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Intelligence Quotes


"Week after week, the heads of Red Army Intelligence received updates on the Wehrmacht's preparations."


"By the 2030s, the nonbiological portion of our intelligence will predominate."


"It is not clear that intelligence has any long-term survival value."


"A lot of the things that we've been able to do in the last several years were Democratic ideas, including the structure for this new director of national intelligence."


"That U.N. Security Council resolution requires getting Syrian troops and intelligence officials out of Lebanon so that the Lebanese can have elections here this spring that are free and fair and free of outside influence."


"As liberty and intelligence have increased the people have more and more revolted against the theological dogmas that contradict common sense and wound the tenderest sensibilities of the soul."


"Though intelligence is powerless to modify character, it is a dab hand at finding euphemisms for its weaknesses."


"The first method for estimating the intelligence of a ruler is to look at the men he has around him."



"Wealth, in even the most improbable cases, manages to convey the aspect of intelligence."


"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."


"All of the biggest technological inventions created by man - the airplane, the automobile, the computer - says little about his intelligence, but speaks volumes about his laziness."


"People have an image of Italians. When I go somewhere in the world, I don't care where it is, when they look at me it's not about my intelligence. It's who can I beat up."


"Well, our position, and our chairman has talked about this extensively, is that we had a lot of intelligence prior to 9/11. We knew that two al Qaeda operatives who ultimately participated in the 9/11 disaster were in the United States. We didn't find them."


"The White House is giving George W. Bush intelligence briefings. You know, some of these jokes just write themselves."


"What a distressing contrast there is between the radiant intelligence of the child and the feeble mentality of the average adult."


"There is no worse screen to block out the Spirit than confidence in our own intelligence."


"A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep."


"An organization's intelligence is distributed to the point of being ubiquitous."


"The Committee's review of a series of intelligence shortcomings, to include intelligence prior to 9/11 and the pre-war intelligence on Iraq, clearly reveal how vital a diverse intelligence workforce is to our national security."


"We regard intelligence as man's main characteristic and we know that there is no superiority which intelligence cannot confer on us, no inferiority for which it cannot compensate."


"The Clinton White House today said they would start to give national security and intelligence briefings to George Bush. I don't know how well this is working out. Today after the first one Bush said, 'I've got one question: What color is the red phone?'"


"A German immersed in any civilization different from his own loses a weight equivalent in volume to the amount of intelligence he displaces."


"You can use all the quantitative data you can get, but you still have to distrust it and use your own intelligence and judgment."


"It takes an extraordinary intelligence to contemplate the obvious."


"The man who knows it can't be done counts the risk, not the reward."



"Could it be that all those reports coming from our own intelligence that Bush ignored was right all along? Could it be that the UN was right all along?"


"It becomes a giant's task to compute the result when the effect of cross seas, wind at all angles and ever varying force, arched surfaces, head resistance, ratio of weight to area, and the intelligence of the guiding power crop up."


"So, you know, I think that Democrats are being more successful in Congress and I'm really going to be proud of the role I will play tomorrow as ranking Democrat on the Intelligence Committee when this bill passes."


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


"Intellectual growth is when you surpass the barrier of puerility, puzzling people with your dazzling creativity."


"Wisdom and deep intelligence require an honest appreciation of mystery."


"Foolishness is rarely a matter of lack of intelligence or even lack of information."


"Obviously this person's a hazard. Stupid people are dangerous."


"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."


"This president has been reluctant to hold anybody accountable. No one was held accountable after September the 11th. Nobody's been held accountable after the clear flaws in intelligence leading up to the war in Iraq."


"One of the functions of intelligence is to take account of the dangers that come from trusting solely to the intelligence."


"It's the continuation of everyone's childhood to see these young children who grow up full of life, full of intelligence, full of a sense of wonder. And within an instant they're gone from this world. It's terrible."


"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."


"I certainly believe that improving our intelligence is of important national interest."


"The United States has done more for the war crimes tribunal than any other country in the world. We're turning over all the information we have, including intelligence information."


"There is no greater evidence of superior intelligence than to be surprised at nothing."


"Foreign Ministry guys don't become agents. Party officials, the Foreign Ministry nerds, tend not to volunteer to Western intelligence agencies."


"In my professional work with the Agency, by the late '70s, I had come to question the value of a great deal of what we were doing, in terms of the intelligence agency's impact on American policy."


"We had periodic crises in this country when the technical intelligence didn't support the policy. We had the bomber gap, the missile gap."


"Intelligence flourishes only in the ages when belief withers."


"We will strengthen our security by building missile defense, restoring our military might, and standing by and strengthening our intelligence officers."


"Humanity I love you because when you're hard up you pawn your intelligence to buy a drink."
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