Great Throughts Treasury

"Though intelligence is powerless to modify character, it is a dab hand at finding euphemisms for its weaknesses." - Quentin Crisp, born Denis Charles Pratt

"The measure of intelligence is the ability to change." - Albert Einstein

"The scientist's religious feeling takes the form of a rapturous amazement at the harmony of natural law, which reveals an intelligence of such superiority that, compared with it, all the systematic thinking and acting of human beings is utterly insignificant reflection. This feeling is the guiding principle of his life and work, in so far as he succeeds in keeping himself from the shackles of selfish desire. It is beyond question closely akin to that which has possessed the religious geniuses of all ages." - Albert Einstein

"The sign of true intelligence is not knowledge but imagination." - Albert Einstein

"The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination." - Albert Einstein

"Without purity of heart, not only can one not “see” God, but it is equally impossible to have any idea of what is involved in doing so. Without the silence of the intellect and the will, without the silence of the senses, without the openness of what some call “the third eye” (spoken of not only by Tibetans but also by the disciples of Richard of Saint Victor), it is not possible to approach the sphere in which the word God can have a meaning. According to Richard of Saint Victor, there exist three eyes: the occulus carnis, the occulus rationis, and the occulus fidei (the eye of the body, the eye of reason, and the eye of faith). The “third eye” is the organ of the faculty that distinguishes us from other living beings by giving us access to a reality that transcends, without denying, that which captures the intelligence and the senses." - Raimon Panikkar, fully Raimon Panikkar-Alemany

"How surely gravity's law, strong as an ocean current, takes hold of even the strongest thing and pulls it toward the heart of the world. If we surrendered to earth's intelligence we could rise up rooted, like trees. Instead we entangle ourselves in knots of our own making and struggle, lonely and confused. " - Rainer Maria Rilke, full name René Karl Wilhelm Johann Josef Maria Rilke

"If we surrendered to earth's intelligence we could rise up rooted, like trees. " - Rainer Maria Rilke, full name René Karl Wilhelm Johann Josef Maria Rilke

"It is very difficult to understand that God can be a finite human being and at the same time the all-pervading Soul of the universe. The Absolute and the Relative are His two aspects. How can we say emphatically with our small intelligence that God cannot assume a human form? Can we ever understand all these ideas with our little intellect? Can a one-seer pot hold four" - Ramakrishna, aka Ramakrishna Paramhamsa or Sri Ramakrishna, born Gadadhar Chattopadhyay NULL

"One cannot attain God if one has even a trace of attachment to 'woman and gold'. But He is knowable by the pure mind and the pure intelligence - the mind and intelligence that have not the slightest trace of attachment. Pure Mind, Pure Intelligence, Pure Atman, are one and the same thing." - Ramakrishna, aka Ramakrishna Paramhamsa or Sri Ramakrishna, born Gadadhar Chattopadhyay NULL

"Chess is as elaborate a waste of human intelligence as you can find outside an advertising agency." - Raymond Chandler, fully Raymond Thornton Chandler

"While it is possible for intelligence to increase the range of benevolent impulse, and thus prompt a human being to consider the needs and rights of other than those to whom he is bound by organic and physical relationship, there are definite limits in the capacity of ordinary mortals which makes it impossible for them to grant to others what they claim for themselves." - Reinhold Niebuhr, fully Karl Paul Reinhold Niebuhr

"Man... has a body and a soul... it is a spirit, immortal, and endowed with intelligence and free will. Soul is not just another word for spirit. Animals have souls, but their souls are not spirits. Only man's soul is a spirit; in man is the only kind of spirit that is a soul... There is an obvious difference between a living human body and a corpse. That difference is the soul." - Richard Downey

"Evolution made civilization steward of this planet. A hundred thousand years later, the steward stood before evolution not helper but destroyer, not healer but parasite. So evolution withdrew its gift, passed civilization by, rescued the planet from intelligence and handed it to love." - Richard Bach, fully Richard David Bach

"If we want to postulate a deity capable of engineering all the organized complexity in the world, either instantaneously or by guiding evolution, that deity must have been vastly complex in the first place. The creationist, whether a naive Bible-thumper or an educated bishop, simply postulates an already existing being of prodigious intelligence and complexity. If we are going to allow ourselves the luxury of postulating organized complexity without offering an explanation, we might as well make a job of it and simply postulate the existence of life as we know it!" - Richard Dawkins

"It is an article of passionate faith among "politically correct" biologists and anthropologists that brain size has no connection with intelligence; that intelligence has nothing to do with genes; and that genes are probably nasty fascist things anyway." - Richard Dawkins

"I've always been rather very one-sided about the science, and when I was younger, I concentrated almost all my effort on it. I didn't have time to learn, and I didn't have much patience for what's called the humanities; even though in the university there were humanities that you had to take, I tried my best to avoid somehow to learn anything and to work on it. It's only afterwards [sic] when I've gotten older and more relaxed that I've spread out a little bit--I've learned to draw, and I read a little bit, but I'm really still a very one-sided person and don't know a great deal. I have a limited intelligence and I've used it in a particular direction." - Richard Feynman, fully Richard Phillips Feynman

"Intelligence is an excellence of mind that is employed within a fairly narrow, immediate and predictable range; it is a manipulative, adjustive, unfailingly practical quality--one of the most eminent and endearing of the animal virtues. Intelligence works within the framework of limited but clearly stated goals, and may be quick to shear away questions of thought that do not seem to help in reaching them. Finally, it is of such universal use that it can daily be seen at work and admired alike by simple or complex minds. Intellect, on the other hand, is the critical, creative, and contemplative side of mind. Whereas intelligence seeks to grasp, manipulate, re-order, adjust, intellect examines, ponders, wonders, theorizes, criticizes, imagines. Intelligence will seize the immediate meaning in a situation and evaluate it. Intellect evaluates evaluations, and looks for the meanings of situations as a whole." - Richard Hofstadter

"Having appropriated to itself all conscious intelligence in the universe ...Man faces the existential crisis of being a solitary and mortal conscious ego thrown into an ultimately meaningless and unknowable universe ...and the psychological and biological crisis of living in a world that has come to be shaped in such a way that it precisely matches his world view" - Richard Tarnas, fully Richard Theodore Tarnas

"in accidents blindness chance conviction cosmology day death despair doubt feeling force harmony heart intelligence listening music Peace purpose reason Silence universe" - Richard E. Byrd, fully Richard Evelyn Byrd, Jr.

"Presidents and other decision makers usually get the intelligence they want. This doesn't mean that intelligence reports should be ignored, but that they must be viewed with skepticism." - Richard Neustadt, fully Richard Elliott Neustadt

"A society which values equality will attach a high degree of significance to differences of character and intelligence between different individuals, and a low degree of significance to economic and social differences between different groups. It will endeavor, in shaping its policy and organization, to encourage the former and to neutralize and suppress the latter, and will regard it as vulgar and childish to emphasize them when, unfortunately, they still exist." - R. H. Tawney, fully Richard Henry Tawney

"Surely we all know scores of professional men and women who, apart from their professional concerns, seem not to have enough brains to butter a biscuit. They probably had intelligence once. But when their university had given them its blessing, they thought that enough had been done for one lifetime." - Robertson Davies

"The logical thing to do, when the next war comes, is to recruit an army from all those of whatever age or sex who are unable to pass certain basic intelligence tests. This would be a good way of getting rid of a lot of the stupid people who cumber the earth; probably there would be a high percentage of scientists, Civil Servants, uplifters and minor prophets in an armed force collected in such a way. But if every country adopted this method the country with the biggest population of boobs, yahoos and ninnies would win, and I am not entirely sure that we have overall superiority in this respect, though we seem bound in that direction." - Robertson Davies

"Why are so many people ashamed of having intelligence and using it? There is nothing democratic about such an attitude. To pretend to be less intelligent that one is deceives nobody and begets dislike, for intelligence cannot be hidden; like a cough, it will out, stifle it how you may. No man has ever won commendation for standing at less than his full height, either physically, morally, or intellectually." - Robertson Davies

"One reason the Golden Rule is so popular is that it seems to require no specific faith and no specific religious beliefs. Men may argue over many questions, but often they can agree on the Golden Rule. Religious teachers all over the world, many of them long before Jesus, taught one form or another of the Golden Rule. Look at a few examples. 1. The Hindu Mahabharata teaches: "Men gifted with intelligence and purified souls should always treat others as they themselves wish to be treated." 2. A Jainist writing, also from India, says: "A man should wander about treating all creatures in the world as he himself would be treated." 3. When Confucius was asked for a single word to sum up the rules of life, he answered: "Is not reciprocity such a word ? What you do not want done to yourself, do not do to others." 4. The Taoists taught: "Regard your neighbor's gain as your own gain, and regard your neighbor's loss as your own loss." 5. In the generation before Jesus a man asked the great Rabbi Hillel to teach him the Law while standing on one foot. Hillel answered: "What thou thyself hatest, do not to thy neighbor. This is the whole Law. The rest is commentary. Go and learn it."" - Roger L. Shinn, fully Roger Lincoln Shinn

"Who can approach Thy seat? For beyond the sphere of Intelligence hast Thou established the throne of Thy glory; There standeth the splendour of Thy veiled habitation, And the mystery and the foundation. Thus far reacheth Intelligence, but cometh here to a standstill, For higher still hast Thou mounted, and ascended Thy mighty throne, "And no man may go up with Thee."" - Salomon ibn Gabirol, aka Solomon ben Judah or Avicebron

"O Lord, who shall do deeds like unto Thine? For Thou hast established under the throne of Thy glory A standing-place for the souls of Thy saints, And there is the abode of the pure souls That are bound up in the bundle of life. They who were weary and faint here await new strength, And those who failed of strength may here find repose; For these are the children of rest, And here is delight without end or limit, For it is The-World-To-Come. And here are stations and seeing-places for the standing souls, Whence, in "mirrors of the serving-women," They can behold and be seen of the Lord. In the palaces of the King do they dwell, And at the King’s table stand, And glory in the sweetness of the fruit of Intelligence, For He giveth them of the dainties of the King. This is the rest and the heritage Whose goodness and beauty are endless, Such is "the land which floweth with milk and honey and such the fruit thereof."" - Salomon ibn Gabirol, aka Solomon ben Judah or Avicebron

"I tried to find Him on the Christian cross, but He was not there; I went to the temple of the Hindus and to the old pagodas, but I could not find a trace of Him anywhere. I searched on the mountains and in the valleys, but neither in the heights nor in the depths was I able to find Him. I went to the Kaaba in Mecca, but He was not there either. I questioned the scholars and philosophers, but He was beyond their understanding. I then looked into my heart, and it was there where He dwelled that I saw Him; He was nowhere else to be found." - Rumi, fully Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Rumi NULL

"People of the world don't look at themselves, and so they blame one another." - Rumi, fully Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Rumi NULL

"Owing to the liability of the human mind to fall into mistakes, this very pursuit of knowledge may be a snare to [man] unless he has a divine Master, whom he may obey without misgiving, and who may at the same time give him such help as to preserve his own freedom." - Saint Augustine, aka Augustine of Hippo, St. Austin, Bishop of Hippo NULL

"As the Spanish proverb says, 'He who would bring home the wealth of the Indies, must carry the wealth of the Indies with him.' So it is with traveling. A man must carry knowledge with him if he would bring home knowledge." - Samuel Johnson, aka Doctor Johnson

"Sons ought to render service to their father exactly to this extent. One should obey the command of his father or spiritual master with due deference, saying, Yes, sir." - Shrimad Bhagavatam, or the Bhâgavata Purâna, Śrīmad Bhāgavatam, or Bhāgavata NULL

"Therefore we have to engage ourselves in occupational engagements that will evoke our divine consciousness. This is possible only by hearing and chanting the divine activities of the Supreme Lord…" - Shrimad Bhagavatam, or the Bhâgavata Purâna, Śrīmad Bhāgavatam, or Bhāgavata NULL

"It still remains true that as a set of cognitive beliefs about the existence of God in any recognizable sense continuous with the great systems of the past, religious doctrines constitute a speculative hypothesis of an extremely low order of probability." - Sidney Hook

"Men make counterfeit money; in many more cases, money makes counterfeit men." - Sydney J. Harris

"In order to obey God, one must receive his commands. How did it happen that I received them in adolescence, while I was professing atheism? To believe that the desire for good is always fulfilled — that is faith, and whoever has it is not an atheist." - Simone Weil

"Just as I was certain that desire has in itself an efficacy in the realm of spiritual goodness whatever its form, I thought it was also possible that it might not be effective in any other realm." - Simone Weil

"Misfortunes leave wounds which bleed drop by drop even in sleep; thus little by little they train man by force and dispose him to wisdom in spite of himself. Man must learn to think of himself as a limited and dependent being; and only suffering teaches him this." - Simone Weil

"Rome is the Great Beast of atheism and materialism, adoring nothing but itself. Israel is the Great Beast of religion. Neither one nor the other is likable. The Great Beast is always repulsive ." - Simone Weil

"The full expression of personality depends upon its being inflated by social prestige; it is a social privilege." - Simone Weil

"The interpretation of dreams is the royal road to a knowledge of the unconscious activities of the mind." - Simone Weil

"The simultaneous existence of opposite virtues in the soul—like pincers to catch hold of God." - Simone Weil

"There is one, and only one, thing in modern society more hideous than crime--namely, repressive justice." - Simone Weil

"When a contradiction is impossible to resolve except by a lie, then we know that it is really a door." - Simone Weil

"To abstain from politics is in itself a political attitude." - Simone de Beauvoir, fully Simone-Ernestine-Lucie-Marie Bertrand de Beauvoir

"All other men are specialists, but his specialty is omniscience." - Arthur Conan Doyle, fully Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle

"I do not think that, practically or morally, we can defend a policy of saving every distinctive local population of organisms. I can cite a good rationale for the preservation of species, for each species is a unique and separate natural object that, once lost, can never be reconstituted. But subspecies are distinctive local populations of species with broader geographic range. Subspecies are dynamic, interbreedable, and constantly changing: what then are we saving by declaring them all inviolate?" - Stephan Jay Gould

"Independent derivation meshed beautifully with the triumph, from the 1930's on, of a strict version of Darwinism based on the near ubiquity of adaptive design built by natural selection... Arthropods and vertebrates do share several features of functional design. But those similarities only reflect the power of natural selection to craft optimal structures independently in a world of limited biomechanical solutions to common functional problems - an evolutionary phenomenon called convergence." - Stephan Jay Gould

"Nonetheless, the claim that evolution must be too slow to see can only rank as an urban legend — though not a completely harmless tale in this case, for our creationists incubi can then use the fallacy as an argument against evolution at any scale, and many folks take them seriously because they just ‘know’ that evolution can never be seen in the immediate here and now. In fact, a completely opposite situation actually prevails: biologists have documented a veritable glut of cases for rapid and eminently measurable evolution on timescales of years and decades." - Stephan Jay Gould