“We re very familiar with the idea that some things are so complex they re beyond our comprehension. This not only keeps us solving and experimenting but also distracted. Many things are really so simple we can t see them under our big noses.”
“A ști anumite lucruri pe de rost îți conferă capacitatea unei înțelegeri superioare.”
“Genius, throughout history, has been found difficult to classify because it varies in amount: It s rare to find a genius in the context of the noun, but most people, if not all, have a bit of genius in them in the context of the adjective.”
“If human foolishness had been as carefully nurtured and cultivated as intelligence has been for centuries, perhaps it would have turned into something extremely precious.”
“It used to be obvious that the world was designed by some sort of intelligence. What else could account for fire and rain and lightning and earthquakes? Above all, the wonderful abilities of living things seemed to point to a creator who had a special interest in life. Today we understand most of these things in terms of physical forces acting under impersonal laws. We don t yet know the most fundamental laws, and we can t work out all the consequences of the laws we do know. The human mind remains extraordinarily difficult to understand, but so is the weather. We can t predict whether it will rain one month from today, but we do know the rules that govern the rain, even though we can t always calculate their consequences. I see nothing about the human mind any more than about the weather that stands out as beyond the hope of understanding as a consequence of impersonal laws acting over billions of years.”
“What other species now require of us is our attention. Otherwise, we are entering a narrative of disappearing intelligences.”
“We proclaim human intelligence to be morally valuable per se because we are human. If we were birds, we would proclaim the ability to fly as morally valuable per se. If we were fish, we would proclaim the ability to live underwater as morally valuable per se. But apart from our obviously self-interested proclamations, there is nothing morally valuable per se about human intelligence.”
“Wisdom is nothing more than the marriage of intelligence and compassion. And, as with all good unions, it takes much experience and time to reach its widest potential. Have you introduced your intellect to your compassion yet? Be careful; lately, intellect has taken to eating in front of the TV and compassion has taken in too many cats.”
“He had been educated in no habits of application and concentration. The system which had addressed him in exactly the same manner as it had addressed hundreds of other boys, all varying in character and capacity, had enabled him to dash through his tasks, always with fair credit and often with distinction, but in a fitful, dazzling way that had confirmed his reliance on those very qualities in himself which it had been most desirable to direct and train. They were good qualities, without which no high place can be meritoriously won, but like fire and water, though excellent servants, they were very bad masters. If they had been under Richard’s direction, they would have been his friends; but Richard being under their direction, they became his enemies.”
“Studies show that the IQ range of most creative people is surprisingly narrow, around 120 to 130. Higher IQs can perform certain kinds of tasks better--logic, feats of memory, and so on. But if the IQ is much higher or lower than that, the window of creativity closes. Nonetheless, for some reason we believe more is better, so people yearn for tip-top IQs, and that calls for bigger memories. A fast, retentive memory is handy, but no skeleton key for survival.”
“Wer kann es sagen, wer nur ahnen, wie weit das Geistesvermögen der Tiere geht!”
“I think that at that time none of us quite believed in the Time Machine. The fact is, the Time Traveler 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. Had Filby shown the model and explained the matter in the Time Traveller s words, we should have shown him far less skepticism. For we should have perceived his motives; a pork butcher could understand Filby.”
“Deep” to me connotes intellectual rigor, not fashionable obscurity or the unnecessarily academic.”
“It was an accident that has endowed man with intelligence. He has made use of it: he invented stupidity.”
“Muscle is good, but craft is better”
“What sets humans apart from animals is that we have to walk around saying how smart we are, and animals just live their lives.”
“Let the love of the moon kiss you good night, let the morning sun wake you up with loving light.”