“Intelligence without the ability to give and receive affection leads to mental and moral breakdown, to neurosis, and possibly even psychosis.”

— Daniel Keyes , book Flowers for Algernon

Flowers for Algernon (1966)
Context: Don't misunderstand me," I said. "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.

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Daniel Keyes 47

American author 1927–2014

James Clavell (1921–1994) American novelist

André Delambre
The Fly (1958)

“The possibility of all philosophy … namely, that the intelligence, by affecting itself, gives itself a movement in accordance with its own law — that is, gives itself a form of activity all its own.”

Novalis (1772–1801) German poet and writer

Die Möglichkeit aller Philosophie ... dass sich die Intelligenz durch Selbstberührung eine Selbstgesezmäßige Bewegung - d.i. eine eigne Form der Tätigkeit gibt.
Schriften, p. 63, as translated in Walter Benjamin: Selected Writings: Volume 1, 1913-1926 (1996), p. 133

“It appears that the evolutionary process promotes its own progress: learning about the environment (which demands a certain intelligence) means living in a stable social mileau (which demands at least an equal and possibly a greater intelligence); as social intelligence increases, so too will the ability to learn; this in turn encourages an even longer social apprenticeship; and longer group living leads to more social intelligence.”

Richard Leakey (1944) Kenyan paleoanthropologist, conservationist, and politician

Origins (1977)

“The ability to observe without evaluating is the highest form of intelligence.”

Jiddu Krishnamurti (1895–1986) Indian spiritual philosopher

“Right now, at my institute in the US we are working on gene-caused failures in brain development that frequently lead to autism and schizophrenia. We may also find that differences in these respective brain development genes also lead to differences in our abilities to carry out different mental tasks.
In some cases, how these genes function may help us to understand variations in IQ, or why some people excel at poetry but are terrible at mathematics. All too often people with high mathematical abilities have autistic traits. The same gene that gives some people such great mathematical abilities may also lead to autistic behaviour. This is why, in studying autism and schizophrenia, we believe that we shall come very close to a better understanding of intelligence and, therefore, of the differences in intelligence.”

James D. Watson (1928) American molecular biologist, geneticist, and zoologist.

To question genetic intelligence is not racism (2007)

“But it isn’t absence that causes sorrow. It is affection and love. Without affection, without love, such absences would cause us no pain. For this reason, even the pain caused by absence is, in the end, something good and even beautiful, because it feeds on that which gives meaning to life.”

Carlo Rovelli book The Order of Time

Source: The Order of Time (2018), p. 105

“Where passion is married to intelligence, you may find genius, neurosis, madness or rapture.”

Michael Chabon (1963) Novelist, short story writer, essayist

The Mysteries of Berkeley (March 2002)

“Always give without remembering and always receive without forgetting.”

Brian Tracy (1944) American motivational speaker and writer

“What then is, or can be called, a moral guide? The shortest possible answer is one word: Intelligence.”

Robert G. Ingersoll (1833–1899) Union United States Army officer

What Would You Substitute for the Bible as a Moral Guide? (1900)
Context: What then is, or can be called, a moral guide? The shortest possible answer is one word: Intelligence. We want the experience of mankind, the true history of the race. We want the history of intellectual development, of the growth of the ethical, of the idea of justice, of conscience, of charity, of self-denial. We want to know the paths and roads that have been traveled by the human mind. These facts in general, these histories in outline, the results reached, the conclusions formed, the principles evolved, taken together, would form the best conceivable moral guide. We cannot depend on what are called “inspired books,” or the religions of the world. These religions are based on the supernatural, and according to them we are under obligation to worship and obey some supernatural being, or beings. All these religions are inconsistent with intellectual liberty. They are the enemies of thought, of investigation, of mental honesty. They destroy the manliness of man. They promise eternal rewards for belief, for credulity, for what they call faith. This is not only absurd, but it is immoral.

“Even if moral truths cannot affect people, they can still be truths.”

Derek Parfit book Reasons and Persons

Source: Derek Parfit, ‘Reasons and Motivation’, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, supp. vol. 71 (1997), p. 111

“Intelligence without the ability to give and receive affection leads to mental and moral breakdown, to neurosis, and possibly even psychosis.”

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