Intelligence Quotes

Most popular intelligence quotes

The desire to seem clever often keeps us from being so. - François de La Rochefoucauld quote.
The desire to seem clever often keeps us from being so.

human nature

One good head is better than a hundred strong hands. - Thomas Fuller quote.
One good head is better than a hundred strong hands.
We pay a high price for being intelligent. Wisdom hurts. - Euripides quote.
We pay a high price for being intelligent. Wisdom hurts.
There is nobody so irritating as somebody with less intelligence and more sense than we have.

other people

When you are educated, you'll believe only half of what you hear. When you're intelligent, you know which half.

education

To repeat what others have said requires education, to challenge it, requires brains. - Mary Pettibone Poole quote.
To repeat what others have said requires education, to challenge it, requires brains.

education

Knowing what you don't know is more useful than being brilliant. - Charlie Munger quote.
Knowing what you don't know is more useful than being brilliant.

investing

If you have enough sense to become a mental adult yourself, you can run rings around people smarter than you. Just pick up key ideas from all the disciplines, not just a few, and you're immensely wiser than they are. - Charlie Munger quote.
If you have enough sense to become a mental adult yourself, you can run rings around people smarter than you. Just pick up key ideas from all the disciplines, not just a few, and you're immensely wiser than they are.

knowledge

People are trying to be smart—all I am trying to do is not to be idiotic, but it's harder than most people think. - Charlie Munger quote.
People are trying to be smart—all I am trying to do is not to be idiotic, but it's harder than most people think.

investing

I did not succeed in life by intelligence. I succeeded because I have a long attention span. - Charlie Munger quote.
I did not succeed in life by intelligence. I succeeded because I have a long attention span.

focus success

It is remarkable how much long-term advantage people like us have gotten by trying to be consistently not stupid, instead of trying to be very intelligent. There must be some wisdom in the folk saying: 'It's the strong swimmers who drown.' - Charlie Munger quote.
It is remarkable how much long-term advantage people like us have gotten by trying to be consistently not stupid, instead of trying to be very intelligent. There must be some wisdom in the folk saying: 'It's the strong swimmers who drown.'

investing

Perhaps imagination is only intelligence having fun.

imagination

Intelligence without ambition is a bird without wings.

ambition

One of the functions of intelligence is to take account of the dangers that come from trusting solely to the intelligence. - Lewis Mumford quote.
One of the functions of intelligence is to take account of the dangers that come from trusting solely to the intelligence.
When I was young, I admired clever people. Now that I am old, I admire kind people. - Abraham Joshua Heschel quote.
When I was young, I admired clever people. Now that I am old, I admire kind people.

kindness

While intelligent people can often simplify the complex, a fool is more likely to complicate the simple.

foolishness

The intelligent man who is proud of his intelligence is like the condemned man who is proud of his large cell. - Simone Weil quote.
The intelligent man who is proud of his intelligence is like the condemned man who is proud of his large cell.
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. - F. Scott Fitzgerald quote.
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.

ideas hopelessness

No man is content with his fortune, nor discontent with his intellect.

human nature

It has yet to be proven that intelligence has any survival value. - Arthur C. Clarke quote.
It has yet to be proven that intelligence has any survival value.
The only means of strengthening one's intellect is to make up one's mind about nothing, to let the mind be a thoroughfare for all thoughts. - John Keats quote.
The only means of strengthening one's intellect is to make up one's mind about nothing, to let the mind be a thoroughfare for all thoughts.
There is no greater excitement than to support an intellectual wife and have her support you. Marriage is a partnership in which each inspires the other, and brings fruition to both of you.

marriage

The difference between intelligence and education is this: Intelligence will make you a good living. - Charles F. Kettering quote.
The difference between intelligence and education is this: Intelligence will make you a good living.
To a dull mind all of nature is leaden. To the illumined mind the whole world burns and sparkles with light. - Ralph Waldo Emerson quote.
To a dull mind all of nature is leaden. To the illumined mind the whole world burns and sparkles with light.
He's very clever, but sometimes his brains go to his head. - Margot Asquith quote.
He's very clever, but sometimes his brains go to his head.
The true, strong, and sound mind is the mind that can embrace equally great things and small. - Samuel Johnson quote.
The true, strong, and sound mind is the mind that can embrace equally great things and small.
The height of cleverness is to conceal one's cleverness. - François de La Rochefoucauld quote.
The height of cleverness is to conceal one's cleverness.
Every man of genius sees the world at a different angle from his fellows. - Havelock Ellis quote.
Every man of genius sees the world at a different angle from his fellows.
Unless one is a genius, it is best to aim at being intelligible.
A woman uses her intelligence to find reasons to support her intuition. - G. K. Chesterton quote.
A woman uses her intelligence to find reasons to support her intuition.
The opinion of the intelligent is better than the certainty of the ignorant.
— African proverb

African proverbs proverbs

Always be smarter than the people who hire you.

consultants career office

GROOK TO STIMULATE GRATITUDE

As things so
very often are
intelligence
won't get you far.
So be glad
you've got more sense
than you've got
intelligence.

common sense

MEETING THE EYE

You'll probably find
that it suits your book
to be a bit cleverer
than you look.
Observe that the easiest
method by far
is to look a bit stupider
than you are.

funny

COMPARATIVE SENSE

Which of us doesn't
accept as a rule
that anyone dumber than us
is a fool?
But how many of us
can wholly subdue
the feeling
that anyone smarter is, too?
Intelligence is quickness to apprehend as distinct from ability, which is capacity to act wisely on the thing apprehended. - Alfred North Whitehead quote.
Intelligence is quickness to apprehend as distinct from ability, which is capacity to act wisely on the thing apprehended.

ability

The sign of an intelligent people is their ability to control emotions by the application of reason. - Marya Mannes quote.
The sign of an intelligent people is their ability to control emotions by the application of reason.

emotion reason

Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know. - Ernest Hemingway quote.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.

happiness

The voice of the intelligence is soft and weak, said Freud.  It is drowned out by the roar of fear.

ignorance hate

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, I announced, resolutely parroting Miss Head.
Intelligence in chains loses in lucidity what it gains in intensity. - Albert Camus quote.
Intelligence in chains loses in lucidity what it gains in intensity.
Wit makes its own welcome and levels all distinctions.

wit

Intelligence, then, is the ability to attain goals in the face of obstacles by means of decisions based on rational (truth-obeying) rules. - Steven Pinker quote.
Intelligence, then, is the ability to attain goals in the face of obstacles by means of decisions based on rational (truth-obeying) rules.

obstacles

Intelligence is quickness in seeing things as they are. - George Santayana quote.
Intelligence is quickness in seeing things as they are.
The intelligent man does not feel his intelligence or the introvert his introversion. - B. F. Skinner quote.
The intelligent man does not feel his intelligence or the introvert his introversion.
Intelligence ... is really a kind of taste: taste in ideas. - Susan Sontag quote.
Intelligence ... is really a kind of taste: taste in ideas.
The intelligent man who is proud of that intelligence is like the condemned man who is proud of his large cell. - Simone Weil quote.
The intelligent man who is proud of that intelligence is like the condemned man who is proud of his large cell.
Intelligence is a measure of how well you function within your level of awareness. - Scott Adams quote.
Intelligence is a measure of how well you function within your level of awareness.
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. One should, for example, be able to see that things are hopeless and yet be determined to make them otherwise.

attitude

A great mind becomes a great fortune. - Seneca quote.
A great mind becomes a great fortune.

fortune

Aptitude is found in the understanding and is often inherited. Genius coming from reason and imagination, rarely. - Marcus Aurelius quote.
Aptitude is found in the understanding and is often inherited. Genius coming from reason and imagination, rarely.

genius

I add this, that rational ability without education has oftener raised man to glory and virtue, than education without natural ability. - Cicero quote.
I add this, that rational ability without education has oftener raised man to glory and virtue, than education without natural ability.

education

Too clever is dumb. - Ogden Nash quote.
Too clever is dumb.

funny

Action is the real measure of intelligence. - Napoleon Hill quote.
Action is the real measure of intelligence.

action

Be as smart as you can, but remember that it is always better to be wise than to be smart. - Alan Alda quote.
Be as smart as you can, but remember that it is always better to be wise than to be smart.

wisdom

Belief is the death of intelligence. - Robert Anton Wilson quote.
Belief is the death of intelligence.

beliefs

Character is higher than intellect. A great soul will be strong to live as well as think. - Ralph Waldo Emerson quote.
Character is higher than intellect. A great soul will be strong to live as well as think.

character

Continuous effort—not strength or intelligence—is the key to unlocking our potential. - Winston Churchill quote.
Continuous effort—not strength or intelligence—is the key to unlocking our potential.

hard work

Every true genius is bound to be naive. - Friedrich Schiller quote.
Every true genius is bound to be naive.

genius

He who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would surely suffice. - Albert Einstein quote.
He who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would surely suffice.
I know that I am intelligent, because I know that I know nothing. - Socrates quote.
I know that I am intelligent, because I know that I know nothing.
I not only use all the brains that I have, but all that I can borrow. - Woodrow Wilson quote.
I not only use all the brains that I have, but all that I can borrow.
I'm not offended by all the dumb blonde jokes because I know I'm not dumb ... and I also know that I'm not blonde. - Dolly Parton quote.
I'm not offended by all the dumb blonde jokes because I know I'm not dumb ... and I also know that I'm not blonde.

blondes

I'm not the smartest fellow in the world, but I can sure pick smart colleagues. - Franklin D. Roosevelt quote.
I'm not the smartest fellow in the world, but I can sure pick smart colleagues.
Intelligence is not a science.
Intelligence is really a kind of taste: taste in ideas.

taste

Intelligence is the wife, imagination is the mistress, memory is the servant. - Victor Hugo quote.
Intelligence is the wife, imagination is the mistress, memory is the servant.

imagination memory

It is not worth an intelligent man's time to be in the majority. By definition, there are already enough people to do that.
It is the mark of a truly intelligent person to be moved by statistics. - George Bernard Shaw quote.
It is the mark of a truly intelligent person to be moved by statistics.

statistics

It's not that I'm so smart, it's just that I stay with problems longer. - Albert Einstein quote.
It's not that I'm so smart, it's just that I stay with problems longer.

perseverance

Man becomes man only by his intelligence, but he is man only by his heart. - Henri-Frédéric Amiel quote.
Man becomes man only by his intelligence, but he is man only by his heart.
Man is the most intelligent of the animals—and the most silly.

man the animal

Often the hands will solve a mystery that the intellect has struggled with in vain. - Carl Jung quote.
Often the hands will solve a mystery that the intellect has struggled with in vain.

action

The higher the voice, the smaller the intellect.
The intelligent man is one who has successfully fulfilled many accomplishments, and is yet willing to learn more.

accomplishment

The surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that it has never tried to contact us.

mankind

The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.
The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination. - Albert Einstein quote.
The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination.

imagination

There are no great limits to growth because there are no limits of human intelligence, imagination, and wonder. - Ronald Reagan quote.
There are no great limits to growth because there are no limits of human intelligence, imagination, and wonder.

limits

There are only two races on this planet—the intelligent and the stupid. - John Fowles quote.
There are only two races on this planet—the intelligent and the stupid.
There is no greater evidence of superior intelligence than to be surprised at nothing. - Josh Billings quote.
There is no greater evidence of superior intelligence than to be surprised at nothing.
There is no method but to be very intelligent. - T. S. Eliot quote.
There is no method but to be very intelligent.
We have now sunk to a depth at which restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men. - George Orwell quote.
We have now sunk to a depth at which restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men.

the human condition

What a distressing contrast there is between the radiant intelligence of the child and the feeble mentality of the average adult. - Sigmund Freud quote.
What a distressing contrast there is between the radiant intelligence of the child and the feeble mentality of the average adult.

children

People feel deep anxiety finding out that someone they thought was stupid is actually more intelligent than they are. - Nassim Nicholas Taleb quote.
People feel deep anxiety finding out that someone they thought was stupid is actually more intelligent than they are.
We are an intelligent species because we defined ourselves that way.

mankind