Niccolo Machiavelli Quotes

There are three kinds of intelligence: one kind understands things for itself, the other appreciates what others can understand, the third understands neither for itself nor through others. This first kind is excellent, the second good, and the third kind useless.

Intellect is invisible to the man who has none.

I'm not dumb, I just wasn't educated.

In the make-up of human beings, intelligence counts for more than our hands, and that is our true strength.

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 research problem is not solved by apparatus; it is solved in a man's head.

The class of those who have the ability to think their own thoughts is separated by an unbridgeable gulf from the class of those who cannot.

Intellect needs to be understood not as some kind of claim against the other human excellences for which a fatally high price has to be paid, but rather as a complement to them without which they cannot be fully consummated.

There are perhaps 5% of the population that simply can't think. There are another 5% who can, and do. The remaining 90% can think, but don't

We are not distinguished from brutes by our senses, but by our understanding.

The man who is not able to develop and use his mind is bound to be the slave of the other man who uses his mind

It is impossible to live without brains, either one's own or borrowed.

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

Thinking clearly and effectively is the greatest asset of any human being. We are constantly reminded that the one superiority that man has over other animals is the ability to think. It is primarily our ability to think that sets us apart from other animals.

The thing that is probably most important is having a brain, and to be able to figure things out and learn things very rapidly.

There are three kinds of minds: first those that attain insight and understanding of things by their own means, then those that recognize what is right when others explain it to them, and finally those that are capable of neither one nor the other.

There are three kinds of brains. The one understands things unassisted, the other understands things when shown by others, the third understands neither alone nor with the explanations of others.

As human beings, we're given intelligence. This is how we make our way through this reality, how we manifest our reality clearly and coherently.

To like Keats is a test of fitness for understanding poetry, just as to like Shakespeare is a test of general mental capacity.

The capacity to reason is a special sort of capacity because it can lead us to places that we did not expect to go.

Each child should be more intelligent than his parents.

To be a textual critic requires aptitude for thinking and willingness to think; and though it also requires other things, those things are supplements and cannot be substitutes. Knowledge is good, method is good, but one thing beyond all others is necessary; and that is to have a head, not a pumpkin, on your shoulders and brains, not pudding, in your head.

Intelligence is something we are born with. Thinking is a skill that must be learned.

To know is not too demanding: it merely requires memory and time. But to understand is quite a different matter: it requires intellectual ability and training, a self conscious awareness of what one is doing, experience in techniques of analysis and synthesis, and above all, perspective.

One smart reader is worth a thousand boneheads.