Intellectual Acumen Quotes

Genius might be the ability to say a profound thing in a simple way.

The great artist is a formulation of the greatest intelligence: he is the recipient of sensations which are the most delicate and consequently the most invisible expressions of the brain.

What is strength without a double share of wisdom?

In sheer genius Pascal ranks among the very greatest writers who have lived upon this earth. And his genius was not simply artistic; it displayed itself no less in his character and in the quality of his thought.

The most brilliant statesman who ever lived, possessing the loftiest and keenest intellect of his time.

Wisdom is the mind what health is to the body.

O impotence of mind, in body strong! But what is strength without a double share Of wisdom, vast, unwieldy, burdensome, Proudly secure, yet liable to fall By weakest subtleties, not made to rule, But to subserve where wisdom bears command.

Beholden to nobody Wilson had risen to his position through brainpower, wedding the complexity of his intellect with the simplicity of his faith, placing principles before politics, he followed his conscience, never first checking public opinion

True understanding is the spur of genius

Rick Steiner is so stupid, it takes him an hour and a half to watch 60 Minutes.

There is no need to create. Genius comes only to those who know how to use their eyes and their intelligence.

Why does it so often take a genius to see the obvious?

No one attacks loose-thinking and folly with half the precision and zest of Thomas Szasz.

She dumb.” I sigh. “But she ain’t stupid.

The difference between being able to understand something and inventing it in the first place... is called genius.

Great minds are related to the brief span of time during which they live as great buildings are to a little square in which they stand: you cannot see them in all their magnitude because you are standing too close to them.

Problems may be solved in the study which have baffled all those who have sought a solution by the aid of their senses. To carry the art, however, to its highest pitch, it is necessary that the reasoner should be able to use all the facts which have come to his knowledge; and this in itself implies, as you will readily see, a possession of all knowledge, which, even in these days of free education and encyclopaedias, is a somewhat rare accomplishment.

Being smart spoils a lot of things, doesn't it?

And she’s very clever, Peeta. Well, she was. Until you outfoxed her

I'm accused of cleverness as if it were a sin. She is merely clever, they say.

Mr. Sherman exhibits the oddest shaped character I ever remember to have met with. He is awkward, un-meaning, and unaccountably strange in his manner. But in his train of thinking there is something regular, deep, and comprehensive; yet the oddity of his address, the vulgarisms that accompany his public speaking, and that strange new England cant which runs through his public as well as his private speaking make everything that is connected with him grotesque and laughable; -and yet he deserves infinite praise,-no Man has a better Heart or a clearer Head.

I don't want to be a genius-I have enough problems just trying to be a man.

It is said that Obama speaks 'professorially,' a fact that understates the quickness and agility of his mind.

Longbottom, if brains were gold, you'd be poorer than Weasley, and that's saying something.

In politics as in private life, [Henry] Clay is essentially a gamester, and, with a vigorous intellect, an ardent spirit, a handsome elocution, though with a mind very defective in elementary knowledge, and a very undigested system of ethics, he has all the qualities which belong to that class of human characters.