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Intelligence Quotes
"I won't insult your intelligence by suggesting that you really believe what you just said."
187
"Many intelligence reports in war are contradictory; even more are false, and most are uncertain."
95
"I would like to take you seriously, but to do so would affront your intelligence."
90
"It is an accepted commonplace in psychology that the spiritual level of people acting as a crowd is far lower than the mean of each individual's intelligence or morality."
81
"In view of the fact that God limited the intelligence of man, it seems unfair that He did not also limit his stupidity."
77
"Man becomes man only by his intelligence, but he is man only by his heart."
76
"Human folk are as a matter of fact eager to find intelligence in animals."
72
"The more stupid one is, the closer one is to reality. The more stupid one is, the clearer one is. Stupidity is brief and artless, while intelligence squirms and hides itself. Intelligence is unprincipled, but stupidity is honest and straightforward."
71
"Military intelligence is a contradiction in terms."
67
"Intelligence is the ability to avoid doing work, yet getting the work done."
63
"Intelligence is really a kind of taste: taste in ideas."
62
"Nature shows that with the growth of intelligence comes increased capacity for pain, and it is only with the highest degree of intelligence that suffering reaches its supreme point."
60
"When you combine ignorance and leverage, you get some pretty interesting results."
60
"We've done it in intelligence sharing and certain elements of security. There were parts of the department, in fact, that worked very well in Katrina, like the Coast Guard and TSA."
60
"There are three kinds of intelligence: one kind understands things for itself, the other appreciates what others can understand, the third understands neither for itself nor through others. This first kind is excellent, the second good, and the third kind useless."
58
"The voice of the intelligence is drowned out by the roar of fear. It is ignored by the voice of desire. It is contradicted by the voice of shame. It is biased by hate and extinguished by anger. Most of all it is silenced by ignorance."
55
"I can remember when I was National Security Adviser, the intelligence community told us... they put out an intelligence report saying that Iran would never back off from attacks on shipping in the Gulf if we use force."
54
"Anyone who conducts an argument by appealing to authority is not using his intelligence; he is just using his memory."
53
"Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of language."
53
"A year spent in artificial intelligence is enough to make one believe in God."
53
"It occurred to me that there was no difference between men, in intelligence or race, so profound as the difference between the sick and the well."
53
"The day after the prison was transferred to the military intelligence command, they had an entire battalion - 1,200, 1,500 soldiers - arrive at Abu Ghraib just for force protection alone."
50
"There are so many things a large intelligence espionage organization can do to justify its existence, that people can get promotions for, because it could result in results."
49
"Intelligence we gathered at the time indicated that this was in fact leadership and we struck the leadership."
49
"Intelligence without ambition is a bird without wings."
49
"I'm much better informed than Mr. Clarke ever was about the nature of the intelligence that was available again Osama bin Laden and which was consistently denigrated by himself and Mr. Tenet."
48
"Intelligence is not to make no mistakes, but quickly to see how to make them good."
48
"Computers are useless. They can only give you answers."
48
"Action is the real measure of intelligence."
48
"And I argued with that intelligence estimate and I think it is a responsibility of policymakers to use their best judgment on the basis of the intelligence they've received."
48
"It takes an extraordinary intelligence to contemplate the obvious."
47
"Intellectuals solve problems, geniuses prevent them."
46
"Quality in a classical Greek sense is how to live with grace and intelligence, with bravery and mercy."
45
"Use that fluff of yours you call a brain."
45
"The White House is giving George W. Bush intelligence briefings. You know, some of these jokes just write themselves."
44
"Three-fifths of him genius and two-fifths sheer fudge."
44
"By the 2030s, the nonbiological portion of our intelligence will predominate."
44
"For the execution of the voyage to the Indies, I did not make use of intelligence, mathematics or maps."
42
"People's intelligence tends to be in inverse proportion to their number. People don't tend to get smarter as they get into bigger groups."
42
"Chess is as elaborate a waste of human intelligence as you can find outside an advertising agency."
42
"I wasn't privy to all of the intelligence that was coming in about Guatemala, but I did see the traffic that was coming in from Guatemala City, because it was very relevant to me, and of course I exchanged what I had with the chief of station in Guatemala City."
41
"If men can develop weapons that are so terrifying as to make the thought of global war include almost a sentence for suicide, you would think that man's intelligence and his comprehension... would include also his ability to find a peaceful solution."
41
"The 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."
40
"Would it not be much better to have a president who deliberately lied to the people because he thought a war was essential than to have one who was so dumb as to be taken in by intelligence agencies, especially those who told him what he wanted to hear?"
40
"My mind," he said, "rebels at stagnation. Give me problems, give me work, give me the most abstruse cryptogram or the most intricate analysis, and I am in my own proper atmosphere. I can dispense then with artificial stimulants. But I abhor the dull routine of existence. I crave for mental exaltation. That is why I have chosen my own particular profession, or rather created it, for I am the only one in the world."
40
"A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep."
40
"I don't intend to simply go away and write my plays and be a good boy. I intend to remain an independent and political intelligence in my own right."
40
"Be smarter than other people, just don't tell them so."
39
"Bill Gates wants people to think he's Edison, when he's really Rockefeller. Referring to Gates as the smartest man in America isn't right... wealth isn't the same thing as intelligence."
39
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