3,849 Quotes About Intelligence

Textbook intelligence is not true intelligence. It only marks a man good at memorization.

Being smart means you learned it well; being stupid means you haven't learned it yet; but true genius means you know it when no one taught it to you.

Most of us think that being authentic is about being true to what we want and who we are, without regard for the impact it has on others. On the contrary, the authentic self is an intelligence at the core of who we are that is inspired, centered, and connected to those we lead. When we are in this centered place of being we are able to choose behavior that serves the greatest good.

People believe unbelievable things because it's self-flattering to think that you are intellectually daring enough to accept what others find preposterous.

[P]art of having a complicated mind was understanding its limits, understanding that it couldn't think of everything. Stupidity mistook itself for intelligence, whereas intelligence knew its own stupidity.

What, anyway, was he to say? That intelligence could surpass and excel the blind force of evolution, with its emphasis on mutation, struggle and death? That conscious cooperation was more efficient than feral competition?

The Knowledgeable has the intelligent answer; but only the intelligent one asks for a knowledgeable question.

I outwitted those that deliberately suppressed me not by retaliating, but by minding my own business, continuing the self-discovery journey and reinventing myself.

[D]umb evolutionary processes have dramatically amplified the intelligence in the human lineage even compared with our close relatives the great apes and our own humanoid ancestors; and there is no reason to suppose Homo sapiens to have reached the apex of cognitive effectiveness attainable in a biological system.