“He was one of those people with lots of intelligence but no brains”

— Joseph Heller

Last update June 3, 2021. History

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Joseph Heller 132

American author 1923–1999

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“A man is not more entitled to be "received in good society," or at least to wish to be, because he is more intelligent and cultivated. This is one of those sophisms that the vanity of intelligent people picks up in the arsenal of their intelligence to justify their basest inclinations.”

Marcel Proust (1871–1922) French novelist, critic, and essayist

Notes to Sesame and Lilies by John Ruskin, translated by Proust (1906); from Marcel Proust: On Reading Ruskin, trans. Jean Autret and William Burford
Context: A man is not more entitled to be "received in good society," or at least to wish to be, because he is more intelligent and cultivated. This is one of those sophisms that the vanity of intelligent people picks up in the arsenal of their intelligence to justify their basest inclinations. In other words, having become more intelligent creates some rights to be less. Very simply, diverse personalities are to be found in the breast of each of us, and often the life of more than one superior man is nothing but the coexistence of a philosopher and a snob. Actually, there are very few philosophers and artists who are absolutely detached from ambition and respect for power, from "people of position." And among those who are more delicate or more sated, snobism replaces ambition and respect for power in the same way superstition arises on the ruins of religious beliefs. Morality gains nothing there. Between a worldly philosopher and a philosopher intimidated by a minister of state, the second is still the more innocent.

“I know lots of people who are educated far beyond their intelligence.”

Lewis Grizzard (1946–1994) American journalist

Source: cited in Living Positive with Imperfection: A Memoir, September 15, 2017 https://books.google.com/books?id=hxU6CwAAQBAJ&lpg=PT231&ots=0nMTnr_TtC&dq=I%20know%20lots%20of%20people%20who%20are%20educated%20far%20beyond%20their%20intelligence.&pg=PT231#v=onepage&q=I%20know%20lots%20of%20people%20who%20are%20educated%20far%20beyond%20their%20intelligence.&f=false,

“In fact if one person is unkind to an animal it is considered to be cruelty, but where a lot of people are unkind to a lot of animals, especially in the name of commerce, the cruelty is condoned and, once large sums of money are at stake, will be defended to the last by otherwise intelligent people.”

Ruth Harrison (1920–2000) British activist

Animal Machines (1964; rev. ed. Boston: CABI, 2013), ch. IX, p. 175 https://books.google.it/books?id=7_3-ko8zyZYC&pg=PA175.

“Some people without brains do an awful lot of talking, don't you think?”

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Source: The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

“It's a good thing a lot of people speak foreign languages, otherwise those people would have no one to talk to.”

Steven Wright (1955) American actor and author

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“Here we use the vibrations of the material molecules of the atmosphere to transmit intelligence from one brain to another.”

William Crookes (1832–1919) British chemist and physicist

Address to the Society for Psychical Research (1897)
Context: Ordinarily we communicate intelligence to each other by speech. I first call up in my own brain a picture of a scene I wish to describe, and then, by means of an orderly transmission of wave vibrations set in motion by my vocal chords through the material atmosphere, a corresponding picture is implanted in the brain of anyone whose ear is capable of receiving such vibrations. If the scene I wish to impress on the brain of the recipient is of a complicated character, or if the picture of it in my own brain is not definite, the transmission will be more or less imperfect; but if I wish to get my audience to picture to themselves some very simple object, such as a triangle or a circle, the transmission of ideas will be well-nigh perfect, and equally clear to the brains of both transmitter and recipient. Here we use the vibrations of the material molecules of the atmosphere to transmit intelligence from one brain to another.