| Quote | Author | Date | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
An intellectual is someone whose mind watches itself. |
Albert Camus | 1913 – 1960 | Knowles, E. (1999). The Oxford dictionary of quotations. Oxford: Oxford University Press. |
Humans are good at discerning subtle patterns that are really there, but equally so at imagining them when they are altogether absent. |
Carl Sagan | 1934 – 1996 | Contact (1985) |
It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it. |
Aristotle | 384 – 322 BC | |
Pain and suffering are always inevitable for a large intelligence and a deep heart. The really great men must, I think, have great sadness on Earth. |
Fyodor Dostoyevsky | 1821 – 1881 | Crime and Punishment (1866) |
Where is everybody? |
Enrico Fermi | 1901 – 1954 | Asked after his probability estimates for extraterrestrial life visiting earth were found to be very high. |
The trouble with an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it. |
Terry Pratchett | 1948 – 2015 | |
In the torments of the intellect,… skepticism is the elegance of anxiety. |
Emil Cioran | 1911 – 1995 | All Gall Is Divided (1952) |
Brevity is the soul of wit. |
William Shakespeare | 1564 – 1616 | Hamlet, second act (Polonius) |
This is one of those views which are so absurd that only very learned men could possibly adopt them. |
Bertrand Russell | 1872- 1970 | My Philosophical Development (1959) |
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 | 1896 – 1940 | |
The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook. |
William James | 1842 – 1910 | Knowles, E. (1999). The Oxford dictionary of quotations. Oxford: Oxford University Press. |
It is better to remain silent at the risk of being thought a fool, than to talk and remove all doubt of it. |
Maurice Switzer | ||
Measure your mind’s height by the shade it casts! |
Robert Browning | 1812 – 1889 | Knowles, E. (1999). The Oxford dictionary of quotations. Oxford: Oxford University Press. |
Genius is only a greater aptitude for patience. |
George-Louis Leclerc | 1707 – 1788 | Knowles, E. (1999). The Oxford dictionary of quotations. Oxford: Oxford University Press. |
Any universe simple enough to be understood is too simple to produce a mind able to understand it. |
John D. Barrow | born 1952 | |
Widespread intellectual and moral docility may be convenient for leaders in the short term, but it is suicidal for nations in the long term. One of the criteria for national leadership should therefore be a talent for understanding, encouraging, and making constructive use of vigorous criticism. |
Carl Sagan | 1934 – 1996 | Billions and Billions: Thoughts on Life and Death at the Brink of the Millenium (1997) |
All life is problem solving. |
Karl Popper | 1902 – 1994 | |
True eloquence consists in saying all that need be said and no more. |
François de La Rochefoucauld | 1613 – 1680 | |
A generous and elevated mind is distinguished by nothing more certainly than an eminent degree of curiosity. |
Samuel Johnson | 1709 – 1784 | Knowles, E. (1999). The Oxford dictionary of quotations. Oxford: Oxford University Press. |
You could give Aristotle a tutorial. And you could thrill him to the core of his being. Aristotle was an encyclopaedic polymath, an all time intellect. Yet not only can you know more than him about the world. You also can have a deeper understanding of how everything works. Such is the privilege of living after Newton, Darwin, Einstein, Planck, Watson, Crick and their colleagues. I’m not saying you’re more intelligent than Aristotle, or wiser. For all I know, Aristotle is the cleverest person who ever lived. That’s not the point. The point is only that science is cumulative, and we live later. |
Richard Dawkins | born 1941 | |
It is even harder for the average ape to believe that he has descended from man. |
H. L. Mencken | 1880 – 1956 | |
The avoidance of taxes is the only intellectual pursuit that still carries any reward. |
John Maynard Keynes | 1883 – 1946 | |
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people. |
Unknown | ||
A computer would deserve to be called intelligent if it could deceive a human into believing that it was human. |
Alan Turing | 1912 – 1954 | |
Intelligence is the capacity to receive, decode and transmit information efficiently. Stupidity is blockage of this process at any point. Bigotry, ideologies etc. block the ability to receive; robotic reality-tunnels block the ability to decode or integrate new signals; censorship blocks transmission. |
Robert Anton Wilson | 1932 – 2007 |