“Hayek possessed a towering intellect. At the same time, his intelligence was as much brittle as it was powerful.”

— Alan O. Ebenstein

Hayek's Journey: The Mind of Friedrich Hayek (2003)

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Alan O. Ebenstein 47

American political scientist, educator and author 1959

Eugene S. Wilson (1905)

Jack R, Maguire, "Editorial: The Case for the C-Average Student", The Alcalde, September 1961, p. 5 http://books.google.com/books?id=qdIDAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA5
Attributed

“If someone asks us which of these is more perfect, intellect or sense, the intelligible or the sensible, we shall promise to answer promptly, if he will first give us an answer to the following question. You know, my inquiring friend, that there is some power in you which has a notion of each of these things—a notion, I say, of intellect itself and of sense, of the intelligible and the sensible. This is evident, for the same power which compares these to each other must at that time in a certain manner see both. Tell me, then, whether a power of this kind belongs to intellect or sense? … Sense, as you yourself have shown, can perceive neither itself nor intellect and the objects of intellect; whereas intellect knows both. … Therefore, intellect is not only more perfect than sense but is also, after perfection itself, in the highest degree perfect.”

Marsilio Ficino (1433–1499) Italian philosopher

Source: Five Questions Concerning the Mind (1495), pp. 203-204

“Hayek had high regard for Marx in technical economic theory and considered him a predecessor in his business cycle theory. […] It was not in technical economic theory that the classical Austrians disagreed with Marx. So towering a figure in history is Marx that discussion of his thought in summary form is always difficult, for there is so much that he said and that others have said about him. At the same time, so tendentious, ill-spirited, and just plain wrong a thinker was Marx that it is surprising that he may have had some of the influence attributed to him. Hayek’s opposition to Marx was in the realm of practical political emanations from Marx’s thought. Here he considered Marx’s influence to have been wholly pernicious.”

Alan O. Ebenstein (1959) American political scientist, educator and author

Hayek's Journey: The Mind of Friedrich Hayek (2003)

“Jacoblike a totally normal young man. He's clearly intelligent. But having his day disrupted probably makes him feel the same way I would if I was suddenly told to bungee off the top of the Sears Tower.”

Jodi Picoult book House Rules

Source: House Rules

“Half the time I read Hayek's The Sensory Order with amazement at the extent of his reading and comprehension … he is right … most of the time.”

Edwin Boring (1886–1968) American psychologist

Edwin Boring, "Elementist Going Up", The Scientific Monthly (March 1953), p. 183

“Where the citizen is sovereign and the official the servant, where no power is exercised except by the will of the people, it is important that the sovereign — the people — should possess intelligence.”

Ulysses S. Grant (1822–1885) 18th President of the United States

1870s, Speech to the Society of the Army of Tennessee (1875)
Context: Let us then begin by guarding against every enemy threatening the perpetuity of free republican institutions. I do not bring into this assemblage politics, certainly not partisan politics; but it is a fair subject for soldiers in their deliberations to consider what may be necessary to secure the prize for which they battled in a republic like ours. Where the citizen is sovereign and the official the servant, where no power is exercised except by the will of the people, it is important that the sovereign — the people — should possess intelligence.

“The intelligence required for the solving of social problems is not a thing of the mere intellect.”

Henry George (1839–1897) American economist

Source: Social Problems (1883), Ch. 1 : The Increasing Importance of Social Questions
Context: The intelligence required for the solving of social problems is not a thing of the mere intellect. It must be animated with the religious sentiment and warm with sympathy for human suffering. It must stretch out beyond self-interest, whether it be the self-interest of the few or of the many. It must seek justice. For at the bottom of every social problem we will find a social wrong.

“"Broken things are powerful."
Things about to break are stronger still.
The last shot from the brittle bow is truest.”

Eugene McCarthy (1916–2005) American politician

"Courage After Sixty"
Poems

“In the whole range of earthly experience, no quality is more attractive and ennobling than moral courage. Like that mountain of rock which towers aloft in the Irish Sea, the man possessed of this principle is unmoved by the swelling surges which fret and fume at his feet. And yet, unlike that same Ailsa Craig, he is sensitive beyond measure to every adverse influence — battling against it, and triumphing over it by a power which proceeds from God's throne, and pervades his entire being.”

John McClellan Holmes (1834–1911) US Christian minister and author

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 165.

“There was an apparent disorder in his personal life style…resented any restriction on his freedom…for him freedom meant a constant movement of the intellect and imagination…He moved in different directions at the same time that he could only look forward and beyond.”

Zakir Hussain (politician) (1897–1969) 3rd President of India

Dr. Mujeeb, in p. 75.
About Zakir Hussain, Quest for Truth (1999)

“Hayek possessed a towering intellect. At the same time, his intelligence was as much brittle as it was powerful.”

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Alan O. Ebenstein 47

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