3,849 Quotes About Intelligence

Oh, gentlemen, perhaps I really regard myself as an intelligent man only because throughout my entire life I've never been able to start or finish anything. Granted, granted I'm a babbler, a harmless, irksome babbler, as we all are. But what's to be done if the sole and express purpose of every intelligent man is babble--that is, a deliberate pouring from empty into void.

Despite 2000 years of evolution in modern times, we have still not managed to develop the intelligence to create a society that knows what love is. Our society is still not a civilization, it is still primitive and barbaric.

The Human Contradiction held them. Intelligence at the service of hierarchical behavior. They were not free.

I think it’s important to reason from first principles rather than by analogy. The normal way we conduct our lives is we reason by analogy. [With analogy] we are doing this because it’s like something else that was done, or it is like what other people are doing. [With first principles] you boil things down to the most fundamental truths…and then reason up from there.

I will tell you why we have these extraordinary minds and souls, Miss Whittaker," he continued, as though he had not heard her. "We have them because there is a supreme intelligence in the universe, which wishes for communion with us. This supreme intelligence longs to be known. It calls out to us. It draws us close to its mystery, and grants us these remarkable minds, in order that we try to reach for it. It wants us to find it. It wants union with us, more than anything.

People do not like to think. If one thinks, one must reach conclusions. Conclusions are not always pleasant.

You have given intelligence to find one solution, and imagination to find ten.

A scientist is proud of his intelligence, an artist is proud of his imagination.

Power up your intelligence. Hit that creativity button.