Intelligence appears to be the thing that enables a man to get along without education. Education enables a man to get along without the use of his intelligence.

Albert Edward Wiggam

Great spirits have always found violent opposition¹ from mediocrities. The latter cannot understand it when a man does not thoughtlessly submit to hereditary² prejudices, but honestly and courageously³ uses his intelligence and fulfills⁴ the duty to express the results of his thought in clear form.

Albert Einstein (1879 - 1955), quoted in New York Times, March 19, 1940

It has yet to be proven that intelligence has any survival value.

Arthur C. Clarke (1917 - )

Men fear thought as they fear nothing else on earth -- more than ruin -- more even than death.... Thought is subversive⁵ and revolutionary, destructive and terrible, thought is merciless to privilege, established institutions, and comfortable habit. Thought looks into the pit of hell and is not afraid. Thought is great and swift and free, the light of the world, and the chief glory of man.

Bertrand Russell (1872 - 1970)

So far as I can remember, there is not one word in the Gospels in praise of intelligence.

Bertrand Russell (1872 - 1970)

Sometimes I think the surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us.

Bill Watterson (1958 - ), cartoonist, "Calvin and Hobbes"

There is nobody so irritating as somebody with less intelligence and more sense than we have.

Don Herold

An intellectual is a man who takes more words than necessary to tell more than he knows.

Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890 - 1969)

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.

F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896 - 1940), "The Crack-Up" (1936)

It is not worth an intelligent man's time to be in the majority. By definition, there are already enough people to do that.

G. H. Hardy⁶ (1877 - 1947)

One man that has a mind and knows it can always beat ten men who haven't and don't.

George Bernard Shaw (1856 - 1950), "The Apple Cart" (1930), act I

Readers are plentiful⁷; thinkers are rare.

Harriet Martineau (1802 - 1876)

Truly great madness cannot be achieved without significant intelligence.

Henrik Tikkanen

There is no such thing as an underestimate of average intelligence.

Henry Adams (1838 - 1918)

The intelligence is proved not by ease of learning, but by understanding what we learn.

Joseph Whitney

You don't have to be a genius when you're surrounded by morons⁸.

Josh Lieb, I am a Genius of Unspeakable Evil and I Want to be Your Class President, 2009

An intelligence test sometimes shows a man how smart he would have been not to have taken it.

Laurence J. Peter (1919 - 1988)

I happen to feel that the degree of a person's intelligence is directly reflected by the number of conflicting attitudes she can bring to bear on the same topic.

Lisa Alther, Kinflicks, 1975

To repeat what others have said, requires education; to challenge it, requires brains.

Mary Pettibone Poole, A Glass Eye at a Keyhole, 1938

The more intelligent a man is, the more originality⁹ he discovers in men. Ordinary people see no difference between men.

Pascal

Beware when the great God lets loose a thinker on this planet.

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803 - 1882)

The ability to focus attention on important things is a defining characteristic of intelligence.

Robert J. Shiller, Irrational¹⁰ Exuberance¹¹

A mind too active is no mind at all.

Theodore Roethke (1908 - 1963)

I not only use all the brains that I have, but all that I can borrow.

Woodrow Wilson (1856 - 1924)