Top 5 Intelligence Quotes

I love quotes. Just a few words can describe something so perfectly and so succinctly that no other phrase will do.

Here are my top 5 quotes about intelligence. Feel free to add your own in the comments section:

Number 5 - Thomas Woodrow Wilson

I not only use all the brains that I have, but all I can borrow.

It is one thing to be clever, but no one person can no everything. You should take advantage of everyone around you. As the old adage goes 'two heads are better than one'!

Number 4 - Judd Nelson

Remember to be as smart as you are.

Everyone has a brain. Everyone has the potential to use it. Everyone can be smart if they put their mind to it. I absolutely believe that. But so often people will hide their intelligence. Take advantage of that incredibly complex organ between your ears!

Number 3 - Prof. Simon Woodward

It is OK to be stupid. It is not OK to be content to remain stupid.

Prof. Simon Woodward is one of my organic chemistry lecturers at university. He said this in one of our first lectures and it has stuck with me since. You are not going to know everything instantly. But just because you don't know something, or got something wrong, doesn't mean you should stay like that. Once you know that you don't know something, make it your mission to learn it.

Number 2 - Albert Einstein

It's not that I'm smart. But I stay with the questions much longer.

This is the quote that describes science. It is all about asking a question and sticking with it until you answer it. Perseverance is just as important as intelligence in science.

Number 1 - Douglas Adams (The Salmon of Doubt)

I'd take the awe of understanding over the awe of ignorance any day.

"Rainbow over lava flow at Big Island of Hawaii" by Brocken Inaglory
Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons.

This encapsulates my mindset perfectly. When you look at a rainbow you might think it is magical and awesome. But the science is so much awe-inspiring than 'it's magical'. Thousands of rain drops in the air are splitting the light that was created in a nuclear fusion reactor in space into its constituent colours which travel to your eye to trigger chemical reactions in the cones of your eyes triggering electrical impulses which travel to your brain and are converted to the image of a rainbow. I'd take that over magic any day!

Bonus Quote!

Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will spend its whole life thinking its stupid.

- Albert Einstein

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Remember, it is all science. Let's be curious!