Quotes about intelligence
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Marjorie M. Liu photo

“Puerto Rico in particular intertwines Caribbean Black Spanish. We dare to claim it. It is a source of pride and we are not linguistically crippled. My claim to fame is I can experiment, and sound intelligent with my linguistic experiments.”

Tato Laviera (1950–2013) Puerto Rican writer

On how he perceives Puerto Rico in “An Interview with Tato Laviera, the King of Nuyorican Poetical Migrations” https://www.latinorebels.com/2012/07/11/an-interview-with-tato-laviera-the-king-of-nuyorican-poetical-migrations/ in Latino Rebels (2012 Jul 11)

Harry Hay photo
Robert Sheckley photo

“What kind of intelligent beings would evolve on a planet that is all mountains?”

Robert Sheckley (1928–2005) American writer

“Stupid ones!” Casker said.
Untouched by Human Hands (p. 75)
Short fiction, Untouched by Human Hands (1954)

Newton Lee photo
Newton Lee photo
Newton Lee photo
Vinayak Damodar Savarkar photo
Alessandro Cagliostro photo
Fiona Hill (presidential advisor) photo
Amit Ray photo

“As more and more artificial intelligence is entering into the world, more and more emotional intelligence must enter into leadership.”

Amit Ray (1960) Indian author

Source: Compassionate Artificial Intelligence: Frameworks and Algorithms (2018) https://books.google.com/books/about/Compassionate_Artificial_Intelligence.html?id=wZt7DwAAQBAJ&redir_esc=y,

Mahatma Gandhi photo
B.K.S. Iyengar photo
William L. Shirer photo
Elizabeth Bibesco photo
Mao Zedong photo

“It is to the advantage of despots to keep people ignorant; it is to our advantage to make them intelligent. We must lead all of them gradually away from ignorance.”

Mao Zedong (1893–1976) Chairman of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China

Directives on the Cultural Revolution (1966-1972)

Amartya Sen photo

“Given what can be achieved through intelligent and humane intervention, it is amazing how inactive and smug most societies are about the prevalence of the unshared burden of disability.”

Amartya Sen (1933) Indian economist

quoted in Andrew Balls, "Donors urged to focus more on disability link", Financial Times (December 2, 2004)
2000s

Charles Stross photo
Benjamin Graham photo
Vladimir Lenin photo

“The basic question of every revolution is that of state power. Unless this question is understood, there can be no intelligent participation in the revolution, not to speak of guidance of the revolution. The highly remarkable feature of our revolution is that it has brought about dual power.”

Vladimir Lenin (1870–1924) Russian politician, led the October Revolution

This fact must be grasped first and foremost: unless it is understood, we cannot advance. We must know how to supplement and amend old "formulas".
Lenin Anthology, p. 301
1910s, "The Dual Power" (1917)

J. Howard Moore photo
J. Howard Moore photo
J. Howard Moore photo
J. Howard Moore photo
J. Howard Moore photo
Albert Einstein photo
Jack McDevitt photo
Chris Hedges photo
Carl Sagan photo
Carl Sagan photo
Carl Sagan photo
Carl Sagan photo

“The entire evolutionary record on our planet, particularly the record contained in fossil endocasts, illustrates a progressive tendency toward intelligence. There is nothing mysterious about this: smart organisms by and large survive better and leave more offspring than stupid ones.”

Carl Sagan (1934–1996) American astrophysicist, cosmologist, author and science educator

Source: The Dragons of Eden (1977), Chapter 9, “Knowledge is Our Destiny: Terrestrial and Extraterrestrial Intelligence” (p. 240)

Peter Kropotkin photo
Frantz Fanon photo
Frantz Fanon photo
Immanuel Kant photo
Robert A. Heinlein photo

“For vice has this defect; it cannot be truly intelligent. Its very motives are its weakness.”

Lost Legacy (p. 339)
Short fiction, Off the Main Sequence (2005)

Larry Niven photo

“What’s intelligence for if not for seeking knowledge?”

Source: Destiny's Road (1997), Chapter 30, “Hydraulic * Empire” (p. 299)

Alfred Percy Sinnett photo
Michael Moorcock photo

“It takes little intelligence to draw the obvious conclusion…”

Michael Moorcock (1939) English writer, editor, critic

“Especially if one is blessed with only the barest information concerning other lands and peoples.”
Book 1, Chapter 2 “The Pearl at the Heart of the World” (p. 138)
The Elric Cycle, The Fortress of the Pearl (1989)

Alice A. Bailey photo
Alice A. Bailey photo
Edmund Burke photo
Yuval Noah Harari photo
Ayad Allawi photo

“Only one thing is prohibited these days in Iraq: to speak with President Mubarak or the kings of Jordan and Saudi Arabia. Mention the word “Arabism” and you will be accused of being an intelligence agent.”

Ayad Allawi (1945) Iraqi politician

SPIEGEL Interview with Ayad Allawi, 10 September 2007 https://www.spiegel.de/international/world/spiegel-interview-with-ayad-allawi-we-are-further-than-ever-from-national-reconciliation-a-504900.html

Narendra Modi photo
David Lloyd George photo
Annie Besant photo

“It is patent to every student of the closing forty years of the last century, that crowds of thoughtful and moral people have slipped away from the churches, because the teachings they received there outraged their intelligence and shocked their moral sense. It is idle to pretend that the widespread agnosticism of this period had its root either in lack of morality or in deliberate crookedness of mind. Everyone who carefully studies the phenomena presented will admit that men of strong intellect have been driven out of Christianity by the crudity of the religious ideas set before them, the contradictions in the authoritative teachings, the views as to God, man, and the universe that no trained intelligence could possibly admit. Nor can it be said that any kind of moral degradation lay at the root of the revolt against the dogmas of the Church. The rebels were not too bad for their religion; on the contrary, it was the religion that was too bad for them. The rebellion against popular Christianity was due to the awakening and the growth of conscience; it was the conscience that revolted, as well as the intelligence, against teachings dishonouring to God and man alike, that represented God as a tyrant, and man as essentially evil, gaining salvation by slavish submission.”

Annie Besant (1847–1933) British socialist, theosophist, women's rights activist, writer and orator

Esoteric Christianity (The Lesser Mysteries) (1914)

Annie Besant photo
Otto von Bismarck photo
Ibrahim Kodra photo

“I look for the distant horizon, the existence of life, the infinite, the rays of the sun, evolution, I seek the irrational, the indestructible, the wave of the sea, the invincible, I seek the unexpected, the timeless, the intelligible, the resourcefulness, the institutable, I look for the insurable, the non-transferable, the immutable, the insurrection, I seek the unusual, the irreplaceable, the insoluble, the impossible, I seek the onset, the invisible, the primordial, the unreachable, I seek the organism of the cosmos, the mystery of the air, the breath of the wind, the dawning of the dawn, I seek an earth to cultivate, the first flower, the first seed, the future, I seek …”

Ibrahim Kodra (1918–2006) father of Albanian contemporary art

Io cerco l'orizzonte lontano, l'esistenza della vita, l'infinito, i raggi del sole, l'evoluzione, io cerco l'irrazionale, l'indistruttibile, l'onda del mare, l'invincibile, io cerco l'inatteso, l'intemporale, l'inteleggibile, l'intraprendenza, l'istituibile, io cerco l'instaurabile, l'intrasferibile, l'intramutabile, l'insurrezione, io cerco l' inconsueto, l'insostituibile, l'insolubile, l'impossibile, io cerco l'insorgenza, l'invisibile, il primordiale, l'inarrivabile, io cerco l'organismo del cosmo, il mistero dell'aria, il soffio del vento, il sorgere dell'aurora, io cerco una terra da coltivare, il primo fiore, il primo seme, dell'avvenire, io cerco ...

Charles Sumner photo
Dave Barry photo
Ernst, Baron von Feuchtersleben photo
Jeremy Scahill photo
Dharampal photo
Frances Bean Cobain photo

“I love strong, opinionated, intelligent women.”

Frances Bean Cobain (1992) American artist

Isaiah Silva, Cobain's then fiancé, quoted by Jessica Herndon and Kevin O'Donnell, " Frances Bean Cobain and Isaiah Silva: Their Private Romance http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20557992,00.html", People (3 January 2012).

Thiago Silva photo

“He has the quickness, he has the ability on the ball. Thiago Silva is an incredible player and extremely intelligent.”

Thiago Silva (1984) Brazilian footballer

José Mourinho (Chelsea), 2014 http://www.sambafoot.com/fr/informations/58637_jose_mourinho_est_fan_de_thiago_silva.html
From coaches and club directors

Seth MacFarlane photo
Rufus Wainwright photo
Paul Scholes photo

“The truly great English midfield player of the generation. Didn’t just play the game, he thought about the game. You could see every pass, every decision, was based on his intelligence and understanding.”

Paul Scholes (1974) English footballer

http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/news-and-comment/andrea-pirlo-dream-xi-paul-scholes-the-only-englishman-as-juventus-star-leaves-out-cristiano-ronaldo-in-favour-of-pippo-inzaghi-9992885.html
Andrea Pirlo

Henri Piéron photo
Iamblichus photo

“Old intelligence hands still remember this good-natured and wise man.”

Ivan Agayants (1911–1968) KGB officer

Vadim Kirpichenko

Dmitri Shostakovich photo
Sugar Ray Robinson photo

“Nobody beat Ray twice until he was 40 years old. His intelligence, his versatility, and his will to win were the reasons he won all those rematches. He created a new place for the imagination of a fighter.”

Sugar Ray Robinson (1921–1989) American boxer

Jack Newfield http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2441835652984416201&ei=sjpZS9eZGZPllQevwenkAw&q=sugar+ray+robinson#
About Sugar Ray sourced

Bret Easton Ellis photo
Jerome K. Jerome photo
Camille Paglia photo
Gene Roddenberry photo
Alan Moore photo
Margaret Cho photo
Richard Dawkins photo
John Stuart Mill photo
George Soros photo
Arthur C. Clarke photo

“There are some things that no amount of pure intelligence can anticipate, but which can only be learned by bitter experience.”

The Road to the Sea, p. 284
2000s and posthumous publications, The Collected Stories of Arthur C. Clarke (2001)

Isoroku Yamamoto photo
Ethan Allen photo
Robert Greene photo
Robert Greene photo
Edsger W. Dijkstra photo

“LISP has been jokingly described as "the most intelligent way to misuse a computer."”

Edsger W. Dijkstra (1930–2002) Dutch computer scientist

I think that description a great compliment because it transmits the full flavor of liberation: it has assisted a number of our most gifted fellow humans in thinking previously impossible thoughts.
1970s, The Humble Programmer (1972)

Richard Dawkins photo
Daniel Abraham photo
Colin Powell photo

“Nothing was spun to me... What really upset me more than anything else was that there were people in the intelligence community that had doubts about some of this sourcing, but those doubts never surfaced up to us.”

Colin Powell (1937) Former U.S. Secretary of State and retired four-star general

Powell told David Frost in a BBC television interview
Quoted in Breaking Ranks Larry Wilkerson Attacked the Iraq War. In the Process, He Lost the Friendship of Colin Powell. https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/2006/01/19/breaking-ranks-span-classbankheadlarry-wilkerson-attacked-the-iraq-war-in-the-process-he-lost-the-friendship-of-colin-powellspan/d1f359c6-93a0-41c1-beee-2284d6284d47/ Washington Post, by Richard Lei (19 January 2006)
2000s

Hasan al-Askari photo

“If all the people of this world were intelligent, the world would be ruined.”

Hasan al-Askari (846–874) Eleventh of the Twelve Imams

[Baqir Shareef al-Qurashi, Abdullah al-Shahin, The Life of Imam Hasan al-'Askari, Wonderful short maxims, 2005]
[Mizan al-Hikmat, Mohammadi Rey Shahri, Mohammad, 5]</ref>
Knowledge

Thomas Hylland Eriksen photo
Stephen Baxter photo
Victor Hugo photo
Victor Hugo photo
Victor Hugo photo
Victor Hugo photo
Victor Hugo photo

“We should be less concerned about the missile gap than the intelligence gap... less worried about the missile race than the intelligence race.”

Max Lerner (1902–1992) American journalist and educator

Quoted in Max Lerner, Writer, 89, Is Dead; Humanist on Political Barricades By Richard Severo, The New York Times, https://www.nytimes.com/1992/06/06/arts/max-lerner-writer-89-is-dead-humanist-on-political-barricades.html (6 June 1992)