Best 499 quotes in «intellect quotes» category

In his fight against the powers of the surrounding world his first weapon was magic, the first forerunner of our modern technology. We suppose that this confidence in magic is derived from the over-estimation of the individual’s own intellectual operations, from the belief in the ‘omnipotence of thoughts’, which, incidentally, we come across again in our obsessional neurotics.

Initially, you grasp [knowledge] through the ‘light’ of the intellect and then the understanding arises, and thereafter a state in which there is absence of anger-pride-deceit-greed and attachment-abhorrence arises.

In modeling: He with better looks is more in demand than he who has read better books.

In modeling, the colour of a man’s teeth is more important than his IQ.

In most cases, a beautiful woman who aesthetically fascinates you becomes incapable of deep abstract thinking. Really beautiful woman is well-suited for observation but not for conversation. The complicated psychological difficulties of male brain arises from that -- a woman who can trigger sexual areas of this brain cannot transmit such strong impulses to the intellectual circuits of the brain, and vise versa. Consequently, as a sexual being, he dreams of a beautiful woman, as an intellectual being, a brainy woman, but as an intellectual and sexual being, each one simultaneously.

In no sense an intellectual, I write with my body. And what I write is like a dank haze. The words are sounds transfused with shadows that intersect unevenly, stalactites, woven lace, transposed organ music. I can scarcely invoke the words to describe this pattern, vibrant and rich, morbid and obscure, its counterpoint the deep bass of sorrow.

In reality, the outer instruments (hands, feet, eyes, etc) are not the hindrance (for liberation); it is the inner instrument (mind, intellect, chit and ego) that is obstructive.

Instead of being like a circus where the trainer uses his stick to make animals do stunts to serve the interest of the audience, the system of education should be like an Orchestra where the conductor waves his stick to orchestrate the music already within the musicians’ heart in the most beautiful manner. The teacher should be like the conductor in the orchestra, not the trainer in the circus.

Instead of being regarded as intelligent or knowledgeable, many a woman would rather be regarded as beautiful or good in the kitchen; many a man, as handsome or good in bed.

Intellect (buddhi) is indirect light (of the Self, Soul), and Gnan (Knowledge, that which knows the real & relative) is the direct light (of the Self, Soul). The light of the Self that comes through the medium of ego is buddhi (intellect).

Intellect, at its best, can make you agnostic. Being theist or atheist is still a matter of choice.

Intellect can be helpful, but it needs consciousness to be its master; otherwise it can behave in a very stupid way. It can misunderstand things, it can misrepresent things. It needs a master to guide it, to give it a sense of direction. That master is your being.

Intellect is the virtue of ignoring one’s emotions’ attempt to contaminate one’s opinions.

Intellectual death is endemic in areas where people are unprepared to obtain new information for development. Learning is a way of staying alive.

Intellect is not speaking and logicising; it is seeing and ascertaining.

Intellectual and moral growth is no less indispensable than material amelioration... If three is anything more poignant than a body agonizing for want of bread, it is a soul dying of hunger for light.

Intellectual fascination crosses many boundaries.

Intellectual growth is when you surpass the barrier of puerility, puzzling people with your dazzling creativity.

Intellectually curious men become generalists. Intellectually lazy men settle for being specialists.

Intellect counts for nothing if it doesn't wear a designer label.

Intellect is limited, but it has one great merit; it can recognise its limits!

Intellect without implementation is ignorance, not intelligence.

Intelligence is a way of thinking, not a choice of words.

Intellectual despair is a subject for comedy.

Intellectualism is trivial compared to affairs of the heart.

Intelligence is knowing the right answer. Wisdom is knowing when to say it.

Intellect without implementation is ignorance, not intelligence. By definition: intellect is understanding objectively, implementation of intellect is intelligence, knowledge is a branch of intelligence (intellect plus implementation) and ignorance is lack of knowledge which is a branch of intellect (understanding but not implementing). Further, this is why we call academics “intellectual” and knowledge workers “practitioners.” One could be both of course. From a scriptural perspective, “If any man will do his will, he shall know” (John 7:17). Vast difference between learning and knowing. The gap is in the doing (implementation vs ignorant to the doing).

Intelligence is overrated. Two dogs who sniff each others’ butts learn more about each other in a moment than many humans understand about those they’ve known for a lifetime.

In the conscious- intellect awakens In the subconscious- awareness dissolves. In the unconscious- spirit awakens.

In this worldly life, man is a prisoner of everything. He is a prisoner of the mind, a prisoner of the intellect, a prisoner of the chit, a prisoner of the anger-pride-deceit-greed; how can a prisoner of all these ever become free?

I prefer to be seen as a know-nothing idiot, than a know-it-all bigot.

I only know that I know nothing

I swear, gentlemen, that to be too conscious is an illness - a real thorough-going illness.

Ishmael had the posture of a classic general; the intellect of a cab driver.

{The final resolutions at Robert Ingersoll's funeral, quoted here} Whereas, in the order of nature -- that nature which moves with unerring certainty in obedience to fixed laws -- Robert G. Ingersoll has gone to that repose which we call death. We, his old friends and fellow-citizens, who have shared his friendship in the past, hereby manifest the respect due his memory. At a time when everything impelled him to conceal his opinions or to withhold their expression, when the highest honors of the state were his if he would but avoid discussion of the questions that relate to futurity, he avowed his belief; he did not bow his knee to superstition nor countenance a creed which his intellect dissented. Casting aside all the things for which men most sigh -- political honor, the power to direct the futures of the state, riches and emoluments, the association of the worldly and the well- to-do -- he stood forth and expressed his honest doubts, and he welcomed the ostracism that came with it, as a crown of glory, no less than did the martyrs of old. Even this self-sacrifice has been accounted shame to him, saying that he was urged thereto by a desire for financial gain, when at the time he made his stand there was before him only the prospect of loss and the scorn of the public. We, therefore, who know what a struggle it was to cut loose from his old associations, and what it meant to him at that time, rejoice in his triumph and in the plaudits that came to him from thus boldly avowing his opinions, and we desire to record the fact that we feel that he was greater than a saint, greater than a mere hero -- he was a thoroughly honest man. He was a believer, not in the narrow creed of a past barbarous age, but a true believer in all that men ought to hold sacred, the sanctity of the home, the purity of friendship, and the honesty of the individual. He was not afraid to advocate the fact that eternal truth was eternal justice; he was not afraid of the truth, nor to avow that he owed allegiance to it first of all, and he was willing to suffer shame and condemnation for its sake. The laws of the universe were his bible; to do good, his religion, and he was true to his creed. We therefore commend his life, for he was the apostle of the fireside, the evangel of justice and love and charity and happiness. We who knew him when he first began his struggle, his old neighbors and friends, rejoice at the testimony he has left us, and we commend his life and efforts as worthy of emulation.

It has been my experience that most problems in life are caused by a lack of information. Many people just don't know the things they need to know. Some ignore the truth; others never understand it.

It is a convenient truth: You go into the humanities to pursue your intellectual passion; and it just so happens, as a by-product, that you emerge as a desired commodity for industry.

It is a courage which can find the solution to every problem, not the intelligence.

I think modern education over-emphasizes the intellect. I suppose that comes from the scientific trend of the times. You cannot obtain a useful citizen if you only develop his intellect. We take children from their parents because these cannot give them an intellectual training. So far, good. But we fail to give them that training in character which parents alone can give. Home influence, as Grace Aguilar conceived it " where has it gone? It strikes me that this is a grave danger for the future. We are rearing up a brood of crafty egoists, a generation whose earliest recollections are those of getting something for nothing from the State. I am inclined to trace our present social unrest to this over-valuation of the intellect. It hardens the heart and blights all generous impulses. What is going to replace the home, Mr. Keith?

It is a secret which every intellectual man quickly learns, that, beyond the energy of his possessed and conscious intellect, he is capable of a new energy (as of an intellect doubled on itself), by abandonment to the nature of things; that, beside his privacy of power as an individual man, there is a great public power, on which he can draw, by unlocking, at all risks, his human doors, and suffering the ethereal tides to roll and circulate through him: then is he caught up into the life of the Universe, his speech is thunder, his thought is law, and his words are universally intelligible as the plants and animals.

It is better to read one intellectually challenging book every 12 months … than to read 12 entertaining books every month.

It is a sign of intellectual maturity to always crawl to conclusions.

It is beyond the power of the human intellect to encompass all the causes of any phenomenon. But the impulse to search into causes is inherent in man's very nature.

It is not the intellect but the wisdom of love that will reveal the beauty of life.

It is not Manu but nature that sets off in one class those who are chiefly intellectual, in another those who are marked by muscular strength and temperament, and in a third those who are distinguished in neither one way or the other, but show only mediocrity—the last-named represents the great majority, and the first two the select. The superior caste—I call it the fewest—has, as the most perfect, the privileges of the few: it stands for happiness, for beauty, for everything good upon earth. Only the most intellectual of men have any right to beauty, to the beautiful; only in them can goodness escape being weakness. Pulchrum est paucorum hominum:[30] goodness is a privilege. Nothing could be more unbecoming to them than uncouth manners or a pessimistic look, or an eye that sees ugliness—or indignation against the general aspect of things. Indignation is the privilege of the Chandala; so is pessimism. “The world is perfect”—so prompts the instinct of the intellectual, the instinct of the man who says yes to life. “Imperfection, whatever is inferior to us, distance, the pathos of distance, even the Chandala themselves are parts of this perfection.” The most intelligent men, like the strongest, find their happiness where others would find only disaster: in the labyrinth, in being hard with themselves and with others, in effort; their delight is in self-mastery; in them asceticism becomes second nature, a necessity, an instinct. They regard a difficult task as a privilege; it is to them a recreation to play with burdens that would crush all others.... Knowledge—a form of asceticism.—They are the most honourable kind of men: but that does not prevent them being the most cheerful and most amiable. They rule, not because they want to, but because they are; they are not at liberty to play second.

It is now established by verifiable evidence that religion stultifies the brain and is the great obstacle in the path of intellectual progress. The more religious a person is, the more he is steeped in ignorance and superstition, the less is his sense of moral responsibility. The more intelligent a person, the less religious he is. There is an old saying that 'where there are three scientists, there are two atheists.' The countries whose governments are dominated by religion and religious institutions are the most backward. By the same token, the countries whose people are the most enlightened, and whose governments are based upon the principle of secularism—the separation of church and state—are the most progressive. And let me tell you: When man is intellectually free, the progress he will make is beyond calculation.

It is fortunate for this community that I am not a criminal.

It is not in the gene of an Intellectually blinded person to experience the paradise in the writer's imagination.

It is not in the shallow physical imitation of men that women will assert first their equality and later their superiority, but in the awakening of the intellect of women.

It is true that we instinctively recoil from seeing an object to which our emotions and affections are committed handled by the intellect as any other object is handled. The first thing the intellect does with an object is to class it along with something else. But any object that is infinitely important to us and awakens our devotion feels to us also as if it must be sui generis and unique. Probably a crab would be filled with a sense of personal outrage if it could hear us class it without ado or apology as a crustacean, and thus dispose of it. “I am no such thing,” it would say; “I am MYSELF, MYSELF alone.” The next thing the intellect does is to lay bare the causes in which the thing originates. Spinoza says: “I will analyze the actions and appetites of men as if it were a question of lines, of planes, and of solids.