Profoundly inspirational intelligence quotes will make you look at life differently and help you live a meaningful life.
Famous Intelligence Quotes
The ability to observe without evaluating is the highest form of intelligence. J. Krishnamurti
I am so clever that sometimes I don’t understand a single word of what I am saying. Oscar Wilde
The measure of intelligence is the ability to change. Albert Einstein
I did then what I knew how to do. Now that I know better, I do better. Maya Angelou
The intelligent man is one who has successfully fulfilled many accomplishments, and is yet willing to learn more. Ed Parker
The man of knowledge must be able not only to love his enemies but also to hate his friends. Friedrich Nietzsche
The test of a first rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function. F. Scott Fitzgerald
The measure of intelligence is the ability to change. Albert Einstein
Action is the real measure of intelligence. Napoleon Hill
You might be poor, your shoes might be broken, but your mind is a palace. Frank McCourt
The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. Intelligence plus character that is the goal of true education. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Whatever the cost of our libraries, the price is cheap compared to that of an ignorant nation. Walter Cronkite
True intelligence requires fabulous imagination. Ian McEwan
People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use. Søren Kierkegaard
They think that intelligence is about noticing things are relevant detecting patterns; in a complex world, intelligence consists in ignoring things that are irrelevant avoiding false patterns. Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Quotation is a serviceable substitute for wit. Oscar Wilde
If you would take, you must first give, this is the beginning of intelligence. Lao Tzu
You are not entitled to your opinion. You are entitled to your informed opinion. No one is entitled to be ignorant. Harlan Ellison
Genius is talent set on fire by courage. Henry Van Dyke
Your assumptions are your windows on the world. Scrub them off every once in a while, or the light won’t come in. Isaac Asimov
Intelligence is the ability to adapt to change. Stephen Hawking
An intellectual? Yes. And never deny it. An intellectual is someone whose mind watches itself. I like this, because I am happy to be both halves, the watcher and the watched. Can they be brought together? This is a practical question. We must get down to it. I despise intelligence really means I cannot bear my doubts. Albert Camus
By the way, intelligence to me isn’t just being book smart or having a college degree; it’s trusting your gut instincts, being intuitive, thinking outside the box, and sometimes just realizing that things need to change and being smart enough to change it. Tabatha Coffey
As long as she thinks of a man, nobody objects to a woman thinking. Virginia Woolf
The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination. Albert Einstein
It takes something more than intelligence to act intelligently. Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Intelligence is not measured by how much you know, but by how much you have the capacity to learn. Francesca Zappia
A good head and good heart are always a formidable combination. But when you add to that a literate tongue or pen, then you have something very special. Nelson Mandela
Intelligence is not to make no mistakes, but to see quickly how to make them good. Bertolt Brecht
Do stuff. be clenched, curious. Not waiting for inspiration’s shove or society’s kiss on your forehead. Pay attention. It’s all about paying attention attention is vitality. It connects you with others. It makes you eager stay eager. Susan Sontag
Education is not the learning of the facts, but the training of the mind to think. Albert Einstein
A thinker sees his own actions as experiments and questions as attempts to find out something. Success and failure are for him answers above all. Friedrich Nietzsche
Genius might be the ability to say a profound thing in a simple way. Charles Bukowski
Men have called me mad; but the question is not yet settled, whether madness is or is not the loftiest intelligence whether much that is glorious whether all that is profound does not spring from disease of thought from moods of mind exalted at the expense of the general intellect. Edgar Allan Poe
Intelligence is quickness in seeing things as they are. George Santayana
The pendulum of the mind oscillates between sense and nonsense, not between right and wrong. Carl Gustav Jung
Intelligence is the effort to the do the best you can at your particular job; the quality that gives dignity to that job, whether it happens to be scrubbing a floor or running a corporation. James C. Penney
The ability to observe without evaluating is the highest form of intelligence. J. Krishnamurti
The advancement and diffusion of knowledge is the only guardian of true liberty. James Madison
I’d take the awe of understanding over the awe of ignorance any day. Douglas Adams
A superior and commanding intellect, a truly great man when Heaven vouchsafes so rare a gift is not a temporary flame, burning for a while, and then expiring, giving place to eternal darkness. It is rather a spark of fervent heat, as well as radiant light, with power to enkindle the common mass of human mind; so that, when it glimmers in its own decay, and finally goes out in death, no night follows; but it leaves the world all light, all on fire, from the potent contact of its own spirit. Daniel Webster
If we encounter a man of rare intellect, we should ask him what books he reads. Ralph Waldo Emerson
A good head and good heart are always a formidable combination. But when you add to that a literate tongue or pen, then you have something very special. Nelson Mandela
It is one thing to be clever and another to be wise. George R.R. Martin
Science knows no country, because knowledge belongs to humanity, and is the torch which illuminates the world. Science is the highest personification of the nation because that nation will remain the first which carries the furthest the works of thought and intelligence. Louis Pasteur
Be less curious about people and more curious about ideas. Marie Curie
There are painters who transform the sun to a yellow spot, but there are others who with the help of their art and their intelligence, transform a yellow spot into sun. Pablo Picasso
A stupid man’s report of what a clever man says can never be accurate, because he unconsciously translates what he hears into something he can understand. Bertrand Russell
Educate the masses, elevate their standard of intelligence, and you will certainly have a successful nation. Alexander Graham Bell
Reason is intelligence taking exercise. Imagination is intelligence with an erection. Victor Hugo
Republics are created by the virtue, public spirit, and intelligence of the citizens. They fall, when the wise are banished from the public councils, because they dare to be honest, and the profligate are rewarded, because they flatter the people, in order to betray them. Joseph Story
I think of myself as an intelligent, sensitive human being with the soul of a clown which always forces me to blow it at the most important moments. Jim Morrison
Humans have always used our intelligence and creativity to improve our existence. After all, we invented the wheel, discovered how to make fire, invented the printing press and found a vaccine for polio. Naveen Jain
He had just about enough intelligence to open his mouth when he wanted to eat, but certainly no more. P.G. Wodehouse
If you have the guts to keep making mistakes, your wisdom and intelligence leap forward with huge momentum. Holly Near
Nothing whets the intelligence more than a passionate suspicion, nothing develops all the faculties of an immature mind more than a trail running away into the dark. Stefan Zweig
I did then what I knew how to do. Now that I know better, I do better. Maya Angelou
Rich people have small TVs and big libraries, and poor people have small libraries and big TVs. Zig Ziglar
Talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence wins championships. Michael Jordan
It is the job of thinking people not to be on the side of the executioners. Albert Camus
Learn from the mistakes of others. You can’t live long enough to make them all yourself. Eleanor Roosevelt
The intelligence of that creature known as a crowd is the square root of the number of people in it. Terry Pratchett
Don’t leave home without your sword your intellect. Alan Moore
Any woman who is sure of her own wits, is a match, at any time, for a man who is not sure of his own temper. Wilkie Collins
I know that I am intelligent, because I know that I know nothing. Socrates
Mary wished to say something very sensible, but knew not how. Jane Austen
I not only use all the brains that I have, but all that I can borrow. Woodrow Wilson
The more stupid one is, the closer one is to reality. The more stupid one is, the clearer one is. Stupidity is brief and artless, while intelligence squirms and hides itself. Intelligence is unprincipled, but stupidity is honest and straightforward. Fyodor Dostoyevsky
You can tell whether a man is clever by his answers. You can tell whether a man is wise by his questions. Naguib Mahfouz
Education is no substitute for intelligence. Frank Herbert
An intelligent person is never afraid or ashamed to find errors in his understanding of things. Bryant H. McGill
Before I go on with this short history, let me make a general observation 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. One should, for example, be able to see that things are hopeless and yet be determined to make them otherwise. This philosophy fitted on to my early adult life, when I saw the improbable, the implausible, often the impossible, come true. F. Scott Fitzgerald
My mind rebels at stagnation. Give me problems, give me work, give me the most abstruse cryptogram, or the most intricate analysis, and I am in my own proper atmosphere. But I abhor the dull routine of existence. I crave for mental exaltation. Arthur Conan Doyle
Crazy people are considered mad by the rest of the society only because their intelligence isn’t understood. Wei Hui
