| | |

Intelligence quotes

edits filters

“Nature never appeals to intelligence until habit and instinct are useless. There is no intelligence where there is no change and no need of change. Only those animals partake of intelligence that have to meet a huge variety of needs and dangers.” H. G. Wells, “The Time Machine” - 1895

“The stupider one is, the clearer one is. Stupidity is brief and artless, while intelligence wriggles and hides itself. Intelligence is a knave, but stupidity is honest and straightforward.” Fyodor Dostoyevsky, “The Brothers Karamazov” - 1880

“Knowing others is intelligence; knowing yourself is true wisdom. Mastering others is strength; mastering yourself is true power.” Lao Tzu, “Tao Te Ching” - 4th century BC

“They love their hair because they aren't smart enough to love something more interesting.” John Green, “Looking for Alaska” - 2005

“Pain and suffering are always inevitable for a large intelligence and a deep heart.” Fyodor Dostoyevsky, “Crime and Punishment” - 1867

“Stupidity was as necessary as intelligence, and as difficult to attain.” George Orwell, “1984” - 1949

“I must have a prodigious quantity of mind; it takes me as much as a week sometimes to make it up.” Mark Twain, “The Innocents Abroad” - 1869

“I often have long conversations all by myself, and I am so clever that sometimes I don’t understand a single word of what I am saying.” Oscar Wilde, “The Remarkable Rocket” - 1888

“Men of sense, whatever you may chuse to say, do not want silly wives.” Jane Austen, “Emma” - 1815

“It is only the intellectually lost who ever argue.” Oscar Wilde, “The Picture of Dorian Gray” - 1890

“I may die young . . . But at least I'll die smart.” John Green, “Looking for Alaska” - 2005

“Real stupidity beats artificial intelligence every time.” Terry Pratchett, “Hogfather” - 1996

“being . . . rather cleverer than most men, my mistakes tend to be correspondingly huger.” J. K. Rowling, “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” - 2005

“I don't know what good it is to know so much and be smart as whips and all if it doesn't make you happy.” J. D. Salinger, “Franny and Zooey” - 1961

“I used to think she was quite intelligent, in my stupidity.” J. D. Salinger, “The Catcher in the Rye” - 1951

“It's a poor sort of memory that only works backwards” Lewis Carroll, “Through the Looking-Glass” - 1871

“In our civilization, and under our republican form of government, brain is so highly honored that it is rewarded by exemption from the cares of office.” Ambrose Bierce, “The Devil's Dictionary” - 1906

“Intelligent men are cruel. Stupid men are monstrously cruel.” Jack London, “The Star Rover” - 1915

“Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influences, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist.” John Maynard Keynes, “The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money” - 1936

“A woman may possess the wisdom and chastity of Minerva, and we give no heed to her, if she has a plain face.” William Makepeace Thackeray, “Vanity Fair” - 1847

“Immanuel Kant argued that perpetual peace would eventually come to the world in one of two ways: by human insight or by conflicts and catastrophes of a magnitude that left humanity no other choice.” Henry Kissinger, “On China” - 2011

“The troublesome ones in a family are usually either the wits or the idiots.” George Eliot, “Middlemarch” - 1872

“Look, he's winding up the watch of his wit; by and by it will strike.” William Shakespeare, “The Tempest” - 1623

“I think the best grace of wit will shortly turn into silence, and discourse grow commendable in none only but parrots.” William Shakespeare, “The Merchant of Venice” - 1600

“That however the brains and abilities of men may differ, their stomachs are essentially the same.” F. Scott Fitzgerald, “This Side of Paradise” - 1920

“That some people, unable to go to school, were more educated and even more intelligent than college professors. She encouraged me to listen carefully to country people’s sayings.” Maya Angelou, “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” - 1969

“The fact is, the Time Traveller was one of those men who are too clever to be believed: you never felt that you saw all round him; you always suspected some subtle reserve, some ingenuity in ambush, behind his lucid frankness.” H. G. Wells, “The Time Machine” - 1895

“The too-perfect security of the Upper-worlders had led them to a slow movement of degeneration, to a general dwindling in size, strength, and intelligence.” H. G. Wells, “The Time Machine” - 1895

“Brains are the only things worth having in this world, no matter whether one is a crow or a man.” L. Frank Baum, “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz” - 1900

“I choose my friends for their good looks, my acquaintances for their good characters, and my enemies for their good intellects. A man cannot be too careful in the choice of his enemies. I have not got one who is a fool.” Oscar Wilde, “The Picture of Dorian Gray” - 1890

“I believe the universe wants to be noticed. I think the universe is improbably biased toward consciousness, that it rewards intelligence in part because the universe enjoys its elegance being observed.” John Green, “The Fault in Our Stars” - 2012

“An infinite number of monkeys typing into GNU emacs would never make a good program.” Linus Torvalds - 1995

“Take a real smart guy and he ain’t hardly ever a nice fella.” John Steinbeck, “Of Mice and Men” - 1937

“Human beings didn’t evolve brains in order to lie around on lakes. Killing’s the first thing we learned. And a good thing we did, or we’d be dead, and the tigers would own the earth.” Orson Scott Card, “Ender's Game” - 1985

“Ender didn’t like fighting. He didn’t like Peter’s kind, the strong against the weak, and he didn’t like his own kind either, the smart against the stupid.” Orson Scott Card, “Ender's Game” - 1985

“You are mysterious, I love you. You're beautiful, intelligent, and virtuous, and that's the rarest known combination.” F. Scott Fitzgerald, “Tales of the Jazz Age” - 1922

“Now, I am living out my life in my corner, taunting myself with the spiteful and useless consolation that an intelligent man cannot become anything seriously, and it is only the fool who becomes anything.” Fyodor Dostoyevsky, “Notes from Underground” - 1864

“I have long really held the opinion that the amount of noise which any one can bear undisturbed stands in inverse proportion to his mental capacity, and therefore may be regarded as a pretty fair measure of it.” Arthur Schopenhauer, “The World as Will and Representation” - 1819

“To expect the unexpected shows a thoroughly modern intellect.” Oscar Wilde, “An Ideal Husband” - 1895

Related topics

stupidity mind understanding beauty strength men women wisdom death doubt youth foolishness knowledge human nature happiness words enemies killing suffering family

Related authors

Oscar Wilde (4)
John Green (3)
H. G. Wells (3)
Fyodor Dostoyevsky (3)
William Shakespeare (2)
F. Scott Fitzgerald (2)
J. D. Salinger (2)
Orson Scott Card (2)
Jane Austen (1)
William Makepeace Thackeray (1)
Mark Twain (1)
J. K. Rowling (1)
Lewis Carroll (1)
George Orwell (1)
George Eliot (1)
Maya Angelou (1)
Jack London (1)
L. Frank Baum (1)
Arthur Schopenhauer (1)
Ambrose Bierce (1)

Related sources

The Time Machine (3)
The Picture of Dorian Gray (2)
Ender's Game (2)
Looking for Alaska (2)
The Merchant of Venice (1)
The Tempest (1)
An Ideal Husband (1)
Vanity Fair (1)
This Side of Paradise (1)
1984 (1)
The Fault in Our Stars (1)
Middlemarch (1)
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1)
The Brothers Karamazov (1)
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1)
The World as Will and Representation (1)
The Devil's Dictionary (1)
Tao Te Ching (1)
The Catcher in the Rye (1)
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (1)