100 Quotes About Intellectualism

People have a tendency to either fundamentalize things or philosophize things - those who fundamentalize things, boast about heritage, and those who philosophize things, boast about intellect. I say, neither heritage nor intellect is to be placed at the supreme altar of the human mind, instead what we must place in our mind's altar is people.

Silence is the most expensive to buy.

My intellect was my greatest vanity.

He who relies only on the intellect must walk with crutches, even though they be set with precious stones, and at the first breath of fate will break like matchsticks.

In some African countries, exercising intellectual integrity is a felony. Proving that you can differ with the government on matters law is playing with the balls of a wounded tyrant! Everyone is expected to bend to the utopian vision of these brutes! A professor in these countries must be a menial of a foolish politician while an academic dwarf sits as the attorney at the high table of the nobility! We are no better than human scams!

Anti-intellectualism is one thing, but faith in wrongheaded pseudointellectualism is far worse.

[...] for nothing contributes so much to tranquilize the mind as a steady purpose -- a point on which the soul may fix its intellectual eye.

En général, les hommes n'aspirent à s'instruire que dans la mesure où ils sont affranchis du joug de la tradition; car tant que celle-ci est maîtresse des intelligences, elle suffit à tout et ne tolère pas facilement de puissance rivale.

So long as authority inspires awe, confusion and absurdity enhance conservative tendencies in society. Firstly, because clear and logical thinking leads to a cumulation of knowledge (of which the progress of the natural sciences provides the best example) and the advance of knowledge sooner or later undermines the traditional order. Confused thinking, on the other hand, leads nowhere in particular and can be indulged indefinitely without producing any impact upon the world.