Intellectual Quotes - Page 19

Philosophers get attention only when they appear to be doing something sinister - corrupting the youth, undermining the foundations of civilization, sneering at all we hold dear. The rest of the time everybody assumes that they are hard at work somewhere down in the sub-basement, keeping those foundations in good repair. Nobody much cares what brand of intellectual duct tape is being used.

A taxonomy of abilities, like a taxonomy anywhere else in science, is apt to strike a certain type of impatient student as a gratuitous orgy of pedantry. Doubtless, compulsions to intellectual tidiness express themselves prematurely at times, and excessively at others, but a good descriptive taxonomy, as Darwin found in developing his theory, and as Newton found in the work of Kepler, is the mother of laws and theories.

Atheism is an exercise in intellectual contempt.

The computer is a moron.

Cynicism is intellectual treason.

If an actor tries to understand too much, he will act in an intellectual and unnatural manner.

Original thinking migrates each day in search of nourishment.

The more intellectual you are, the more egoistic you are, and surrendering becomes more difficult.

Private property creates for the individual a sphere in which he is free of the state. It sets limits to the operation of the authoritarian will. It allows other forces to arise side by side with and in opposition to political power. It thus becomes the basis of all those activities that are free from violent interference on the part of the state. It is the soil in which the seeds of freedom are nurtured and in which the autonomy of the individual and ultimately all intellectual and material progress are rooted.

You need a prince to make a town in an intellectual sense. Developers want to make money. If they cared about architecture, they'd become architects. I've had so many projects that never came off because they had no sponsor, and not because they were utopian. I just want to build a town that's normal.

As a child I wanted to be a grown-up. I wanted to know everything - not that I like to talk about it. I hate intellectual conversation with intellectuals because I only care about my opinion.

Literary criticism is generally bunk. Nonsense. Usually based on self-serving post-intellectual bullshit.

The common stock of intellectual enjoyment should not be difficult of access because of the economic position of him who would approach it.

One of the enduring lessons of history is that whenever an empire becomes insular to 'protect' itself, intellectual decline and cultural intolerance are sure to follow.

What we can and should change is ourselves: our impatience, our egoism (including intellectual egoism), our sense of injury, our lack of love and forbearance. I regard every other attempt to change the world, even if it springs from the best intentions, as futile.

Mountains and deserts, with their sparse life at the limit of existence, make one restless and disconsolate; one becomes an explorer in an intellectual realm as well as in a physical one.

From passions grow opinions; intellectual laziness lets these harden into convictions.

The proper motto is not Be good, sweet maid, and let who can be clever, but Be good sweet maid, and don't forget that this involves being as clever as you can. God is no fonder of intellectual slackers than any other slackers.

God is no fonder of intellectual slackers than He is of any other slacker.

Chronological snobbery is the uncritical acceptance of the intellectual climate common to our own age and the assumption that whatever has gone out of date is on that account discredited. You must find why it went out of date. Was it ever refuted (and if so by whom, where, and how conclusively), or did it merely die away as fashions do? If the latter, this tells us nothing about its truth or falsehood.

To be ignorant and simple now-not to be able to meet the enemies on their own ground-would be to throw down our weapons and to betray our uneducated brethren who have, under God, no defense but us against the intellectual attacks of the heathen. Good philosophy must exist, if for no other reason, because bad philosophy needs to be answered.

Microsoft has long hired based on IQ and "intellectual bandwidth."

An intellectual mind that is unconnected to the heart is an uncultivated mind.

A woman can be beautiful as well as intellectual.

The history of literature is the history of the human mind. It is, as compared with other histories, the intellectual as distinguished from the material, the informing spirit as compared with the outward and visible.