To young people born under the weird planet of the SAT, intelligence was equated with agility, with raw acuity. It produced a certain sort of person of which I was a typical specimen: the mental contortionist, able to rise to almost every challenge placed before him, except the challenge of real self-knowledge.
Copy QuoteThe test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.
Copy Quote View & ShareTalent hits a target no one else can hit; Genius hits a target no one else can see.
Copy Quote View & ShareA smart man makes a mistake, learns from it, and never makes that mistake again. But a wise man finds a smart man and learns from him how to avoid the mistake altogether.
Copy Quote View & ShareKnowledge will forever govern ignorance; and a people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.
Copy Quote View & ShareWhen a true genius appears, you can know him by this sign: that all the dunces are in a confederacy against him.
Copy Quote View & ShareOften the hands will solve a mystery that the intellect has struggled with in vain.
Copy Quote View & ShareSmall minds are concerned with the extraordinary, great minds with the ordinary.
Copy Quote View & ShareA man of genius makes no mistakes; his errors are volitional and are the portals of discovery.
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