Quotessence
Home / Topics / Intellect Quotes

Intellect Quotes

Browse 1879 quotes about Intellect.

Related topics

MenMindIfsHeartHumansWorldKnowsThinkingSoulEmotionPeopleDoeWayIntellectualMayBodyCharacterScienceBelieveReasonWellsFormArtIdeasMeanSpiritShouldUnderstandingFirstsKindGivingHas BeensNeedsFeelingsIntuitionUseFeelsMatterEyeFactsIntelligenceMoralPassionPersonsForceLightSensesImaginationImportantWantWholeAnimalSpiritualUniverseWisdomInstinctSeemsBrainCertainSelfTwoConsciousnessDesireIntelligentOrderPureQualityEducationEnoughExistenceGeniusLittlesLongOpinionRealTryingBeliefLanguageLifePhilosophyPrinciplesFacultyLawMomentsObjectsSaidDifferentEndsMadeMemoriesMightProgressWould BeWritingAbleActionAgeHigherI BelieveInspirationalmore

Intellect Quotes

“Let us watch against pride in every shape - pride of intellect, pride of wealth, pride of our own goodness. Nothing is so likely to keep a person out of heaven, and prevent them from seeing Christ, as pride. So long as we think we are something we shall never be saved. Let us pray for and cultivate humility; let us seek to know ourselves correctly, and to find out our place in the sight of a holy God.”

ThinkingKnowsPersonsLongHeavenChristWealthWatchesSeeingHumilityPridePrayingHolyShapesGoodnessSightIntellectSavedHoly God
Author:J. C. Ryle
Create image

“Pray unceasingly that all denial be stripped from your mind. Pray that something miraculous be born within us all. Give everything you have. Do not wait another day. Lay your hours and intellect, your heart and passion, upon the altar of self-transformation and collective awakening. Begin now: pray, believe, trust and act.”

GivingMindBelieveHeartSelfPassionWaitingBornHoursPrayingTransformationLaysIntellectAwakeningDenialCollectivesMiraculousAltarsAnother DaySelf Transformation
Author:Ann Mortifee
Create image

“Sex cannot be understood because nature cannot be understood. Science is a method of logical analysis of nature's operations. It has lessened human anxiety about the cosmos by demonstrating the materiality of nature's forces, and their frequent predictability. But science is always playing catch-up ball. Nature breaks its own rules whenever it wants. Science cannot avert a single thunderbolt. Western science is a product of the Apollonian mind: its hope is that by naming and classification, by the cold light of intellect, archaic night can be pushed back and defeated.”

WantMindHumansLightNightForceSexBreakProductsColdAnxietyUnderstoodBallsMethodWesternIntellectOperationsAnalysisCosmosLogicalDefeatedDemonstratingClassificationPredictabilityAvertThunderboltsMateriality
Author:Camille
Create image

“One can hardly appreciate how academia has perverted its highest tasks and "ideals" without pondering long and hard the implications of Jacques Barzun's House of Intellect and its Hegelian/Bergsonian contrast between rigidified "intellect" and always-growing "intelligence." This fundamentally Hegelian distinction, needless to say, cuts to the quick of the contrast between Platonic and Aristotelian forms of philosophy.”

LongHardPhilosophyFormHouseEducationCuttingGrowingHighestIdealsAppreciateTasksIntellectDistinctionContrastImplicationsPonderingAcademiaPlatonic
Author:Kenny Smith
Create image

“We now demand the light artillery of the intellect; we need the curt, the condensed, the pointed, the readily diffused - in place of the verbose, the detailed, the voluminous, the inaccessible. On the other hand, the lightness of the artillery should not degenerate into pop-gunnery - by which term we may designate the character of the greater portion of the newspaper press - their sole legitimate object being the discussion of ephemeral matters in an ephemeral manner.”

NeedsShouldMayMatterCharacterHandsLightTermGreaterObjectsDemandPressesPopsIntellectNewspapersJournalismJournalistDiscussionPortionsSoleEphemeralDegeneratesLightnessInaccessibleArtillery
Book:The Works of the Late Edgar Allan Poe: Literati
Create image

“The man at the top of the intellectual pyramid contributes the most to all those below him, but gets nothing except his material payment, receiving no intellectual bonus from others to add to the value of his time. The man at the bottom who, left to himself, would starve in his hopeless ineptitude, contributes nothing to those above him, but receives the bonus of all of their brains. Such is the nature of the 'competition' between the strong and the weak of the intellect. Such is the pattern of 'exploitation' for which you have damned the strong.”

MenValuesLeftStrongBrainHe ManMaterialsIntellectualWeakAddCompetitionBottomPatternsIntellectHopelessReceivingExploitationPaymentPyramidsBonusEgalitarianismIneptitude
Book:For the New Intellectual: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand (50th Anniversary Edition)
Create image

“It does not, however, seem impossible that by an attention to breed, a certain degree of improvement, similar to that among animals, might take place among men. Whether intellect could be communicated may be a matter of doubt: but size, strength, beauty, complexion, and perhaps even longevity are in a degree transmissible... As the human race could not be improved in this way, without condemning all the bad specimens to celibacy, it is not probable, that an attention to breed should ever become general.”

MenWayShouldHumansMayDoeMatterSeemsMightCertainAnimalRaceAttentionDoubtImpossibleDegreesSizeIntellectImprovementHuman RaceLongevityEugenicsCelibacyCondemningComplexion
Author:Thomas Malthus
Create image

“Geometry enlightens the intellect and sets one's mind right. All of its proofs are very clear and orderly. It is hardly possible for errors to enter into geometrical reasoning, because it is well arranged and orderly. Thus, the mind that constantly applies itself to geometry is not likely to fall into error. In this convenient way, the person who knows geometry acquires intelligence.”

KnowsWayMindWellsPersonsFallClearMathematicsErrorsIntellectMathProofMathematicalReasoningAcquireEnlighteningConvenientGeometryOrderlyMathematical Proof
Author:Ibn Khaldun
Create image

“The soul of the just man is but a paradise, in which, God tells us, He takes His delight. What do you imagine, must that dwelling be in which a King so mighty, so wise, and so pure, containing in Himself all good, can delight to rest? Nothing can be compared to the great beauty and capabilities of a soul; however keen our intellects may be, they are as unable to comprehend them as to comprehend God, for, as He told us, He created us in his own image and likeness.”

MenMaySoulWiseImagineKingsPureDelightIntellectParadiseCapabilityDwellingContaining
Book:The Interior Castle: or the Mansions
Create image

“Theorists tend to peak at an early age; the creative juices tend to gush very early and start drying up past the age of fifteen-or so it seems. They need to know just enough; when they're young they haven't accumulated the intellectual baggage.”

KnowsNeedsEnoughSeemsAgePastYoungScienceKnowledgeCreativeHavensIntellectualIntellectFifteenJuiceBaggageTheoristsCreative Juices
Book:The God Particle: If the Universe is the Answer, what is the Question?
Create image

“Mathematical knowledge is not-as all Cambridge men are surely aware-the result of any special gift. It is merely the development of those conceptions of form and number which every human being possesses; and any person of average intellect can make himself a fair mathematician if he will only pay continuous attention; in plain English, think enough about the subject.”

IfsThinkingMenHumansPersonsEnoughFormScienceHuman BeingsResultsNumbersPayAttentionSpecialSubjectsDevelopmentFairsAverageIntellectMathematicalConceptionMathematicianCambridgeSpecial GiftsPlain English
Book:Scientific Lectures and Essays
Create image

“Letter to the committee in charge of the celebration of the centennial of the American Constitution. I have always regarded that Constitution as the most remarkable work known to me in modern times to have been produced by the human intellect, at a single stroke (so to speak), in its application to political affairs.”

HumansHas BeensPoliticalSpeakWorkKnownModernLettersConstitutionAffairIntellectRemarkableApplicationCelebrationCommitteesStrokesModern TimesAmerican ConstitutionCentennial
Author:William E. Gladstone
Create image

“In the first few pages, Kundera discusses several abstract historical figures: Robespierre, Nietzsche, Hitler. For Eunice's sake, I wanted him to get to the plot, to introduce actual "living" characters - I recalled this was a love story - and to leave the world of ideas behind. Here we were, two people lying in bed, Eunice's worried head propped on my collarbone, and I wanted us to feel something in common. I wanted this complex language, this surge of intellect, to be processed into love. Isn't that how they used to do it a century ago, people reading poetry to one another?”

PeopleWorldLoveFeelsFirstsTwoIdeasCharacterStoriesAgeWantedUsedLyingReadingLanguageLove IsCommonBehindsCenturyFiguresBedPagesHistoricalComplexesSakeIntellectLove StoryWorriedAbstractPlotIntroducingPeople LieReading PoetryHistorical Figure
Book:Super Sad True Love Story: A Novel
Create image

“Perception without the word, which is without thought, is one of the strangest phenomena. Then the perception is much more acute, not only with the brain, but also with all the senses. Such perception is not the fragmentary perception of the intellect nor the affair of the emotions. It can be called a total perception, and it is part of meditation.”

EmotionBrainMeditationPerceptionAffairIntellectSenses
Book:Freedom, Love, and Action
Create image

“The first thing the intellect does with an object is to class it along with something else. But any object that is infinitely important to us and awakens our devotion feels to us also as if it must be sui generis and unique. Probably a crab would be filled with a sense of personal outrage if it could hear us class it without ado or apology as a crustacean, and thus dispose of it. 'I am no such thing,' it would say; 'I am MYSELF, MYSELF alone.”

IfsFeelsFirstsDoeImportantWould BeScienceClassObjectsUniqueFilledIntellectDevotionApologyOutrageClassificationCrabs
Book:The Varieties of Religious Experience
Create image

“Where suspicion fills the air and holds scholars in line for fear of their jobs, there can be no exercise of the free intellect. Supineness and dogmatism take the place of inquiry. A problem can no longer be pursued to its edges. Fear stalks the classroom. The teacher is no longer a stimulant to adventurous thinking; she becomes instead a pipe line for safe and sound information. A deadening dogma takes the place of free inquiry. Instruction tends to become sterile; pursuit of knowledge is discouraged; discussion often leaves off where it should begin.”

ThinkingShouldProblemJobsFearSoundLinesTeacherAirInformationExerciseSafeEdgesIntellectPursuitDiscussionInstructionClassroomScholarDogmaSuspicionInquiryDiscouragedPursuedPipeAdventurousStalkingPursuit Of KnowledgeDogmatismStimulantsSafe And Sound
Author:William O. Douglas
Create image

“Over immense periods of time the intellect produced nothing but errors. A few of these proved to be useful and helped to preserve the species: those who hit upon or inherited these had better luck in their struggle for themselves and their progeny. Such erroneous articles of faith... include the following: that there are things, substances, bodies; that a thing is what it appears to be; that our will is free; that what is good for me is also good in itself.”

BodyTruthKnowledgeStrugglePeriodsLuckErrorsSpeciesFollowingIntellectSubstancePreservesArticlesImmenseProgeny
Book:The Gay Science: With a Prelude in Rhymes and an Appendix of Songs
Create image

“The German intellect wants the French sprightliness, the fine practical understanding of the English, and the American adventure; but it has a certain probity, which never rests in a superficial performance, but asks steadily, To what end? A German public asks for a controlling sincerity.”

WantEndsActionCertainAsksUnderstandingAdventureFinePerformancesIntellectPracticalsSinceritySuperficialProbity
Book:Representative Men: Seven Lectures
Create image