“A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep.”
“I can normally tell how intelligent a man is by how stupid he thinks I am.”
“Man is so intelligent that he feels impelled to invent theories to account for what happens in the world. Unfortunately, he is not quite intelligent enough, in most cases, to find correct explanations. So that when he acts on his theories, he behaves very often like a lunatic.”
“It is a damn poor mind that can think of only one way to spell a word.”
“Nature never appeals to intelligence until habit and instinct are useless. There is no intelligence where there is no need of change.”
“Every now and then a man s mind is stretched by a new idea or sensation, and never shrinks back to its former dimensions.”
“Because there are three classes of intellects: one which comprehends by itself; another which appreciates what others comprehend; and a third which neither comprehends by itself nor by the showing of others; the first is the most excellent, the second is good, the third is useless.”
“My favourite definition of an intellectual: Someone who has been educated beyond his/her intelligence. [Sources and Acknowledgements: Chapter 19]”
“Military intelligence is a contradiction in terms.”
“Intelligence is an accident of evolution, and not necessarily an advantage.”
“I would prefer an intelligent hell to a stupid paradise.”
“Elinor agreed to it all, for she did not think he deserved the compliment of rational opposition.”
“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.”
“Love is my inner strength and my power.”
“You have killed my love. You used to stir my imagination. Now you don t even stir my curiosity. You simply produce no effect. I loved you because you were marvelous, because you had genius and intellect, because you realized the dreams of great poets and gave shape and substance to the shadows of art. You have thrown it all away. You are shallow and stupid”
“I have studied many philosophers and many cats. The wisdom of cats is infinitely superior.”
“Intelligence is one of the greatest human gifts. But all too often a search for knowledge drives out the search for love. This is something else I ve discovered for myself very recently. I present it to you as a hypothesis: Intelligence without the ability to give and receive affection leads to mental and moral breakdown, to neurosis, and possibly even psychosis. And I say that the mind absorbed in and involved in itself as a self-centered end, to the exclusion of human relationships, can only lead to violence and pain.”