When a child first catches adults out — when it first walks into his grave little head that adults do not have divine intelligence, that their judgments are not always wise, their thinking true, their sentences just — his world falls into panic desolation. The gods are fallen and all safety gone. And there is one sure thing about the fall of gods: they do not fall a little; they crash and shatter or sink deeply into green muck. It is a tedious job to build them up again; they never quite shine. And the child's world is never quite whole again. It is an aching kind of growing. —John Steinbeck More about this quote Tags: justice wisdom learning intelligence safety gods childhood growth lying parental infallibility Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
This increasingly intelligent, fast-moving civilization needs to be applying some of its intelligence to things that change slowly. . . . If we are constantly tending to the immediate, day-to-day problems, we'll lose that sense of the long term, and then we could be really sorry. —Stewart Brand More about this quote Tags: intelligence time perception perspective change civilization Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
Writing allows even a stupid person to seem halfway intelligent, if only that person will write the same thought over and over again, improving it just a little bit each time. It is a lot like inflating a blimp with a bicycle pump. Anybody can do it. All it takes is time. —Kurt Vonnegut More about this quote Tags: intelligence writing refinement Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
Love is the triumph of imagination over intelligence. —H. L. Mencken More about this quote Tags: love imagination intelligence Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
It's not that I'm so smart, it's just that I stay with my problems longer. —Albert Einstein More about this quote Tags: intelligence persistence Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
Is an intelligent human being likely to be much more than a large-scale manufacturer of misunderstanding? —Philip Roth More about this quote Tags: understanding intelligence manufacturing Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
He's simply got the instinct for being unhappy highly developed. —Saki More about this quote Tags: intelligence development instinct Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
Sometimes I think the surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us. —Bill Watterson More about this quote Tags: life intelligence communication universe extra-terrestrials contact Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
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. —Lynn Johnston More about this quote Tags: intelligence attitude Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocrities. The latter cannot understand it when a man does not thoughtlessly submit to hereditary prejudices, but honestly and courageously uses his intelligence and fulfills the duty to express the results of his thought in clear form. —Albert Einstein More about this quote Tags: intelligence Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
It has yet to be proven that intelligence has any survival value. —Arthur C. Clarke More about this quote Tags: intelligence Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
Men fear thought as they fear nothing else on earth -- more than ruin -- more even than death.... Thought is subversive and revolutionary, destructive and terrible, thought is merciless to privilege, established institutions, and comfortable habit. Thought looks into the pit of hell and is not afraid. Thought is great and swift and free, the light of the world, and the chief glory of man. —Bertrand Russell More about this quote Tags: intelligence Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
So far as I can remember, there is not one word in the Gospels in praise of intelligence. —Bertrand Russell More about this quote Tags: intelligence Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
There is nobody so irritating as somebody with less intelligence and more sense than we have. —Don Herold More about this quote Tags: intelligence Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
It is not worth an intelligent man's time to be in the majority. By definition, there are already enough people to do that. —G. H. Hardy More about this quote Tags: intelligence Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email