Intelligent Quotes - Page 9

• It is in most cases more difficult to make intelligent people believe that you are what you are not, than really to become what you would appear to be.

  Georg C. Lichtenberg

  Believe, People, Cases

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• Contented, unambitious people are all very well in their way. They form a neat, useful background for great portraits to be painted against, and they make a respectable, if not particularly intelligent, audience for the active spirits of the age to play before. I have not a word to say against contented people so long as they keep quiet.

  Jerome K. Jerome

  Play, Long, People

  Jerome K. Jerome (2016). “The Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow”, p.51, Jerome K. Jerome

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• Owing to the identification of religion with virtue, together with the fact that the most religious men are not the most intelligent, a religious education gives courage to the stupid to resist the authority of educated men, as has happened, for example, where the teaching of evolution has been made illegal. So far as I can remember, there is not one word in the Gospels in praise of intelligence; and in this respect ministers of religion follow gospel authority more closely than in some others.

  Bertrand Russell

  Religious, Stupid, Teaching

  Bertrand Russell (2013). “Education and the Social Order”, p.73, Routledge

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• Few human creatures would consent to be changed into any of the lower animals for a promise of the fullest allowance of a beast's pleasures; no intelligent human being would consent to be a fool, no instructed person would be an ignoramus, no person of feeling and conscience would be selfish and base, even though they should be persuaded that the fool, the dunce, or the rascal is better satisfied with his lot than they are with theirs.

  John Stuart Mill

  Selfish, Animal, Feelings

  John Stuart Mill, Jeremy Bentham, John Troyer (2003). “The Classical Utilitarians: Bentham and Mill”, p.101, Hackett Publishing

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• An intelligent man said that the world felt Napoleon as a weight, and that when he died it would give a great oof of relief. This is just as true of Byron, or of such Byrons of their days as Kipling and Hemingway: after a generation or two the world is tired of being their pedestal, shakes them of with an oof, and then - hoisting onto its back a new world-figure - feels the penetrating satisfaction of having made a mistake all its own.

  Randall Jarrell

  Mistake, Tired, Men

  "A Sad Heart at the Supermarket: Essays & Fables" by Randall Jarrell, (pp. 116-117), 1962.

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• Absolutists frighten me. During all the endless discussions on my blog about evolution, intelligent design, God, and the afterworld, numbering altogether thousands of comments, I have never named my beliefs, although readers have freely informed me that I am an atheist, and agnostic, or at the very least a secular humanist - which I am.

  Roger Ebert

  Atheist, Design, Belief

  "Life Itself : A Memoir". Book by Roger Ebert, 2011.

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• The wisest among us is very lucky never to have met the woman, be she beautiful or ugly, intelligent or stupid, who could drive him crazy enough to be fit to be put into an asylum.

  Denis Diderot

  Beautiful, Crazy, Stupid

  "'Ceci n'est pas un conte' ('This Is No Tale')". Book by Denis Diderot, 1796.

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• The brave man is intelligent; he faces danger because he understands it and is prepared to meet it. The drunkard who runs, in the delirium of intoxication, into a burning house is not brave; he is only stupid. But the clear-eyed hero who makes his way, with every sense alert and every nerve strung, into the hell of flames to rescue some little child, proves his courage.

  Henry Van Dyke

  Running, Courage, Children

  Henry Van Dyke (2007). “Counsels by the Way”, p.89, Wildside Press LLC

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• Tsars and slaves, the intelligent and the obtuse, publicans and pharisees all have an identical legal and moral right to honor the memory of the deceased as they see fit, without regard for anyone else's opinion and without the fear of hindering one another.

  Anton Chekhov

  Memories, Honor, Pharisees

  Anton Chekhov's letter to K.S. Barantsevich, March 30, 1888.

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• The best calculation is the absence of calculation. Once you have attained a certain level of recognition, others generally figure that when you do something, it's for an intelligent reason. So it's really foolish to plot out your movements too carefully in advance. You're better off acting capriciously.

  Pablo Picasso

  Acting, Plot, Movement

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• Leftovers make you feel good twice. First, when you put it away, you feel thrifty and intelligent: 'I'm saving food!' Then a month later when blue hair is growing out of the ham, and you throw it away, you feel really intelligent: 'I'm saving my life!'

  George Carlin

  Hair, Blue, Feel Good

  George Carlin (2015). “3 x Carlin: An Orgy of George including Brain Droppings, Napalm and Silly Putty, and When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops?”, p.393, Hachette UK

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• We have observed for thirty centuries that a large nose is a sign on the door of our face that says 'Herein dwells a man who is intelligent, prudent, courteous, affable, noble-minded and generous'. A small nose is a cork on the bottle of the opposite vices.

  Cyrano de Bergerac

  Men, Doors, Opposites

  "The Other World: Comical History of the States and Empires of the Moon". Book by Cyrano de Bergerac, 1657.

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• A cheerful intelligent face is the end of culture, and success enough. For it indicates the purpose of Nature and wisdom attained.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Happiness, Success, Wisdom

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2009). “The Essential Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.656, Modern Library

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• It is a sign of our times, conspicuous to the coarsest observer, that many intelligent and religious persons withdraw themselves from the common labors and competitions of the market and the caucus, and betake themselves to a certain solitary and critical way of living, from which no solid fruit has yet appeared to justify their separation.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Religious, Competition, Solitude

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.1209, Delphi Classics

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• Shakespeare carries us to such a lofty strain of intelligent activity, as to suggest a wealth which beggars his own; and we then feel that the splendid works which he has created, and which in other hours we extol as a sort of self-existent poetry, take no stronger hold of real nature than the shadow of a passing traveller on the rock. The inspiration which uttered itself in Hamlet and Lear could utter things as good from day to day, for ever.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Real, Inspiration, Rocks

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2012). “The Selected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.90, Graphic Arts Books

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• ... in a capitalist society a man is expected to be an aggressive, uncompromising, factual, lusty, intelligent provider of goods,and the woman, a retiring, gracious, emotional, intuitive, attractive consumer of goods.

  Toni Cade Bambara

  Men, Emotional, Attractive

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• I hesitate to say what the functions of the modern journalist may be, but I imagine that they do not exclude the intelligent anticipation of the facts even before they occur.

  George Curzon, 1st Marquess Curzon of Kedleston

  May, Facts, Anticipation

  1898 House of Commons, 29 Mar.

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• The difference between "machines" and "engines" is obviously this, that machines need more workmen and greater power to make them take effect, as for instance ballistae and the beams of presses. Engines, on the other hand, accomplish their purpose at the intelligent touch of a single workman...

  Marcus Vitruvius Pollio

  Hands, Differences, Needs

  "De architectura (Ten Books on Architecture)". Book by Marcus Vitruvius Pollio (Book X, Chapter I, Section 3), circa 15 BC.

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• We must not only become reliable, progressive, skillful and intelligent, but we must keep the idea constantly before our youths that all forms of labor, whether with the hand or head, are honorable.

  Booker T. Washington

  Hands, Ideas, Youth

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• I think that sometimes the most intelligent things that prosecutors do is when they exercise their discretion not to go forward with a case.

  Rudy Giuliani

  Exercise, Thinking, Sometimes

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• There does not exist a man sufficiently intelligent never to be tiresome.

  Luc de Clapiers

  Men, Doe, Tiresome

  Jean de La Bruyère, Luc de Clapiers marquis de Vauvenargues (1903). “La Bruyère and Vauvenargues: Selections from the Characters, Reflexions and Maxims”

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• But whatever the consensus on the EMH, I know of no serious academic, professional money manager, trained security analyst, or intelligent individual investor who would disagree with the thrust of EMH: The stock market itself is a demanding taskmaster. It sets a high hurdle that few investors can leap.

  John C. Bogle

  Investing, Serious, Academic

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• Inactivity strikes us as intelligent behavior.

  Warren Buffett

  Investing, Behavior, Strikes

  "Warren Buffett Has 2 Basic Rules That Investors Always Fail To Follow" by Robert Huerbscher, www.businessinsider.com. March 30, 2013.

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• Relationships matter above all, and that you build relationships by making yourself useful, not annoying. The PR practitioner should focus on providing helpful service to the journalist whenever possible. Help them source good story ideas, provide sources with intelligent contributions to make, thank them for their time and attention.

  Laura Fitton

  Ideas, Focus, Matter

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• Life is very narrow. Bring any club or company of intelligent men together again after ten years, and if the presence of some penetrating and calming genius could dispose them to frankness, what a confession of insanities would come up!

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Men, Years, Together Again

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1872). “Representative men. English traits. Conduct of life”, p.387

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