Quotes about intelligence

"Life in all its forms is strife; the better matched the opponents, the harder the struggle. The most powerful of all weapons is intelligence; any intelligent form dominates by, and therefore survives by, its intelligence."

In our view, intelligence is about two fundamental types of work: the work of predicting the world, and the work of steering it.

The more complicated the game board, the more advantage goes to the player with more knowledge and more intelligence and more understanding of the game.

Now I know that speaking good English is not the measure of intelligent mind and sharp brain. English is only a language, like Yoruba and Igbo and Hausa. Nothing about it is so special, nothing about it makes anybody have sense.

A lifelong habit of being right also had the effect of diminishing one’s social appeal, especially among those who prefer to keep the bubble of their various illusions a safe distance from a needle-sharp and probing intelligence.

Men must be decent first and brilliant later, otherwise you’re not helping people, just servicing the machine.

“You have to fight back. Can’t afford not to, with your intelligence. People hate intelligence, didn’t you know?”

“Depends on what it does to ’em, doesn’t it?”

“Not so much, Angelo. Dream up a new gadget, they’ll be grateful for a while,” said Feuermann’s voice. “It’ll be only the gadget they love, not the brain that made it—that they fear. They may have enough superstitious dread to worship it—devil-worship—but never will they respect it except superstitiously.”

In any basic struggle for power, the intellectual man went under.

Those who had begun that experiment, so long ago, had not been men — or even remotely human. But they were flesh and blood, and when they looked out across the deeps of space, they had felt awe, and wonder, and loneliness. As soon as they possessed the power, they set forth for the stars. In their explorations, they encountered life in many forms, and watched the workings of evolution on a thousand worlds. They saw how often the first faint sparks of intelligence flickered and died in the cosmic night. And because, in all the galaxy, they had found nothing more precious than Mind, they encouraged its dawning everywhere. They became farmers in the fields of stars.

“Are you smarter than me?”

“I’ll answer that when you give me a working definition of intelligence.”

“Peter,” said Tyburn. “I need you to stop just pretending to be clever and actually be clever.”

I must say, you are the least unintelligent human I have ever met.