Intellectual Impact Quotes

But beauty, real beauty, ends where an intellectual expression begins. Intellect is in itself a mode of exaggeration, and destroys the harmony of any face.

But the scientific importance of a change in knowledge of fact consists precisely in j its having consequences for a system of theory.

I don't want to write books that are intellectually staggering if nobody's going to read them.

Hayek is amongst the top 2-3 of the all the people who ever influenced me.

When the melody touches your heart emotionally and the words hit your brain intellectually, more than likely you'll find you'll have an excellent song to sing.

There isn't [in new atheism]. Nothing that wasn't in Bertrand Russell or probably Robert Ingersoll. But I suppose it is more of a political effect, in that all these books happened to come out at the same time. I like to think that we have some influence.

Can you imagine writers influencing things in America? Can you imagine a writer in England influencing? Absolutely not. And in France? It used to be, but no more - absolutely not. France used to, at least, have writers as diplomats, but not any more.

In PLATO AT THE GOOGLEPLEX, Rebecca Newberger Goldstein set out to showcase, in sometimes startling ways, the continuing relevance of a classic philosopher. But what's remarkable is that she actually brings off this tour de force with both madcap brilliance and commanding authority.

He who influences the thought of his times influences the times that follow.

Any man who afflicts the human race with ideas must be prepared to see them misunderstood.

Unlike the sun, intellectual luminaries shine brightest after they set.

There's a difference between watching a chef show, which doesn't feel like a reality show compared to the Housewives. Those shows can, I think, not only lower your IQ, but really just knock the wind out of you, because we're all here in this business.

I never wanted to change the world. Norman Mailer wanted to, he set himself the task of changing the consciousness of our age. And I think he came pretty close, in the 1960s, to actually managing to do it. But me? No, no, I never wanted anything like that. I'm not Maileresque.

The movies are one of the bad habits that corrupted our century.Of their many sins, I offer as the worst their effect on the intellectual side of the nation. It is chiefly from that viewpoint I write of them - as an eruption of trash that has lamed the American mind and retarded Americans from becoming a cultured people.

Imagine what would have been the 20th century without intellectuals?

There is no work of genius which has not been the delight of mankind, no word of genius to which the human heart and soul have not sooner or later responded.

The real bombs are my books, not me.

What intellectuals have done is that they've brought to the surface important problems that face society, that are on the subconscious of culture, of society. They've provided societies with insights, with concepts, with perspectives that allowed people and communities to make sense of the world.

My main interests right now are to publish, to write, to explicate various views which I hope have an impact on thinking people.

The nineteenth century is a turning point in history, simply on account of the work of two men, Darwin and Renan, the one the critic of the Book of Nature, the other the critic of the books of God. Not to recognise this is to miss the meaning of one of the most important eras in the progress of the world.

Academics don't normally manage to alter people's way of thinking through their strength of argument.

Long-term career aspirations encompass emotional and intellectual impact of work on society.

Rousseau was mad but influential; Hume was sane but had no followers.

I am about to put foward some major ideas; they will be heard and pondered. If not all of them please, surely a few will; in some sort, then, I shall have contributed to the progress of our age, and shall be content.

A nation may be in a tumult to-day for a thought which the timid Erasmus placidly penned in his study more than two centuries ago.