Mark Twain Quotes

Fish aren't smart. It's not like they have advanced degrees.

But I don't think Art's an Einstein - he likes tugging ears, biting people and burping too much to be a genius.

Absolute brain size does not tell you everything or possibly sometimes even much. Elephants and whales both have brains larger than ours, but you wouldn't have much trouble outwitting them in contract negotiations.

What is denominated discretion in man we call cunning in brutes.

The thinking that guides your intelligence is much more important than how much intelligence you may have.

If worms have the power of acquiring some notion, however rude, of the shape of an object and over their burrows, as seems the case, they deserve to be called intelligent; for they act in nearly the same manner as would man under similar circumstances.

He wasn't smart enough to see it, said Jason Bourne. He couldn't think geometrically.

Even stranger things have happened; and perhaps the strangest of all is the marvel that mathematics should be possible to a race akin to the apes.

Dogs have not the power of comparing. A dog will take a small piece of meat as readily as a large, when both are before him.

Mere animals couldn’t possibly manage to act like this. You need to be a human being to be really stupid.

It is absurd to talk of one animal being higher than another...we consider those, where the intellectual faculties most developed as the highest. - A bee doubtless would [use] ... instincts as a criteria.

Owl hasn't exactly got Brain, but he Knows Things.

Do you have a brain? Then you can think your way out of it. The reason we have brains is so we can figure out how to do things.

A work of art is not a matter of thinking beautiful thoughts or experiencing tender emotions , but of intelligence, skill, taste, proportion, knowledge, discipline and industry; especially discipline.

Mind is memory, not intelligence.

The quality of our thinking will determine the quality of our future

...chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas, and orangutans are thinking, self-aware beings, capable of planning ahead, who form lasting social bonds with others and have a rich social and emotional life. The great apes are therefore an ideal case for showing the arbitrariness of the species boundary. If we think that all human beings, irrespective of age or mental capacity, have some basic rights, how can we deny that the great apes, who surpass some humans in their capacities, also have these rights?

I don't even think of chimps as animals. I think of them as beings.

Dollars and guns are no substitutes for brains and will power.

I think we can rule out 'mixed brain dominance' as a cause of your poor performance at school, Charlie Brown" "Have you ruled out stupidity?" "Peanuts", Charles M

Squirrel brains make you smart.

Education is no substitute for intelligence.

I think that God gave us a brain, and that it's the only thing we have to survive. All life forms have some advantage, some trick, some claw, some camouflage, some poison, some speed, something to help them survive. We've got a brain. Therefore it's our duty to use our brain.

It's very interesting to think about the distinction with mind, which I just made in very general terms, but it can be made more profound when we think that there are many species, many creatures on earth that are very likely to have a mind, but are very unlikely to have a consciousness in the sense that you and I have.

I know that knowledge and intelligence are not the same thing - but they do live in the same neighborhood. I know once again, firsthand, the joy of learning.