Intelligence Quotes

Emerson leads this page, followed by Letitia Elizabeth Landon, Isaac D’Israeli, the American humorist Josh Billings and Simone Weil. For sourced lines there is Disraeli, in Contarini Fleming (1832), saying patience is a necessary ingredient of genius, and Emerson in English Traits (1856), remarking that the hearing ear is always found close to the speaking tongue.

Three popular lines carry flags. “Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent” is credited to Einstein and marked misattributed. A line about the centuries rarely producing a genius, credited to David Lloyd George, is also marked misattributed. William Feather’s remark that happiness and intelligence are so rarely found in the same person is disputed.

Random quote on Intelligence

Most quoted on intelligence:

I know not which is the most fatal gift,
Genius or Love, for both alike are ruled
By stars of bright aspect and evil influence.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon The Vow of the Peacock (1835)

Aside from a cold appreciation of my own genius I felt that I was a modest man.

Robert A. Heinlein Double Star (1956)

He was my counsel in affairs, was my oracle in taste, the standard to whom I submitted my trifles, and the genius that presided over poor Strawberry.

Horace Walpole On the death of his friend John Chute (1776)

Genius is a power of the soul and that powers of the soul can be developed by everyone. (p. 8)

Northrop Frye Notebooks and Lectures on the Bible and Other Religious Texts (2003)

Simplicity is the mark of genius.

Ernest Flagg Small Houses: Their Economic Design and Construction (1922)