# Quotes about intellectuals

- Quotes: 34
- Authors: 20
- Broader topic: [Quotes about society](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/society.md)
- Topic page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/intellectuals
- JSON version (same data): https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/intellectuals.json

## Quotes

> My guess is that you would find that the intellectual elite is the most heavily indoctrinated sector. It's their role as a secular priesthood to really believe the nonsense that they put forth. Other people can repeat it, but it's not that crucial that they really believe it. But for the intellectual elite themselves, it's crucial that they believe it because, after all, they are guardians of the faith. Except for a very rare person who's just an outright liar, it's hard to be a convincing exponent of the faith unless you've internalized it and come to believe it.

[Noam Chomsky](https://www.leafyquotes.com/noam-chomsky.md) · [The Chomsky Reader](https://www.leafyquotes.com/noam-chomsky/the-chomsky-reader.md) · p. 35 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/noam-chomsky/the-chomsky-reader/my-guess-is-that.md)

Topics: [propaganda](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/propaganda.md), [intellectuals](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/intellectuals.md)

> Lacan, Derrida and Foucault are the perfect prophets for the weak, anxious academic personality, trapped in verbal formulas and perennially defeated by circumstances. They offer a self-exculpating cosmic explanation for the normal professorial state of resentment, alienation, dithering passivity and inaction.

[Camille Paglia](https://www.leafyquotes.com/camille-paglia.md) · [Sex, Art, and American Culture](https://www.leafyquotes.com/camille-paglia/sex-art-and-american-culture.md) · p. 211 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/camille-paglia/sex-art-and-american-culture/lacan-derrida-and.md)

Topics: [intellectuals](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/intellectuals.md)

> Academic Marxists, with their elitist sense of superiority to popular taste, are the biggest snobs in America.

[Camille Paglia](https://www.leafyquotes.com/camille-paglia.md) · [Sex, Art, and American Culture](https://www.leafyquotes.com/camille-paglia/sex-art-and-american-culture.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/camille-paglia/sex-art-and-american-culture/academic-marxists-with.md)

Topics: [intellectuals](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/intellectuals.md)

> Professors of humanities, with all their leftist fantasies, have little direct knowledge of American life and no impact whatever on public policy.

[Camille Paglia](https://www.leafyquotes.com/camille-paglia.md) · [Sex, Art, and American Culture](https://www.leafyquotes.com/camille-paglia/sex-art-and-american-culture.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/camille-paglia/sex-art-and-american-culture/professors-of-humanities.md)

Topics: [intellectuals](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/intellectuals.md)

> ...even more ominous … is the fact that since the Second World War a new kind of intellectual has emerged in large numbers. … he is only minimally interested in the proper intellectual significance of images and objects. Such people are not really intellectuals, but visuals … A visual is more interested in style than in content … A visual does not feel a rioting crowd being machine-gunned by the police, he simply sees a brilliant news photograph.

[John Fowles](https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-fowles.md) · [The Aristos](https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-fowles/the-aristos.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-fowles/the-aristos/even-more-ominous.md)

Topics: [media](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/media.md), [intellectuals](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/intellectuals.md)

> It is one of the great ironies of corporate control that the corporate state needs the abilities of intellectuals to maintain power, yet outside of this role it refuses to permit intellectuals to think or function independently.

[Chris Hedges](https://www.leafyquotes.com/chris-hedges.md) · [Death of the Liberal Class](https://www.leafyquotes.com/chris-hedges/death-of-the-liberal-class.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/chris-hedges/death-of-the-liberal-class/it-is-one.md)

Topics: [capitalism](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/capitalism.md), [intellectuals](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/intellectuals.md)

> The best parts of my intellectual life are tangential, in areas outside my expertise. I supposed because within my area of expertise, the regulations they have placed upon me make it impossible to know or understand anything.

[Orson Scott Card](https://www.leafyquotes.com/orson-scott-card.md) · [Speaker for the Dead](https://www.leafyquotes.com/orson-scott-card/speaker-for-the-dead.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/orson-scott-card/speaker-for-the-dead/the-best-parts.md)

Topics: [knowledge](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/knowledge.md), [intellectuals](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/intellectuals.md)

> The intellectual is called on the carpet. ... Don't you conceal something? You talk a language which is suspect. You don't talk like the rest of us, like the man in the street, but rather like a foreigner who does not belong here. We have to cut you down to size, expose your tricks, purge you.

[Herbert Marcuse](https://www.leafyquotes.com/herbert-marcuse.md) · [One-Dimensional Man](https://www.leafyquotes.com/herbert-marcuse/one-dimensional-man.md) · p. 192 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/herbert-marcuse/one-dimensional-man/the-intellectual-is-called.md)

Topics: [intellectuals](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/intellectuals.md)

> Some intellectuals’ downplaying of objective reality and enduring criteria extends beyond social, scientific, or economic phenomena into art, music, and philosophy. The one over-riding consistency across all these disparate venues is the self-exaltation of the intellectuals. Unlike great cultural achievements of the past, such as magnificent cathedrals, which were intended to inspire kings and peasants alike, the hallmark of self-consciously “modern” art and music is its inaccessibility to the masses and often even its deliberate offensiveness to, or mockery of, the masses.
>
> Just as a physical body can continue to live, despite containing a certain amount of microorganisms whose prevalence would destroy it, so a society can survive a certain amount of forces of disintegration within it. But that is very different from saying that there is no limit to the amount, audacity and ferocity of those disintegrative forces which a society can survive, without at least the will to resist.

[Thomas Sowell](https://www.leafyquotes.com/thomas-sowell.md) · [Intellectuals and Society](https://www.leafyquotes.com/thomas-sowell/intellectuals-and-society.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/thomas-sowell/intellectuals-and-society/some-intellectuals-downplaying.md)

Topics: [intellectuals](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/intellectuals.md)

> Except for half a dozen in each town the citizens are proud of that achievement of ignorance which is so easy to come by. To be 'intellectual' or 'artistic' or, in their own word, to be 'highbrow,' is to be priggish and of dubious virtue.

[Sinclair Lewis](https://www.leafyquotes.com/sinclair-lewis.md) · [Main Street](https://www.leafyquotes.com/sinclair-lewis/main-street.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/sinclair-lewis/main-street/except-for-half.md)

Topics: [ignorance](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/ignorance.md), [intellectuals](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/intellectuals.md)

> There's always something suspicious about an intellectual on the winning side.

[Václav Havel](https://www.leafyquotes.com/vaclav-havel.md) · [Disturbing the Peace](https://www.leafyquotes.com/vaclav-havel/disturbing-the-peace.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/vaclav-havel/disturbing-the-peace/theres-always-something.md)

Topics: [intellectuals](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/intellectuals.md)

> Great thinkers build their edifices with subtle consistency. We do our intellectual forebears an enormous disservice when we dismember their visions and scan their systems in order to extract a few disembodied “gems”—thoughts or claims still accepted as true. These disarticulated pieces then become the entire legacy of our ancestors, and we lose the beauty and coherence of older systems that might enlighten us by their unfamiliarity—and their consequent challenge—in our fallible (and complacent) modern world.

[Stephen Jay Gould](https://www.leafyquotes.com/stephen-jay-gould.md) · [Eight Little Piggies](https://www.leafyquotes.com/stephen-jay-gould/eight-little-piggies.md) · p. 437 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/stephen-jay-gould/eight-little-piggies/great-thinkers-build.md)

Topics: [history](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/history.md), [intellectuals](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/intellectuals.md)

> The truly awesome intellectuals in our history have not merely made discoveries; they have woven variegated, but firm, tapestries of comprehensive coverage. The tapestries have various fates: Most burn or unravel in the footsteps of time and the fires of later discovery. But their glory lies in their integrity as unified structures of great complexity and broad implication.

[Stephen Jay Gould](https://www.leafyquotes.com/stephen-jay-gould.md) · [Eight Little Piggies](https://www.leafyquotes.com/stephen-jay-gould/eight-little-piggies.md) · p. 125 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/stephen-jay-gould/eight-little-piggies/the-truly-awesome.md)

Topics: [intellectuals](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/intellectuals.md)

> Good scholars struggle to understand the world in an integral way (pedants bite off tiny bits and worry them to death). These visions of reality […] demand our respect, for they are an intellectual's only birthright. They are often entirely wrong and always flawed in serious ways, but they must be understood honorably and not subjected to mayhem by the excision of patches.

[Stephen Jay Gould](https://www.leafyquotes.com/stephen-jay-gould.md) · [Eight Little Piggies](https://www.leafyquotes.com/stephen-jay-gould/eight-little-piggies.md) · p. 136 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/stephen-jay-gould/eight-little-piggies/good-scholars-struggle.md)

Topics: [science](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science.md), [intellectuals](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/intellectuals.md)

> Intellectuals never sound more foolish than when posing as the last civilised man.

[Christopher Hitchens](https://www.leafyquotes.com/christopher-hitchens.md) · [Unacknowledged Legislation](https://www.leafyquotes.com/christopher-hitchens/unacknowledged-legislation.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/christopher-hitchens/unacknowledged-legislation/intellectuals-never-sound.md)

Topics: [intellectuals](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/intellectuals.md)

> It is so with all types of manual work; it keeps us alive, and we are oblivious of its existence. In a way it is even humiliating to watch coal miners working. It raises in you a momentary doubt about your own status as an 'intellectual' and a superior person generally. For it is brought home to you, at least while you are watching, that it is only because miners sweat their guts out that superior persons can remain superior.

[George Orwell](https://www.leafyquotes.com/george-orwell.md) · [The Road to Wigan Pier](https://www.leafyquotes.com/george-orwell/the-road-to-wigan-pier.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/george-orwell/the-road-to-wigan-pier/it-is-so-with.md)

Topics: [work](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/work.md), [intellectuals](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/intellectuals.md)

> If you actually are an educated, thinking person, you will not be welcome in Washington DC.

[Kurt Vonnegut](https://www.leafyquotes.com/kurt-vonnegut.md) · [A Man Without a Country](https://www.leafyquotes.com/kurt-vonnegut/a-man-without-a-country.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/kurt-vonnegut/a-man-without-a-country/if-you-actually.md)

Topics: [politics](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/politics.md), [intellectuals](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/intellectuals.md)

> What we saw worldwide from 2014 to 2018, from India to the U.K. to the U.S., was a rebellion against the inner circle of no-skin-in-the-game policymaking "clerks" and journalists-insiders, that class of paternalistic semi-intellectual experts with some Ivy League, Oxford-Cambridge or similar label-driven education who are telling the rest of us 1) what to do, 2) what to eat, 3) how to speak, 4) how to think, and… 5) whom to vote for.

[Nassim Nicholas Taleb](https://www.leafyquotes.com/nassim-nicholas-taleb.md) · [Skin in the Game](https://www.leafyquotes.com/nassim-nicholas-taleb/skin-in-the-game.md) · p. 123 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/nassim-nicholas-taleb/skin-in-the-game/what-we-saw.md)

Topics: [politics](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/politics.md), [intellectuals](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/intellectuals.md)

> You can be an intellectual yet still be an idiot. 'Educated philistines' have been wrong on everything from Stalinism to Iraq to low-carb diets.

[Nassim Nicholas Taleb](https://www.leafyquotes.com/nassim-nicholas-taleb.md) · [Skin in the Game](https://www.leafyquotes.com/nassim-nicholas-taleb/skin-in-the-game.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/nassim-nicholas-taleb/skin-in-the-game/you-can-be-an-intellectual.md)

Topics: [stupidity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/stupidity.md), [intellectuals](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/intellectuals.md)

> The secret dread of modern intellectuals, liberals and conservatives alike, the unadmitted terror at the root of their anxiety, which all of their current irrationalities are intended to stave off and to disguise, is the unstated knowledge that Soviet Russia is the full, actual, literal, consistent embodiment of the morality of altruism, that Stalin did not corrupt a noble ideal, that this is the only way altruism has to be or can ever be practiced.

[Ayn Rand](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ayn-rand.md) · [Philosophy](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ayn-rand/philosophy.md) · p. 84 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ayn-rand/philosophy/the-secret-dread.md)

Topics: [intellectuals](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/intellectuals.md), [altruism](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/altruism.md), [communism](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/communism.md)

> These intellectual guys don't like to have an intellectual conversation with you unless they're running the whole thing. They always want you to shut up when they shut up, and go back to your room when they go back to their room. (Page 144)

[J.D. Salinger](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jd-salinger.md) · [The Catcher in the Rye](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jd-salinger/the-catcher-in-the-rye.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jd-salinger/the-catcher-in-the-rye/these-intellectual-guys.md)

Topics: [conversation](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conversation.md), [intellectuals](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/intellectuals.md)

> Unlike the masses, intellectuals have a taste for rationality and an interest in facts.

[Aldous Huxley](https://www.leafyquotes.com/aldous-huxley.md) · [Brave New World Revisited](https://www.leafyquotes.com/aldous-huxley/brave-new-world-revisited.md) · p. 43 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/aldous-huxley/brave-new-world-revisited/unlike-the-masses.md)

Topics: [reason](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/reason.md), [intellectuals](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/intellectuals.md)

> The course of every intellectual, if he pursues his journey long and unflinchingly enough, ends in the obvious, from which the non-intellectuals have never stirred. ...The thoroughly contemptible man may have valuable opinions, just as in some ways the admirable man can have detestable opinions. ...Many intellectuals, of course, don't get far enough to reach the obvious again. They remain stuck in a pathetic belief in rationalism and the absolute supremacy of mental values and the entirely conscious will. You've got to go further than the nineteenth-century fellows, for example; as far at least as Protagoras and Pyrrho, before you get back to the obvious in which the nonintellectuals have always remained. ...these nonintellectuals aren't the modern canaille who read the picture papers and... are preoccupied with making money... They take the main intellectualist axiom for granted—that there's an intrinsic superiority in mental, conscious, voluntary life over physical, intuitive, instinctive, emotional life. The whole of modern civilization is based on the idea that the specialized function which gives a man his place in society is more important than the whole man, or rather is the whole man, all the rest being irrelevant or even (since the physical, intuitive, instinctive and emotional part of man doesn't contribute appreciably to making money or getting on in an industrialized world) positively harmful and detestable. ...The nonintellectuals I'm thinking of are very different beings. ...There were probably quite a lot of them three thousand years ago. But the combined efforts of Plato and Aristotle, Jesus, Newton and big business have turned their descendants into the modern bourgeoisie and proletariat. The obvious that the intellectual gets back to, if he goes far enough, isn't of course the same as the obvious of the nonintellectuals. For their obvious is life itself and his recovered obvious is only the idea of that life. Not many can put flesh and blood on the idea and turn it into reality. The intellectuals who, like Rampion, don't have to return to the obvious, but have always believed in it and lived it, while at the same time leading the life of the spirit, are rarer still.

[Aldous Huxley](https://www.leafyquotes.com/aldous-huxley.md) · [Point Counter Point](https://www.leafyquotes.com/aldous-huxley/point-counter-point.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/aldous-huxley/point-counter-point/the-course-of-every.md)

Topics: [reason](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/reason.md), [intellectuals](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/intellectuals.md)

> Whatever the case, the publication of “What Are American Values?” augurs a new and degraded era in the production of intellectual discourse. For when the intellectuals of the most powerful country in the history of the world align themselves so flagrantly with that power, pressing that power’s case instead of urging restraint, reflection, genuine communication, and understanding, we are back to the bad old days of the intellectual war against communism, which we now know brought far too many compromises, collaborations, and fabrications on the part of intellectuals and artists who should have played an altogether different role. Subsidized and underwritten by the government (the CIA especially, which went so far as to provide for the subvention of magazines like Encounter, underwrote scholarly research, travel, and concerts as well as artistic exhibitions), those militantly unreflective and uncritical intellectuals and artists in the 1950s and 1960s brought the whole notion of intellectual honesty and complicity a new and disastrous dimension. For along with that effort went also the domestic campaign to stifle debate, intimidate critics, and restrict thought. For many Americans, like myself, this is a shameful episode in our history, and we must be on our guard against and resist its return.

[Edward W. Said](https://www.leafyquotes.com/edward-w-said.md) · [From Oslo to Iraq and the Road Map](https://www.leafyquotes.com/edward-w-said/from-oslo-to-iraq-and-the-road-map.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/edward-w-said/from-oslo-to-iraq-and-the-road-map/whatever-the-case.md)

Topics: [power](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/power.md), [intellectuals](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/intellectuals.md)

> The prevailing situation of criticism ... has given rise to a cult of professional expertise whose effect in general is pernicious. For the intellectual class, expertise has usually been a service rendered, and sold, to the central authority of society. This is the trahison des clercs of which Julien Benda spoke in the 1920s. Expertise in foreign affairs, for example, has usually meant the legitimization of the conduct of foreign policy and, what is more to the point, a sustained investment in revalidating the role of experts in foreign affairs. The same sort of thing is true of literary critics and professional humanists, except that their expertise is based upon noninterference in what Vico grandly calls the world of nations but which prosaically might just as well be called “the world.” We tell our students and our general constituency that we defend the classics, the virtues of a liberal education, and the precious pleasures of literature even as we also show ourselves to be silent (perhaps incompetent) about the historical and social world in which all these things take place. ... Humanists and intellectuals accept the idea that ... cultural types are not supposed to interfere in matters for which the social system has not certified them.

[Edward W. Said](https://www.leafyquotes.com/edward-w-said.md) · [The World, the Text, and the Critic](https://www.leafyquotes.com/edward-w-said/the-world-the-text-and-the-critic.md) · p. 2 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/edward-w-said/the-world-the-text-and-the-critic/the-prevailing-situation.md)

Topics: [power](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/power.md), [intellectuals](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/intellectuals.md)

> As a way of maintaining relative intellectual independence, having the attitude of an amateur instead of a professional is a better course.

[Edward W. Said](https://www.leafyquotes.com/edward-w-said.md) · [Representations of the Intellectual](https://www.leafyquotes.com/edward-w-said/representations-of-the-intellectual.md) · p. 87 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/edward-w-said/representations-of-the-intellectual/as-a-way.md)

Topics: [independence](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/independence.md), [intellectuals](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/intellectuals.md)

> Everything I have written in these lectures underlines the importance to the intellectual of passionate engagement, risk, exposure, commitment to principles, vulnerability in debating and being involved in worldly causes. For example, the difference I drew earlier between a professional and an amateur intellectual rests precisely on this, that the professional claims detachment on the basis of a profession and pretends to objectivity, whereas the amateur is moved neither by reward nor by the fulfillment of an immediate career plan but by a committed engagement with ideas and values in the public sphere.

[Edward W. Said](https://www.leafyquotes.com/edward-w-said.md) · [Representations of the Intellectual](https://www.leafyquotes.com/edward-w-said/representations-of-the-intellectual.md) · p. 109 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/edward-w-said/representations-of-the-intellectual/everything-i-have.md)

Topics: [risk](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/risk.md), [intellectuals](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/intellectuals.md)

> The intellectual's spirit as an amateur can enter and transform the merely professional routine most of us go through into something much more lively and radical; instead of doing what one is supposed to do one can ask why one does it, who benefits from it, how can it reconnect with a personal project and original thoughts.

[Edward W. Said](https://www.leafyquotes.com/edward-w-said.md) · [Representations of the Intellectual](https://www.leafyquotes.com/edward-w-said/representations-of-the-intellectual.md) · p. 83 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/edward-w-said/representations-of-the-intellectual/the-intellectuals-spirit.md)

Topics: [work](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/work.md), [intellectuals](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/intellectuals.md)

> There is no getting around authority and power, and no getting around the intellectual's relationship to them. How does the intellectual address authority: as a professional supplicant or as its unrewarded, amateurish conscience?

[Edward W. Said](https://www.leafyquotes.com/edward-w-said.md) · [Representations of the Intellectual](https://www.leafyquotes.com/edward-w-said/representations-of-the-intellectual.md) · p. 83 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/edward-w-said/representations-of-the-intellectual/there-is-no-getting.md)

Topics: [power](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/power.md), [intellectuals](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/intellectuals.md)

> It isn't at all a matter of being optimistic, but rather of continuing to have faith in the ongoing and literally unending process of emancipation and enlightenment that, in my opinion, frames and gives direction to the intellectual vocation.

[Edward W. Said](https://www.leafyquotes.com/edward-w-said.md) · [Orientalism](https://www.leafyquotes.com/edward-w-said/orientalism.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/edward-w-said/orientalism/it-isnt-at-all.md)

Topics: [freedom](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/freedom.md), [intellectuals](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/intellectuals.md)

> Every single empire in its official discourse has said that it is not like all the others, that its circumstances are special, that it has a mission to enlighten, civilize, bring order and democracy, and that it uses force only as a last resort. And, sadder still, there always is a chorus of willing intellectuals to say calming words about benign or altruistic empires, as if one shouldn't trust the evidence of one's eyes watching the destruction and the misery and death brought by the latest mission civilizatrice.

[Edward W. Said](https://www.leafyquotes.com/edward-w-said.md) · [Orientalism](https://www.leafyquotes.com/edward-w-said/orientalism.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/edward-w-said/orientalism/every-single-empire.md)

Topics: [hypocrisy](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/hypocrisy.md), [colonialism](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/colonialism.md), [intellectuals](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/intellectuals.md)

> Who can deny that a vast number of things are known to the learned, which the unlearned will never know? Are the learned any nearer truth? Not so, the further they go the further they get from truth, for their pride in their judgment increases faster than their progress in knowledge, so that for every truth they acquire they draw a hundred mistaken conclusions. Every one knows that the learned societies of Europe are mere schools of falsehood, and there are assuredly more mistaken notions in the Academy of Sciences than in a whole tribe of American Indians.

[Jean Jacques Rousseau](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jean-jacques-rousseau.md) · [Emile; or On Education](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jean-jacques-rousseau/emile-or-on-education.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jean-jacques-rousseau/emile-or-on-education/who-can-deny.md)

Topics: [knowledge](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/knowledge.md), [pride](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/pride.md), [intellectuals](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/intellectuals.md)

> The intellectual world is divided into two classes — dilettantes, on the one hand, and pedants, on the other.

[Miguel de Unamuno](https://www.leafyquotes.com/miguel-de-unamuno.md) · [Tragic Sense of Life](https://www.leafyquotes.com/miguel-de-unamuno/tragic-sense-of-life.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/miguel-de-unamuno/tragic-sense-of-life/the-intellectual-world.md)

Topics: [irony](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/irony.md), [intellectuals](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/intellectuals.md)

> There are, in fact, people who appear to think only with the brain, or with whatever may be the specific thinking organ; while others think with all the body and all the soul, with the blood, with the marrow of the bones, with the heart, with the lungs, with the belly, with the life. And the people who think only with the brain develop into definition-mongers; they become the professionals of thought.

[Miguel de Unamuno](https://www.leafyquotes.com/miguel-de-unamuno.md) · [Tragic Sense of Life](https://www.leafyquotes.com/miguel-de-unamuno/tragic-sense-of-life.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/miguel-de-unamuno/tragic-sense-of-life/there-are-in-fact.md)

Topics: [thinking](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/thinking.md), [intellectuals](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/intellectuals.md)