?
— an artificial intelligence student
It is often very useful for others to think you less intelligent than you are," Benedict said, his tone amused. "It works particularly well against those who aren't as intelligent as you in the first place.
— Jim Butcher, The Aeronaut's Windlass
Nothing imaginative ever happens to five people at once, because each is up to only one-fifth of his personal intelligence and perception. A crowd is never equal to the intelligence of any one of its members.
— Walter Van Tilburg Clark, The City Of Trembling Leaves
It's hard to pin down what my actual [IQ] score might be. It's silly to think that people even have one set IQ and that it's precisely measurable. My lowest scores probably reflect less than my maximum effort, and my highest scores probably grant me some extra points due to crazily high levels of diligence plus vast experience with these tests. It doesn't really matter unless we want to turn IQ testing into a reality show sport.
— Rick Rosner
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
— Albert Einstein
She was born under the sign of Gemini. And that stands for the good and evil twin. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde both hiding and residing inside her heart. Her good twin was not bad at all. But her evil twin was even better, and showed up to be way too fatal!
— Ana Claudia Antunes, Mysterious Murder of Marilyn Monroe
Application of common sense is Intelligence
— Ramana Pemmaraju
I'm a sucker for sweetness. Intelligence, creativity and a sense of humor mean little to me if a person isn't also kind.
— Scott Stabile
Common sense is instinct. Enough of it is genius.
— George Bernard Shaw
I think I only appear smart by staying quiet as often as possible.
— Sally Rooney, Conversations with Friends
It's a strange idea people have that thinking makes one intelligent.
— Marty Rubin
We decided to go back to basics and put the frighteners on some snouts.""Really?""We adopted a proactive intelligence-gathering policy utilising appropriate stakeholders in the community and pre-established covert human intelligence sources."And nobody can put a frightener on a covert human quite like Lesley can.
— Ben Aaronovitch, Rivers of London: Detective Stories #2
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, Neurosis and Human Growth: The Struggle Towards Self-Realization
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, I Love Dick
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, Letter to My Daughter
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, Senior Fellow, Institute for Critical Infrastructure Technology
When people's faith in the collective intelligence increases, falls to the same extent their own individual sense of responsibility.
— M.Z.Riffi
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, Paradiso
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 Sniper Mind: Eliminate Fear, Deal with Uncertainty, and Make Better Decisions
The best minds have their soft spots and sometimes feel somewhat bruised by the scant respect of logic.
— Victor Hugo, Les Misérables
To be a good at something you have to be intelligent like an elephant, sly like a fox and patient like a camel.
— M.Z.Riffi
Most of the people could be good at something specific, but they probably never discover what it is.
— M.Z.Riffi
You have to be brave when you are stupid.
— M.Z.Riffi
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, The Genius Famine: Why we need geniuses, why they're dying out, and why we must rescue them
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, Berenice
The mysterious Enoch Root meets 8-year-old Benjamin Franklin, Boston, 1713: "Do I look like a schoolmaster to you?" "No, but you talk like one." "You know something of schoolmasters, do you?""Yes, sir," the boy says, faltering a bit as he sees the jaws of the trap swinging toward his leg. "Yet here it is the middle of Monday—" "The place was empty 'cause of the Hanging. I didn't want to stay and—" "And what?" "Get more ahead of the others than I was already." "If you are ahead, the correct thing is to get used to it—not to make yourself into an imbecile. Come, you belong in school.
— Neal Stephenson, Quicksilver
Talent was not rare
—  the ability to survive having it was. (Enoch Root observes six-year-old Isaac Newton)
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, The Gene: An Intimate History
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, Anna Karenina
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, Dragons of Eden: Speculations on the Evolution of Human Intelligence
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, The Sign of the Four: By Sir Arthur Conan Doyle - Illustrated
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, Dragons of Eden: Speculations on the Evolution of Human Intelligence
A sens of humor can avoid many misunderstandings.
— Alin Sav
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, Dragons of Eden: Speculations on the Evolution of Human Intelligence
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, Dragons of Eden: Speculations on the Evolution of Human Intelligence
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, Dragons of Eden: Speculations on the Evolution of Human Intelligence
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, Dragons of Eden: Speculations on the Evolution of Human Intelligence
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, Dragons of Eden: Speculations on the Evolution of Human Intelligence
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, The Nothing
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, Slaying Dragons
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, Senior Fellow, Institute for Critical Infrastructure Technology
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, Dragons of Eden: Speculations on the Evolution of Human Intelligence
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, Dragons of Eden: Speculations on the Evolution of Human Intelligence
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, Brainiac: Adventures in the Curious, Competitive, Compulsive World of Trivia Buffs
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, Dragons of Eden: Speculations on the Evolution of Human Intelligence
Keep quiet and ponder! Speak and say something!
— Ernest Agyemang Yeboah
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, Dead Beckoning
I take my favorite and most promising lads to the theater,” said [Sherlock] Holmes. “I'd say that if they were born into better circumstances many would have grown up to be MP’s, but in truth most are too smart and too honest for Parliament.
— Dan Simmons, The Fifth Heart
It is not enough to call yourself a 'free thinker' just because you can change your beliefs. A whole mess of people change their beliefs based on what is fashionable rather than what is factual, which, by always following the crowd, would be the complete opposite of the beauty of a free thinker.
— Criss Jami
It is precisely our plasticity, our long childhood, that prevents a slavish adherence to genetically preprogrammed behavior in human beings more than in any other species… Some substantial adjustment of the relative role of each component of the triune brain is well within our powers.
— Carl Sagan, Dragons of Eden: Speculations on the Evolution of Human Intelligence
Perhaps the locale of the subjunctive mood willone day be found. Will Latins turn out to be extravagantly endowed and English-speaking peoples significantly short-changed in this minor piece of brain anatomy?
— Carl Sagan
It gets very hard to predict the future once you have smarter-than-human things around. In the same way that it gets very hard for a chimp to predict what is going to happen because there are smarter-than-chimp things around. That’s what the Singularity is: it’s the point past which you expect you can’t see.
— Nate Soares
Our head is designed to develop our intelligence, to devote ourselves to self- education, self -improvement and to broaden our perspective regarding the world around us
— Sunday Adelaja
Do dogs feel for humans something akin to religious ecstasy? What other strong or subtle emotions are felt by animals that do not communicate with us?
— Carl Sagan, Dragons of Eden: Speculations on the Evolution of Human Intelligence
Rationality attracts conscientious humans, whereas mysticism attracts fools.
— Abhijit Naskar, Rowdy Buddha: The First Sapiens
with rare exceptions (chiefly the social insects), mammals and birds are the only organisms to devote substantial attention to the care of their young; an evolutionary development that, through the long period of plasticity which it permits, takes advantage of the large information-processing capability of the mammalian and primate brains. Love seems to be an invention of the mammals.
— Carl Sagan, Dragons of Eden: Speculations on the Evolution of Human Intelligence
In the intelligence community, a rumor was almost as good as a confirmation.
— Kenneth Eade, Political Thriller: Unwanted, an American Assassin Story: an assassination, vigilante justice and terrorism thriller
The CIA’s offices in London were no secret to the MI6. In fact, the two agencies were practically kissing cousins.
— Kenneth Eade, Political Thriller: Unwanted, an American Assassin Story: an assassination, vigilante justice and terrorism thriller
I’m the Deputy Director for Operations.”
— “Congratulations. A title so classified you can’t even list it on your resumé when they fire you.
In addition, human beings have, in the most recent few tenths of a percent of our existence, invented not only extra-genetic but also extrasomatic knowledge: information stored outside our bodies, of which writing is the most notable example.
— Carl Sagan, Dragons of Eden: Speculations on the Evolution of Human Intelligence
The time scale for evolutionary or genetic change is very long. A characteristic period for the emergence of one advanced species from another is perhaps a hundred thousand years; and very often the difference in behavior between closely relatedspecies-say, lions and tigers-do not seem very great... But today we do not have ten million years to wait for the next advance. We live in a time when our world is changing at an unprecedented rate. While the changes are largely of our own making, they cannot be ignored. We must adjust and adapt andcontrol, or we perish.
— Carl Sagan, Dragons of Eden: Speculations on the Evolution of Human Intelligence
Evolution is adventitious and not foresighted. Only through the deaths of an immense number of slightly maladapted organisms are we, brains and all, here today.
— Carl Sagan, Dragons of Eden: Speculations on the Evolution of Human Intelligence
a typical chromosomal DNA molecule in a human being is composed of about five billion pairs of nucleotides… But since there are four different kinds of nucleotides, the number of bits of information in DNA is four times the number of nucleotide pairs. Thus if a single chromosome has five billion (5 X 10^9) nucleotides, it contains twenty billion (2 X 10^10) bits of information… We also see that if more than some tens of billions (several times 10^10) of bits of information are necessary for human survival, extragenetic systems will have to provide them: the rate of development of genetic systems is so slow that no source of such additional biological information can be sought in the DNA.
— Carl Sagan, Dragons of Eden: Speculations on the Evolution of Human Intelligence
Somewhere in the steaming jungles of the Carboniferous Period there emerged an organism that for the first time in the history of the world had more information in its brains than in its genes. It was an early reptile which, were we to come upon it in these sophisticated times, we would probably not describe as exceptionally intelligent… Much of the history of life since the Carboniferous Period can be described as the gradual (and certainly incomplete) dominance of brains over genes.
— Carl Sagan, Dragons of Eden: Speculations on the Evolution of Human Intelligence
It is very difficult to evolve by altering the deep fabric of life
—  any change there is likely to be lethal. But fundamental change can be accomplished by the addition of new systems on top of old ones.
I look at the world and I see absurdity all around me. People do strange things constantly, to the point that, for the most part, we manage not to see it.
— David Lynch
I am likely to fail if I have determined the cost as too high or my intelligence as too low. Yet, if I think about it, the real failure rests in believing either of these to be true.
— Craig D. Lounsbrough
Imitation is human intelligence in its most dynamic aspect.
— René Girard, The One by Whom Scandal Comes
Sight is seeing what's there, vision is seeing what's possible
— Retin Obasohan
Creativity is about connecting things. The key to genius is knowing how to make those connections.
— Nor Sanavongsay
Copernicus, Galileo, and Kepler did not solve an old problem, they asked a new question, and in doing so they changed the whole basis on which the old questions had been framed.
— Ken Robinson
The most intelligent or brilliant of us all are not usually the most successful, financially or career wise.A lot depends on the ability of a person to break into circles, meet people, network and interact.A well marketed yam may sell better than a not-so-well marketed Jollof.Do not just stay in the library and read all the books there, lest you become publicly dusty like the books you read.Food for thought!
— Magnus Nwagu Amudi
Without understanding, there is no life. Either you act, out of understanding or act to develop understanding out of it.
— Roshan Sharma
To be wise means to know when to stay silent.
— Kamand Kojouri
They are as smart as they are ruthless. That's why they've been around for all five years.
— Joe Reyes, Aftermath
what if you've been born more intelligent than others? and you can't force them to understand you, but you can understand them?. then you just need to force yourself on them, and you can map out their axioms and core beliefs and try to transform them. and then map out the fundamental concepts they need to know to understand you. i wish you understood me.
— Marouane LAASSAFAR
Your brother is a sensitive person. Aesthetically, ethically, and intellectually he is in fact hypersensitive. As a result, it would seem that he was born only to torture himself. He has none of that saving dullness of intelligence which sees little difference between A and B. To him it must be either A or B. And if it is to be A, its shape, degree, and shade of color must precisely match his own conception of it; otherwise he will not accept it. Your brother, being sensitive, is all his life walking on a line he has chosen—a line as precarious as a tight rope. At the same time he impatiently demands that others also tread an equally precarious rope, without missing their footing. It would be a mistake, though, to think that this stems from selfishness. Imagine a world which could react exactly the way your brother expects; that world would undoubtedly be far more advanced than the world as it is now. Consequently, he detests the world which is—aesthetically, intellectually, and ethically—not as advanced as he is himself. That's why it's different from mere selfishness, I think.
— Sōseki Natsume, Wayfarer
If we were to plot the distance between where you are RIGHT NOW and the nearest good idea, it would describe a line too big to fit inside the universe.
— Brian Clevinger, 8-Bit Theater
...I say to you, without pleasure, that this son of ours will be a great man, because -- well -- because he is not very intelligent. He can see only one desire at a time. I said he tested his dreams; he will murder every dream with the implacable arrows of his will. This boy will win to every goal of his aiming; for he can realize no thought, no reason, but his own. And I am sorry for his coming greatness...
— John Steinbeck, Cup of Gold: A Life of Sir Henry Morgan, Buccaneer, with Occasional Reference to History
Creativity is a high level of thinking and intelligence.
— Pearl  Zhu, It Innovation: Reinvent It for the Digital Age
If you want to foresee the behavior of someone, their personality is a better predictor than their intelligence.
— Luigina Sgarro
The brain isn't very much like a computer, although it doesn't do a bad job, considering that it's built by unskilled labor and programmed more by pure chance than anything else.
— Joe Haldeman, None So Blind: A Short Story Collection
Everything that makes man feel that mystery envelops him makes him more intelligent.
— Nicolás Gómez Dávila
It is not that men become too intelligent for God,' says the Apologist, 'but rather they become too arrogant for intelligence.
— Criss Jami
Remember what punishments befell us in this world when we ourselves did not cherish learning nor transmit it to other men.
— Ælfrēd of Wessex
Intelligence reports and local folklore together perpetuated tales of his bloody adventures across the rim worlds and badlands of Terran space. It was his trademark and often over the last two decades, history proclaimed in large bloody letters that ‘Kilroy woz ‘ere.
— Christina Engela, Dead Beckoning
Well, the terrible fact is that though we are all more or less thinking of something or other all the time, some of us are thinking more and some less.Some brains are battling and working and remembering and puzzling things over all the time and other brains are just lying down, snoring and occasionally turning over. It is to the lazy minds that I am now speaking, and from my own experience I imagine this includes nineteen people out of every twenty. I am one of that clan myself and always have been.
— Ted Hughes, Poetry in the Making: An Anthology
Intellectually secure people do not need to show anyone how smart they are. They are empirical and seek truth. Intellectually insecure people need to show everyone how smart they are. They are egotistical and seek triumph.
— Kevin Ashton, How to Fly a Horse: The Secret History of Creation, Invention, and Discovery
Emotion often outwits intelligence, while intuition renders life surprisingly fluent and enjoyable. ("Le ciel c'est l'autre")
— Erik Pevernagie
Humor is complete intelligence.
— Dick Cavette
A narrow hallway is all that separates rational from irrational, creativity from insanity, and intelligence from stupidity.
— Kilroy J. Oldster, Dead Toad Scrolls
Wisdom is the intelligent use of our knowledge, whereas sensibility is an intelligent use of our judgment.
— Pearl Zhu, Thinkingaire: 100 Game Changing Digital Mindsets to Compete for the Future
Starting over is opportunity informed by failure, which is opportunity made intelligent.
— Craig D. Lounsbrough
A pretty face and a beautiful body can capture my attention, But only a beautiful and creative mind can hold it
— Sam Eriakha
An elementary school student asked me the NOT “politically correct” question, “Is an idiot smarter than a moron?” I had to Google it because I was afraid to respond in today’s PC society and didn’t want to offend him, his parents, or anyone else. Here’s what I found.Technically, a moron is smarter than an idiot. An imbecile is also smarter than an idiot.Although today the words are considered insulting and derogatory, prior to the 1960s they were widely used as actual psychology terms associated with intelligence on an IQ test.	An IQ between:	 00-25 = Idiot	 26-50 = Imbecile	 51-70 = MoronExplaining all of this to a nine year old with an IQ of 130 made me feel like society has turned all adults into one of the above, myself included.When I told him that I’m afraid to openly say it, the nine year old said, “Adults are idiots!
— Ray Palla, H: Infidels of Oil
Favoring specialization over intelligence is exactly wrong, especially in high tech. The world is changing so fast across every industry and endeavor that it's a given the role for which you're hiring is going to change. Yesterday's widget will be obsolete tomorrow, and hiring a specialist in such a dynamic environment can backfire. A specialist brings an inherent bias to solving problems that spawns from the very expertise that is his putative advantage, and may be threatened by a new type of solution that requires new expertise. A smart generalist doesn't have bias, so is free to survey the wide range of solutions and gravitate to the best one.
— Eric Schmidt, How Google Works
Every other science presupposes intelligence as already existing and complete: the philosopher contemplates it in its growth, and as it were represents its history to the mind from its birth to its maturity.
— Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Biographia Literaria: Biographical Sketches of my Literary Life & Opinions
As long as you try to think intelligently, you have missed the point.
— Ramana Pemmaraju
An intelligent organization is not about the “cleverness” of one analytics team but the insightful nature of the entire business.
— Pearl Zhu, Digital Master: Debunk the Myths of Enterprise Digital Maturity
This was where she discovered that intelligence, this wonderful gift, grows in silence, not in noise. It was here too that she learnt that a human mind, a truly human mind, is nurtured over time, with hard work and discipline.
— Natalia Sanmartín Fenollera, The Awakening of Miss Prim
How old you are has nothing to do with how wise, smart, or mature you've actually become.
— Maria SwifMess
Life is full of challenges, seen and unseen, so to look and feel great, you must hold your head up each day and project your inner confidence.
— Cindy Ann Peterson, My Style, My Way: Top Experts Reveal How to Create Yours Today
Are you eating to live or are you eating to die? Food is not just for nourishment. Food is for information, it is for intelligence. It is for wisdom, but more so it is to create clarity within your self.
— Angie karan
And have I not told you that what you mistake for madness is but over-acuteness of the sense?
— Edgar Allan Poe, The Tell-Tale Heart
Independence can neither be created nor destroyed just like energy! It can only be transferred from a fearless, resilient, intelligent & visionary "form" to another, regardless of what gender you are born with. It's the energy that seeks to free your mind.
— Vishwanath S J
Lashley also reported no apparent change in the general behavior of a rat when significant fractions—say 10 percent—of its brain were removed. But no one asked the rat of its opinion.
— Carl Sagan, Dragons of Eden: Speculations on the Evolution of Human Intelligence
But if I am young, thou shouldest look to my merits, not to my years.
— Sophocles, Antigone
Genius without wisdom is like a plane without wings
—  it will navigate the runway but it will never know the sky.
She always did feel sharp for things that was done wrong to her. I think she felt hurts more, say, than me. It's cause she's smarter; she got more person to hurt.
— Joann Greenberg
His intuition was luminous from the instant you met him. So was his intelligence. A lot of actors act intelligent, but Philip was the real thing: a shining, artistic polymath with an intelligence that came at you like a pair of headlights and enveloped you from the moment he grabbed your hand, put a huge arm round your neck and shoved a cheek against yours; or if the mood took him, hugged you to him like a big, pudgy schoolboy, then stood and beamed at you while he took stock of the effect. (About Philip Seymour Hoffman)
— John le Carré
Higher intelligence is not necessarily something you’re born with or genetically predisposed toward. In fact, most instances of above-the-ordinary intelligences are usually acquired thru superior learning techniques ... Reading about the greatest minds in history, including recent history, more often than not reveals the individuals concerned (or people close to them) employed specific learning methods.
— James Morcan, GENIUS INTELLIGENCE: Secret Techniques and Technologies to Increase IQ
Nothing in this physical world moves from disorder to order without intelligence and energy being applied to it.
— James C. Dobson, Life on the Edge: A Young Adult's Guide to a Meaningful Future
Taking a deep breath, I shake my head and find Judge staring at me. "Reason number 106 why dogs are smarter than humans," I say. "Once you leave the litter, you sever contact with your mothers.
— Jodi Picoult, My Sister's Keeper
I sit back and try to think. I've been discovering, much to my dismay, that I'm not a criminal mastermind or anything. I'm just brute force and my powers in no way include super-intelligence, which kind of pisses me off.
— Kelly Thompson, The Girl Who Would Be King
Strategic wisdom is an integral and multidimensional intelligence.
— Pearl Zhu, Digitizing Boardroom: The Multifaceted Aspects of Digital Ready Boards
Gifted people of discernment, intelligence, and talent flourish in virtually every occupation. Every field produces perceptive and prescient persons whom exhibit the rare capacity to observe what eludes most people.
— Kilroy J. Oldster, Dead Toad Scrolls
Life is a solvent. Be someone who dispels or weakens attitudes and situations. Have assets in excess to protect your liabilities. Solving it by shutting away differences in intelligence means you fail at the ultimate test. How we recognize words, how one uses words to communicate, and the ability to receive and contemplate outcomes. This is a feature (as far as we know) unique to our sort of intelligence.
— James Emlund
The Scientist - with capital letters and no smile.
— Isaac Asimov
Idiots are of two kinds: those who try to be smart and those who think they are smart.
— Raheel Farooq
Long before you were born a man decided that there could be a very simple test to determine if a machine was intelligent. Not only intelligent, but aware, possessed of a psychology. The test had only one question. Can a machine converse with a human with enough facility that the human could not tell that she was talking to a machine? I always thought this was cruel--the test depends entirely upon a human judge and human feelings, whether the machine feels intelligent to the observer. It privileges the observer, the human, to a crippling degree. It seeks only believably human responses. It wants perfect mimicry, not a new thing. It's a mirror in which men wish only to see themselves.
— Catherynne M. Valente, Silently and Very Fast
I love people who are honest, honest about everything. People who would bare their souls and say things like "I did it because I was Jealous.", "I made a mistake, not that I was unconscious of what I was doing but I lost control " , instead of covering it up with reasons.This kind of honesty takes a lot of "Courage" - since it involves admitting your flaws, both, to yourself and others."Intelligence" - Since it involves diving deep within, into the true reasons behind your actions, and "A Big Heart" - Since it involves acceptingthose flaws.
— Wordions
She possessed intelligence and didn't put it to use but, rather, wasted it, like a great lady for whom all the riches of the world are merely a sign of vulgarity. That was the fact that must have beguiled Nino: the gratuitousness of Lila's intelligence.
— Elena Ferrante, The Story of the Lost Child
Sexual thrills are not all physical, and although Parlabane was an unlikely seducer, even on the intellectual plane, it was clear that his desire was, by this prolonged tickling, to bring me to an orgasm of the mind.
— Robertson Davies
If you are intelligent, if you are alert, the ordinary becomes the extraordinary.
— Osho, The Secret of Secrets
Your baby is smarter than you think.
— Josh Malerman, Bird Box
Both [P. T.] Barnum and H. L. Mencken are said to have made the depressing observation that no one ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the American public. The remark has worldwide application. But the lack is not in intelligence, which is in plentiful supply; rather, the scarce commodity is systematic training in critical thinking.
— Carl Sagan, Broca's Brain: Reflections on the Romance of Science
One might almost define intelligence as the level at which an aware organism demands, 'What's in it for me?
— Robert A. Heinlein
Now we’ve a real intellectual impasse. Our reason, which is supposed to make things more intelligible, seems to be making them less intelligible, and when reason thus defeats its own purpose something has to be changed in the structure of our reason itself.
— Robert M. Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values
There’s no logical connection between being smart and having money.
— Christopher Langan
This had not endeared him to exobiologists such as Dr Perera, who took exactly the opposite view. To them, the only purpose of the Universe was the production of intelligence, and they were apt to talk sneeringly about purely astronomical phenomena, 'Mere dead matter' was one of their favourite phrases.
— Arthur C. Clarke, Rendezvous with Rama
The cane is just not going to cut it. I shared with some of my colleagues that these brothers live in neighborhoods where they are getting whapped with a piece of stick all night, stabbed with knives, and pegged with screwdrivers that have been sharpened down, and they are leaking blood. When you come to a fella without even interviewing him, without sitting him down to find out why you did what you did, your only interest is caning him, because you are burned out and frustrated yourself. You say to him, ‘Bend over, you are getting six.’ And the boy grits his teeth, skin up his face, takes those six cuts, and he is gone. But have you really been effective? Caning him is no big deal, because he’s probably ducking bullets at night. He has a lot more things on his mind than that. On the other hand, we can further send our delinquent students into damnation by telling them they are no body and all we want to do is punish, punish, punish. Here at R.M. Bailey, we have been trying a lot of different things. But at the end of the day, nothing that we do is better than the voice itself. Nothing is better than talking to the child, listening, developing trust, developing a friendship. Feel free to come to me anytime if something is bothering you, because I was your age once before. Charles chuck Mackey, former vice principal and coach of the R. M. Bailey Pacers school.
— Drexel Deal, The Fight of My Life is Wrapped Up in My Father
Why do smart people exist, if not to figure out convoluted problems?
— Mikhail Bulgakov, The Master and Margarita
I considered quitting graduate school. I paid my ticket, I rode the ride. Right? Half the people I started with quit. I did not have to continue toward scholar. But something wouldn’t let me. Some deep wrestling match going on inside my rib house and gray matter. Some woman in me I’d never met. You know who she was? My intellect. When I opened the door and there she stood, with her sassy red reading glasses and fitted skirt and leather bookbag, I thought, who the hell are you? Crouching into a defensive posture and looking at her warily out of the corner of my eye. Watch out, woman. To which she replied, I’m Lidia. I have a desire toward language and knowledge that will blow your mind.
— Lidia Yuknavitch, The Chronology of Water
Lying there in the darkness, he knew he was an outcast. " 'Cos I had some sense.
— William Golding, Lord of the Flies
A panther poised in the cypress tree about to jump is apanther poised in a cypress tree about to jump.The panther is a poem of fire green eyes and a heart chargedby four winds of four directions.The panther hears everything in the dark: the unspokentears of a few hundred human years, storms that will breakwhat has broken his world, a bluebird swaying on a branch afew miles away.He hears the death song of his approaching
— Joy Harjo, Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings: Poems
Sarcasm is waster on the young.
— Bert McCoy
I don't have to be the smartest person in the room, I just have to be in the room.
— R.A.Delmonico
You cannot control life, but you can change the way you see life.Animals other than man are more fulfilled, because they have less mind blocking life, but they are stuck with the perspective and perception they are born with. We (human beings) can greatly improve our perception by learning the ultimate truth.All the problems we have stem from people not knowing the truth of life.
— Michael Smith
Note from Alien cookbook: “The more intelligent the human is, the better it tastes.
— Clifford Cohen
Intelligence is overrated. Two dogs who sniff each others’ butts learn more about each other in a moment than many humans understand about those they’ve known for a lifetime.
— James Rozoff
Once intelligent beings achieve technology and the capacity for self-destruction of their species, the selective advantage of intelligence becomes more uncertain.
— Carl Sagan, Dragons of Eden: Speculations on the Evolution of Human Intelligence
I don't know, and have no intention of finding out. IQ is like dick size - if you have to measure, you're way too invested in it. And both are gauche to discuss in polite company. (Upon being asked his IQ on Quora)
— Adrián Lamo
She felt utterly crushed and betrayed. Science had betrayed her. She had always believed deep down that science would not judge her, even if people did. Her father's books had opened to her touch easily enough. His journals had not flinched from her all too female gaze. But it seemed that science had weighed her, labelled her and found her wanting. Science had decreed that she could not be clever… and that if by some miracle she was clever, it meant that there was something terribly wrong with her.
— Frances Hardinge, The Lie Tree
Why were drunks, almost always, persons of talent, personality, lovable qualities, gifts, brains, assets of all kinds (else why would anyone care?); why were so many brilliant men alcoholic?
— Charles Jackson
There the old Eskimo hunters she had known in her childhood thought the riches of life were intelligence, fearlessness, and love. A man with these gifts was rich and was a great spirit who was admired in the same way that the gussaks admired a man with money and goods.
— Jean Craighead George, Julie of the Wolves
Just as trees need roots in the earth, man is also a tree and needs roots in existence or else he will live a very unintelligent life.
— Osho, Intimacy: Trusting Oneself and the Other
I sleuth, you know. For a hobby. Harmless outlet for natural inquisitiveness, don't you see, which might otherwise strike inward and produce introspection an' suicide. Very natural, healthy pursuit -- not too strenuous, not too sedentary; trains and invigorates the mind.
— Dorothy L. Sayers, Unnatural Death
The human mind is a lucky little local, passing accident which was totally unforeseen, and condemned to disappear with this earth and to recommence perhaps here or elsewhere the same or different with fresh combinations of eternally new beginnings. We owe it to this little lapse of intelligence on His part that we are very uncomfortable in this world which was not made for us, which had not been prepared to receive us, to lodge and feed us or to satisfy reflecting beings, and we owe it to Him also that we have to struggle without ceasing against what are still called the designs of Providence, when we are really refined and civilized beings.
— Guy de Maupassant