Superior Intelligence Quotes & Sayings

[In] 2029, I think, computers will match and exceed human intelligence in the ways we're now superior, like being funny, where we still have an edge. — Ray Kurzweil

I have discovered that some people are wealthier than others not because of their superior intelligence but because of their abundant mindset. — Debasish Mridha

Looking back at Batman from a distance after all the hype has dried up and the franchise has at least temporarily been abandoned it's easy to see the movie for what it is: a moderately diverting motion picture that should have been shorter and better paced. There are a lot of things wrong with Batman , but it still makes for decent entertainment in the fine tradition of the typical low-intelligence summer movie. The best thing that can be said about Batman is that it led to Batman Returns , which was a far superior effort. — James Berardinelli

Our intellect is like a judge who decides the 'right' course of action. There is no dearth of information or knowledge in the world, and the mind is where all this is stored. A simple computer can beat the mind by storing many times more information than the mind can ever imagine grasping in its lifetime. But both the mind, as well as the computer, are of no use without the intellect, which alone can help them use their stored information. This makes the intellect superior to both. — Awdhesh Singh

It is one mark of a superior mind to understand and be influenced by the superiority of others. — Harriet Beecher Stowe

We all agree that pessimism is a mark of superior intellect. — John Kenneth Galbraith

Feminine intuition? Is that what you wanted the robot for? You men. Faced with a woman reaching a correct conclusion and unable to accept the fact that she is your equal or superior in intelligence, you invent something called feminine intuition. — Isaac Asimov

The theory behind representative government is that superior men-or at least men not inferior to the average in ability and integrity-are chosen to manage the public business, and that they carry on this work with reasonable intelligence and honest. There is little support for that theory in known facts ... — H.L. Mencken

The dried blood from the wounds leaves dark and repulsive stains on the ground. Cleaning them up, I think of the identical nature of men: the same red blood irrigating the same organs. These organs, situated in the same places, carry out the same functions. The same remedies cure the same illnesses everywhere under the sun, whether the individual be white or black. Everything united men. Why, then, do they kill each other in ignoble wars for causes that are futile when compared with the massacre of human lives? So many devastating wars! And yet man takes himself to be a superior being. In what way is his intelligence useful to him? His intelligence begets both good and ill, more often ill than good. — Mariama Ba

A good athlete can enter a state of body-awareness in which the right stroke or the right movement happens by itself, effortlessly, without any interference of the conscious will. This is a paradigm for non-action: the purest and most effective form of action. The game plays the game; the poem writes the poem; we can't tell the dancer from the dance. It happens when we trust the intelligence of the universe in the same way that an athlete or a dancer trusts the superior intelligence of the body. — Laozi

Among these widely differing families of men, the first that attracts attention, the superior in intelligence, in power, and in enjoyment, is the white, or European, the MAN pre-eminently so called, below him appear the Negro and the Indian. — Alexis De Tocqueville

Consequently, the truth of God lives in our souls more by the power of superior moral courage than by the light of an eminent intelligence. Indeed, spiritual intelligence itself depends on the fortitude and patience with which we sacrifice ourselves for the truth, as it is communicated to our lives concretely in the providential will of God — Thomas Merton

In our society those who are in reality superior in intelligence can be accepted by their fellows only if they pretend they are not. — Marya Mannes

In contrast, upgrading the healthy is an elitist project, because it rejects the idea of a universal standard applicable to all and seeks to give some individuals an edge over others. People want superior memories, above-average intelligence and first-class sexual abilities. — Yuval Noah Harari

Inspiration comes unawares, from unaccountable sources that have nothing to do with planning or intelligence. Let it cool ever so slightly, and you are left, pen or brush in hand, with no inspiration at all. Gifted people need not, therefore, make a song and dance about being or supposing themselves superior. They simply happened to be born with that fortunate, subconscious equipment of theirs, and the mystery exists independently of intelligence or ambition. — Maurice Chevalier

I am persuaded that if the brutes even
if the dog, the horse, the ox, the elephant, the bird, could speak, they would confess, that, at the bottom of their nature, their instincts, their sensations, their obtuse intelligence, assisted by organs less perfect than ours, there is a clouded, secret sentiment of this existence of a superior and primordial Being, from whom all emanates, and to whom all returns. — Alphonse De Lamartine

The case for exploiting animals for food, clothing and entertainment often relies on our superior intelligence, language and self-awareness: the rights of the superior being trump those of the inferior. — Michael Shermer

He that would be superior to external influences must first become superior to his own passions. — Samuel Johnson

My comprehension of God comes from a deeply felt conviction of a superior intelligence that reveals itself in the knowable world. — Albert Einstein

He was marked out by his relentless ability to find fault with others' mediocrity
suggesting that a certain type of intelligence may be at heart nothing more or less than a superior capacity for dissatisfaction. — Alain De Botton

The intelligence displayed by many dumb animals approaches so closely to human intelligence that it is a mystery. The animals see and hear and love and fear and suffer. They use their organs far more faithfully than many human beings use theirs. They manifest sympathy and tenderness toward their companions in suffering. Many animals show an affection for those who have charge of them, far superior to the affection shown by some of the human race. They form attachments for man which are not broken without great suffering to them. — Ellen G. White

Sometimes you're sure dogs have some secret, superior intelligence, and other times you know they're only their simple, goofy selves. — Deb Caletti

Henry Kissinger is possessed of a truly superior intelligence, in addition to which he has two qualities which, unfortunately, many great men lack: he is able to listen and he has a very subtle sense of humour. — Mohammed Reza Pahlavi

A certain critic
for such men, I regret to say, do exist
made the nasty remark about my last novel that it contained 'all the old Wodehouse characters under different names.' He has probably by now been eaten by bears, like the children who made mock of the prophet Elisha: but if he still survives he will not be able to make a similar charge against Summer Lightning. With my superior intelligence, I have out-generalled the man this time by putting in all the old Wodehouse characters under the same names. Pretty silly it will make him feel, I rather fancy. — P.G. Wodehouse

To discover the rules of society that are best suited to nations, there would need to exist a superior intelligence, who could understand the passions of men without feeling any of them, who had no affinity with our nature but knew it to the full, whose happiness was independent of ours, but who would nevertheless make our happiness his concern, who would be content to wait in the fullness of time for a distant glory, and to labour in one age to enjoy the fruits in another. Gods would be needed to give men laws. — Jean-Jacques Rousseau

One always begins with the simple, then comes the complex, and by superior enlightenment one often reverts in the end to the simple. Such is the course of human intelligence. — Voltaire

People who denounce the free market and voluntary exchange, and are for control and coercion, believe they have more intelligence and superior wisdom to the masses. What's more, they believe they've been ordained to forcibly impose that wisdom on the rest of us. Of course, they have what they consider good reasons for doing so, but every tyrant that has ever existed has had what he believed were good reasons for restricting the liberty of others. — Walter E. Williams

It is conceded by all that man is the very highest type of all living creatures on the earth. His intelligence is far superior to that of any other earthly being. — Joseph Franklin Rutherford

I don't feel inferior or superior; I feel that I am your friend. — Debasish Mridha

This sense of wonder leads most scientists to a Superior Being - der Alte, the Old One, as Einstein affectionately called the Deity - a Superior Intelligence, the Lord of all Creation and Natural Law. — Abdus Salam

I'm just not the kind of girl guys think about asking out. Well, maybe they think about it, but they always seem to manage to talk themselves out of it. I don't know if it's because they think I might ram a fist down their throats if they try anything, or if it's just because they are intimidated by my superior intelligence and good looks (ha ha). In the end, they just aren't interested. — Meg Cabot

Higher intelligence is not necessarily something you're born with or genetically predisposed toward. In fact, most instances of above-the-ordinary intelligences are usually acquired thru superior learning techniques ... Reading about the greatest minds in history, including recent history, more often than not reveals the individuals concerned (or people close to them) employed specific learning methods. — James Morcan

We are already in Hell. It is the earth itself that is Hell, the prison constructed for us by an intelligence superior to our own, in which I could not take a step without injuring the happiness of others, and in which my fellow creatures could not enjoy their own happiness without causing me pain. — August Strindberg

Modesty teaches us to speak of the ancients with respect, especially when we are not very familiar with their works. Newton, who knew them practically by heart, had the greatest respect for them, and considered them to be men of genius and superior intelligence who had carried their discoveries in every field much further than we today suspect, judging from what remains of their writings. More ancient writings have been lost than have been preserved, and perhaps our new discoveries are of less value than those that we have lost. — Francis Atterbury

This capacity for objectivity and absoluteness amounts to an existential - and "preventive" - refutation of the ideologies of doubt: if a man is able to doubt, it is because there is certainty; likewise the very notion of illusion proves that man has access to reality. It follows that there are necessarily some men who know reality and who therefore have certainty; and the great spokesmen of this knowledge and certainty are necessarily the best of men. For if truth were on the side of doubt, the individual who doubted would be superior not only to these spokesmen, who have not doubted, but also to the majority of normal men across the millennia of human existence. If doubt conformed to the real, human intelligence would be deprived of its sufficient reason, and man would be less than an animal, for the intelligence of animals does not doubt the reality to which it is proportioned. — Frithjof Schuon

White Fang was glad to acknowledge his lordship, but it was lordship based upon superior intelligence and brute strength ... There were deeps in his nature which had never been sounded. A kind word, a caressing touch of the hand, on the part of Gray Beaver, might have sounded these deeps; but Gray Beaver did not caress nor speak kind words. It was not his way. — Jack London

Art owes its origin to Nature herself ... this beautiful creation, the world, supplied the first model, while the original teacher was that divine intelligence which has not only made us superior to the other animals, but like God Himself, if I may venture to say it. — Giorgio Vasari

Really, all you need to become a good knitter are wool, needles, hands, and slightly below-average intelligence. Of course superior intelligence, such as yours and mine, is an advantage. — Elizabeth Zimmermann

Wealth is not often a byproduct of hard work or superior intelligence, but often wealth is a byproduct of a purpose oriented abundant mentality. — Debasish Mridha

You have embarked, made the voyage, and come to shore; get out. If indeed to another life, there is no want of gods, not even there. But if to a state without sensation, you will cease to be held by pains and pleasures, and to be a slave to the vessel, which is as much inferior as that which serves it is superior: for the one is intelligence and deity; the other is earth and corruption. — Marcus Aurelius

The word power typically signifies a capacity for action. The Oxford English Dictionary tells us power lies in an 'ability to do or effect something or anything, or to act upon a person or thing'. The person who has power may influence the material or social environment, generally on the basis of possessing high-tech weapons, money, oil, superior intelligence or large muscles. In war, I am powerful because I can blow up your city walls or drop bombs on your airfields. In the financial world, I am powerful because I can buy up your shares and invade your markets. In boxing, I am ,ore powerful because my punches outwit and exhaust yours. But in love, this issue appears to depend on a far more passive, negative definition; instead of looking at power as a capacity to do something, one may come to think of it as the capacity to do nothing. — Alain De Botton

Those who want their rights respected under the Constitution and the law ought to set the example themselves of observing the Constitution and the law. While there may be those of high intelligence who violate the law at times, the barbarian and the defective always violate it. Those who disregard the rules of society are not exhibiting a superior intelligence, are not promoting freedom and independence, are not following the path of civilization, but are displaying the traits of ignorance, of servitude, of savagery, and treading the way that leads back to the jungle. — Calvin Coolidge

Intelligence is present everywhere in our bodies ... our own inner intelligence is far superior to any we can try to substitute from the outside. — Deepak Chopra

Modern man has made no significant leaps in the evolution of consciousness for thousands of years. In fact, we may even be less intelligent than some of the civilizations that have preceded us. Scientists have speculated that the gap of intelligence between great thinkers such as Einstein and Tesla compared to the average human is far greater than the gap between the average human and contemporary apes. What is it that is blocking us from achieving a superior level of intelligence?
Aside from the mental conditioning that our culture has been subjected to, I believe that it is due to an utter lack of understanding human nature. Modern humans are raised in such a negative environment. The corruption of our educational system, economic structure, and media outlets has resulted in a state of ignorance common amongst most individuals. — Joseph P. Kauffman

As a rule those who were least remarkable for intelligence showed the greater powers of survival. Such people recognized their own deficiencies and the superior intelligence of their opponnents; fearing that they might lose a debate or find themselves out-manoeuvred in intrigue by their quick-witted enemies, they boldly launched straight into action; while their opponents, overconfident in the belief that they would see what was happening in advance, and not thinking it necessary to seize by force what they could secure by policy, were the more easily destroyed because they were off their guard. 84 Certainly it was in Corcyra that — Thucydides

Intelligence is derived from two words - inter and legere - inter meaning 'between' and legere meaning 'to choose'. An intelligent person, therefore, is one who has learned 'to choose between'. He knows that good is better than evil, that confidence should supersede fear, that love is superior to hate, that gentleness is better than cruelty, forbearance than intolerance, compassion than arrogance, and that truth has more virtue than ignorance. — J. Martin Klotsche

Although other animals cannot reason nor speak the way humans do, this does not give us the right to do with them as we like. Even though our supposed possession of a soul and superior intelligence are used to create an arbitrary dividing line over rights, the fact remains that all animals have the capacity to experience pain and suffering, and in suffering they are our equals. — Nathaniel Altman

Those mothers with hereditary large pelvises were able to bear large-brained babies who because of their superior intelligence were able to compete successfully in adulthood with the smaller-brained offspring of mothers with smaller pelvises. — Carl Sagan

As everyone knows, there is no intelligence in coercion or forcing another into action or realization. And if the name of the galactic game is superior, intelligent harmonization, it must be played so that the local intelligence is taught or shown how it works in such a manner that it comes to its own conclusions. In other words, the galactic code of honor is to manifest and demonstrate harmony by whatever means possible. — Jose Arguelles

Diversity is a strength. It's like the shrieking radios permanently attached to bright people's ears in the Kurt Vonnegut story "Harrison Bergeron," to prevent them from using their superior intelligence. Contrary to everything you've heard, never in recorded history has diversity been anything but a disaster. — Ann Coulter

Do not enter where too much is anticipated. It is the misfortune of the over-celebrated that they cannot measure up to excessive expectations. The actual can never attain the imagined: for to think perfection is easy, but to embody it is most difficult. The imagination weds the wish, and together they always conjure up more than reality can furnish. For however great may be a person's virtues, the will never measure up to what was imagined. When people see themselves cheated in their extravagant anticipations, they turn more quickly to disparagement than to praise. Hope is a great falsifier of the truth; the the intelligence put her right by seeing to it that the fruit is superior to its appetite. You will make a better exit when the actual transcends the imagined, and is more than was expected. — Baltasar Gracian

There is no greater evidence of superior intelligence than to be surprised at nothing. — Josh Billings

A superior man may be made to go to the well, but he cannot be made to go down into it. He may be imposed upon, but he cannot be fooled. — Confucius

The superior man leads not by violence or by coarse physical acts but by the pure intelligence of a wise mind. — Pearl S. Buck

I have studied many philosophers and many cats. The wisdom of cats is infinitely superior. — Hippolyte Taine

True intelligence very readily conceives of an intelligence superior to its own; and this is why truly intelligent men are modest. — Andre Gide

Cows sometimes wear an expression resembling wonderment arrested on its way to becoming a question. In the eye of superior intelligence, on the other hand, lies the nil admirari spread out like the monotony of a cloudless sky. — Friedrich Nietzsche

We, Equality 7-2521, were not happy in those year in the Home of the Students. It was not that the learning was too hard for us. It was that the learning was too easy. This is a great sin, to be born with a head which is too quick. It is not good to be different from our brothers, but it is evil to be superior to them. The Teachers told us so, and they frowned when they looked at us. — Ayn Rand

Oh, Tatiana wouldn't even consider staying here for a moment," Gideon said. "She has fled to the Blackthorns', her in-laws, and good riddance. She is not a stupid girl-in fact, she considers her intelligence to be quite superior-but she is a self-important and vain one, and there is no love lost between her and my brother. And he had been awake for days, mind you. Waiting in that great blasted house, locked out of the library, pounding on the door when no answer came from my father ... "
"You feel protective of him," Sophie observed.
"Of course I do; he is my little brother." He moved forward and brushed a hand over Gabriel's tousled brown hair; the other boy moved and made a restless sound but did not wake. — Cassandra Clare

James's critical genius comes out most tellingly in his mastery over, his baffling escape from, Ideas; a mastery and an escape which are perhaps the last test of a superior intelligence. He had a mind so fine that no idea could violate it. [ ... ] In England, ideas run wild and pasture on the emotions; instead of thinking with our feelings (a very different thing) we corrupt our feelings with ideas; we produce the public, the political, the emotional idea, evading sensation and thought. [ ... ] James in his novels is like the best French critics in maintaining a point of view, a view-point untouched by the parasite idea. He is the most intelligent man of his generation.
(Little Review, 1918) — T. S. Eliot

We trust - I'll tell you what we trust that fouls us up, Roy; it's our goddamn superior intelligence! — Philip K. Dick

No man of genuinely superior intelligence has ever been an actor. Even supposing a young man of appreciable mental powers to be lured upon the stage, as philosophers are occasionally lured into bordellos, his mind would be inevitably and almost immediately destroyed by the gaudy nonsense issuing from his mouth every night. — H.L. Mencken

I figure I'll just keep on going the way I am until something starts making sense."
"What if nothing ever does?"
"I guess if that happens, I'll start hoping all the God freaks are right, and there's some superior intelligence up there treating us all like laboratory rats. — Mira Grant

Learning to be flexible in values takes a very long time ... Of course I felt a little uncomfortable during questioning the concept of God, but then reading about the history and evolution of Gods. There were many different Gods: the God of war, the God of peace, the God of love, which was more like the people that invented them. They behaved, they got angry, they made sacrifices, they created floods when they didn't like the way things are going. This didn't come through as superior intelligence. — Jacque Fresco

During my long investigation of these strange objects, I have seen many reports verified by Air Force Intelligence, detailed accounts by Air Force pilots, radar operators, and other trained observers proving the UFOs are high-speed craft superior to anything built on Earth. — Donald Keyhoe

Her tears fell abundantly
but her grief was so truly artless, that no dignity could have made it more respectable in Emma's eyes
and she listened to her and tried to console her with all her heart and understanding
really for the time convinced that Harriet was the superior creature of the two
and that to resemble her would be more for her own welfare and happiness than all that genius or intelligence could do.
It was rather too late in the day to set about being simple-minded and ignorant; but she left her with every previous resolution confirmed of being humble and discreet, and repressing imagination all the rest of her life. — Jane Austen

He wrote that it would take only a handful of super-enhanced individuals - those with a superior intelligence - to change the world through their creativity and discoveries, innovations that could be shared globally. — James Rollins

Do you know how many nights I've spent twisting your English off my tongue? I do not take pride in your English. I want to stumble on my words. I want to speak with an accent so thick that it requires silence. I want you to struggle to understand me. Realize your English is not superior. Your English does not equate intelligence. Do not compliment me on how well I have accepted colonization. I do not want your pat on the back. I was forced to learn this language. I didn't choose to. Your English disconnects me from my people. I am deaf to my own sacred language because of your English.
Your English has done nothing for me. — Bilphena Yahwon

When you feel that you are superior to someone else, you lack compassion. Compassion is a word Buddhists use to express the realization that even though we may differ greatly in evolution, appearance, talents, or intelligence from other beings in the universe, we are all equally valuable in the eyes of eternity. This is wisdom." - Surfing the Himalayas 202 — Frederick Lenz