Intellect Quotes - Page 40

• The existence of good bad literature—the fact that one can be amused or excited or even moved by a book that one's intellect simply refuses to take seriously—is a reminder that art is not the same thing as cerebration.

  George Orwell

  Art, Book, Literature

  George Orwell (1968). “The Collected Essays, Journalism, and Letters of George Orwell: In front of your nose, 1945-1950”

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Like a wild animal, the soul is tough, resilient, resourceful, savvy, and self-sufficient: it knows how to survive in hard places. I learned about these qualities during my bouts with depression. In that deadly darkness, the faculties I had always depended on collapsed. My intellect was useless; my emotions were dead; my will was impotent; my ego was shattered. But from time to time, deep in the thickets of my inner wilderness, I could sense the presence of something that knew how to stay alive even when the rest of me wanted to die. That something was my tough and tenacious soul.

  Parker J. Palmer

  Animal, Self, Ego

  Parker J. Palmer (2009). “A Hidden Wholeness: The Journey Toward an Undivided Life”, p.58, John Wiley & Sons

  94 Copy quote

  Show source

• To a commonplace man of limited intellect, for instance, nothing is simpler than to imagine himself an original character, and to revel in that belief without the slightest misgiving.

  Fyodor Dostoevsky

  Character, Men, Belief

  Fyodor Dostoevsky, Franz Xaver Winterhalter (2017). “The Idiot (English German edition illustrated): Der Idiot (Englisch Deutsch ausgabe illustriert)”, p.1109, Clap Publishing, LLC.

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• And the pleasures and rewards of the intellect are inseparable from angst, uncertainty, conflict and even despair.

  Christopher Hitchens

  Despair, Rewards, Conflict

  Christopher Hitchens (2009). “Letters to a Young Contrarian”, p.23, Basic Books

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• My eyes widened at the ball of orange fluff squeezing out from under the counter, blinking and stretching. I looked again, not believing. “It’s a cat,” I said, winning the Pulitzer prize for incredible intellect.

  Kim Harrison

  Believe, Cat, Eye

  4 Copy quote

• Beginning with a critique of my own limbs, which she said, justly enough, were nothing to write home about, this girl went on to dissect my manners, morals, intellect, general physique, and method of eating asparagus with such acerbity that by the time she had finished the best you could say of Bertram was that, so far as was known, he had never actually committed murder or set fire to an orphan asylum.

  P. G. Wodehouse

  Girl, Home, Writing

  P. G. Wodehouse (2015). “Right Ho, Jeeves”, p.116, Booklassic

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• I have problems with a religion which says that faith in itself is enough for a ticket to heaven. In other words, that the ideal is your ability to manipulate your own common sense to accept something your intellect rejects. It's the same model of intellectual submission that dictatorships have used throughout time, the concept of a higher reasoning without any obligation to discharge the burden of proof.

  Jo Nesbo

  Burden Of Proof, Common Sense, Heaven

  16 Copy quote

• How true it is that without the guidance of the Holy Spirit intellect not only is undependable but also extremely dangerous, because it often confuses the issue of right and wrong.

  Watchman Nee

  Issues, Spirit, Guidance

  Watchman Nee (2009). “The Spiritual Man”, p.82, Christian Fellowship Publishers

  15 Copy quote

  Show source

• To allow only the kind of art that the average man understands is the worst small-mindedness and the murder of mind and spirit. It is my conviction that the intellect can be certain that in doing what most disconcerts the crowd, in pursuing the most daring, unconventional advances and explorations, it will in some highly indirect fashion serve man - and in the long run, all men.

  Thomas Mann

  Running, Fashion, Art

  11 Copy quote

• There are few persons, even among the calmest thinkers, who have not occasionally been startled into a vague yet thrilling half credence in the supernatural, by coincidences of so seemingly marvellous a character that, as mere coincidences, the intellect has been unable to receive them.

  Edgar Allan Poe

  Character, Half, Coincidence

  Edgar Allan Poe (2012). “Tales of Terror and Detection”, p.27, Courier Corporation

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• The imagination of the genius vastly surpasses his intellect; the intellect of the academic vastly surpasses his imagination

  Nassim Nicholas Taleb

  Imagination, Genius, Academic

  Nassim Nicholas Taleb (2010). “The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms”, p.77, Random House

  17 Copy quote

  Show source

• The Sufi way is through knowledge and practice, not through intellect and talk.

  Idries Shah

  Practice, Way, Sufi

  Idries Shah (1990). “Sufi Thought and Action”, p.4, Octagon Press Ltd

  24 Copy quote

  Show source

• He stood there for a moment looking around the silent room, shaking his head slowly. All these books, he thought, the residue of a planet’s intellect, the scrapings of futile minds, the leftovers, the potpourri of artifacts that had no power to save men from perishing.

  Richard Matheson

  Book, Men, Mind

  Richard Matheson (1954). “I Am Legend”, Greenwich, Connecticut : Fawcett

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• And so this young one, this young one whom I had so loved, I had to forsake, no matter how broken my heart, no matter how lonely my soul, no matter how bruised my intellect and spirit.

  Anne Rice

  Lonely, Heart, Broken

  4 Copy quote

• In very truth, a wise imagination, which is the presence of the spirit of God, is the best guide that man or woman can have; for it is not the things we see the most clearly that influence us the most powerfully; undefined, yet vivid visions of something beyond, something which eye has not seen nor ear heard, have far more influence than any logical sequences whereby the same things may be demonstrated to the intellect. It is the nature of the thing, not the clearness of its outline, that determines its operation. We live by faith, and not by sight.

  George MacDonald

  Wise, Eye, Men

  George MacDonald (1883). “The Imagination, and Other Essays”

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• We need to have far less confidence in what man can do and far more confidence in what God can do for every believing soul. He longs to have you reach after Him by faith. He longs to have you expect great things from Him. He longs to give you understanding in temporal as well as in spiritual matters. He can sharpen the intellect. He can give tact and skill. Put your talents into the work, ask God for wisdom, and it will be given you.

  Ellen G. White

  Spiritual, Believe, Men

  Ellen G. White (1941). “Christ's Object Lessons”

  654 Copy quote

  Show source

• Passion is what makes life interesting, what ignites our soul, drives our curiosity, fuels our love and carries our friendship, stimulates our intellect, and pushes our limit.... A passion for life is contagious and uplifting. Passion cuts both ways.... Those that make you feel on top of the world are equally able to turnit upside down.

  Jon Krakauer

  Uplifting, Passion, Cutting

  Jon Krakauer (2010). “Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman”, p.100, Atlantic Books Ltd

  48 Copy quote

  Show source

• Do you believe that the God of Jesus loves you beyond worthiness and unworthiness, beyond fidelity and infidelity—that he loves you in the morning sun and in the evening rain—that he loves you when your intellect denies it, your emotions refuse it, your whole being rejects it. Do you believe that God loves without condition or reservation and loves you this moment as you are and not as you should be.

  Brennan Manning

  God, Religious, Jesus

  167 Copy quote

• A supreme deity would no more gift us with intellect and expect us to forsake it in moments of bafflement, than He would fashion us eyes to see and bid us shut them to the stars

  Terryl L. Givens

  Fashion, Stars, Eye

  6 Copy quote

• Intellect is not wisdom one must understand. They're two things - wisdom and intellect.

  Nirmala Srivastava

  Love, Wisdom, Yoga

  4 Copy quote

• I bow to all the seekers of truth. At the very outset, I have to say that truth is what it is. We cannot change it, we cannot transform it. We cannot compromise with it. It is what it is, it has been what it has been, and it will be what it has been. So it doesn't change. What is needed is that we have to change. So, what is the truth? Truth is that you are not this body, this mind; you are not these emotions, intellect or conditionings. Nor you are ego. So what are you ? You are the pure Spirit.

  Nirmala Srivastava

  Love, Wisdom, Yoga

  5 Copy quote

• In the practical use of our intellect, forgetting is as important as remembering.

  William James

  Education, Teacher, Learning

  William James (2012). “Psychology: The Briefer Course”, p.167, Courier Corporation

  11 Copy quote

  Show source

• There is no thing as a man who does not create mathematics and yet is a fine mathematics teacher. Textbooks, course material-these do not approach in importance the communication of what mathematics is really about, of where it is going, and of where it currently stands with respect to the specific branch of it being taught. What really matters is the communication of the spirit of mathematics. It is a spirit that is active rather than contemplative-a spirit of disciplined search for adventures of the intellect. Only as adventurer can really tell of adventures.

  Alfred Adler

  Teacher, Communication, Adventure

  12 Copy quote

• Great scientific minds, from Claudius Ptolemy of the second century to Isaac Newton of the seventeenth, invested their formidable intellects in attempts to deduce the nature of the universe from the statements and philosophies contained in religious writings.... Had any of these efforts worked, science and religion today might be one and the same. But they are not.

  Neil deGrasse Tyson

  Religious, Philosophy, Writing

  Neil Degrasse Tyson (2010). “The Sky Is Not the Limit: Adventures of an Urban Astrophysicist”, p.183, Prometheus Books

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• The only basis for living is believing in life, loving it, and applying the whole force of one's intellect to know it better.

  Emile Zola

  Art, Philosophy, Believe

  58 Copy quote