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Intelligence Quotes


"Human intelligence is a reflection of the intelligence that produces everything. In knowing, we are simply extending the intelligence that comes to and constitutes us. We mimic the mind of God, so to speak. Or better, we continue and extend it."


"The Bush administration also was not straightforward about the intelligence it had, releasing tenuous information that fit its goal of attacking Iraq. I feel deceived."


"I do not want to go into its physical reasons: the construction of the human body is different from that of carnivorous animals. But man's intelligence is such that it can be utilised to defend any-thing he does, whether right or wrong."


"There are unknown forces in nature; when we give ourselves wholly to her, without reserve, she lends them to us; she shows us these forms, which our watching eyes do not see, which our intelligence does not understand or suspect."


"As a member of the House Select Committee on Intelligence, I will be participating in several hearings on the startling revelations contained in the report."


"Man has made use of his intelligence, he invented stupidity."


"We know that there are unaccounted-for Scud and other ballistic missiles in Iraq. And part of the problem is that, since 1998, there has been no way to even get minimal information about those programs except through intelligence means."


"I rise today to discuss the National Intelligence Reform bill. I commend my colleagues in both Houses for their hard work in coming to an agreement. As with any conference, each voice is heard, but none can dominate and compromise must be achieved."


"Intelligence must follow faith, never precede it, and never destroy it."


"I think that intelligence is such a narrow branch of the tree of life - this branch of primates we call humans. No other animal, by our definition, can be considered intelligent. So intelligence can't be all that important for survival, because there are so many animals that don't have what we call intelligence, and they're surviving just fine."


"It has always been my private conviction that any man who puts his intelligence up against a fish and loses had it coming."


"I do have concerns about the current efforts to restructure our nation's intelligence community."


"In reality, serial killers are of average intelligence."


"He's an intelligent man, but it takes something more than intelligence to act intelligently."


"Blame heaped on planners and those said to be responsible for unreliable intelligence."


"The people who work in intelligence work are more conscious, more apt to be attentive."


"So that, to me, is important that audiences are treated with an amount of respect toward their intelligence. Most Hollywood films don't respect their intelligence."


"If you look back today over the last 25 years, it is a fact that we have had a progressive degeneration of our intelligence community in general; in particular in the field of human intelligence."


"The Homeland Security department doesn't have tasking authority in the intelligence community. They can ask for stuff, but they can't direct anything except inside their bureau."


"The great corporations of this country were not founded by ordinary people. They were founded by people with extraordinary intelligence, ambition, and aggressiveness."


"It is difficult, if not impossible, to argue that laws written in the 1970s are adequate for today's intelligence challenges."


"You are an unusual, brilliant child who has not seen enough of life to grasp the full measure of human stupidity."


"It is only the enlightened ruler and the wise general who will use the highest intelligence of the army for the purposes of spying, and thereby they achieve great results."


"Skill is successfully walking a tightrope between the twin towers of New York's World Trade Center. Intelligence is not trying."


"To listen to criticism and act on it if it is valid and ignore it if it is not is a sign of intelligence."


"Kindness and intelligence don't always deliver us from the pitfalls and traps: there are always failures of love, of will, of imagination. There is no way to take the danger out of human relationships."


"Human intelligence may not be the best trick nature has to offer."



"I was an intelligence officer, not a policy-maker."


"The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits."


"This also turned out to be negative, so there is no material in the Central Intelligence Agency, either in the records or in the mind of any of the individuals, that there was any contact had or even contemplated with him."



"The plan we developed to deal with al Qaeda depended on developing sources of human and technical intelligence that could give us insights into his plans at the tactical level. This is easy to say but hard to accomplish."


"To educate the intelligence is to expand the horizon of its wants and desires."


"Not all intelligence can be artificial now, so if we make a mistake, the consequences are no longer simply located within an institution or a national culture."


"Nothing has caused the human race so much trouble as intelligence."


"First, I have the privilege of being Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. It is not an oxymoron I assure you."


"I imagine that the intelligent people are the ones so intelligent that they don't even need or want to look 'intelligent' anymore."


"For four years, I listened to stories of intelligence failures, and it wasn't due to incompetence of anyone in the system, but that the system is so arcane."


"Common sense is instinct. Enough of it is genius."


"Science has not yet taught us if madness is or is not the sublimity of the intelligence."


"I don't think the intelligence reports are all that hot. Some days I get more out of the New York Times."


"I am sure that in Canada the people appreciate this principle, and the general intelligence which prevails over that country is such that I am sure there is no danger of a reactionary policy ever finding a response in the hearts of any considerable number of our people."


"Some people get rich studying artificial intelligence. I make money studying natural stupidity."


"There are whole precincts of voters in this country whose united intelligence does not equal that of one representative American woman."


"The intelligent person depends on his own insight, not on beliefs."


"But the same intelligence compels Germany to practise the same policy."


"To lack intelligence is to be in the ring blindfolded."


"George Tenet has been the director of central intelligence since 1997, time enough to have changed the Agency's culture. He has failed. He should go."


"The dull pray, the geniuses are light mockers."


"I am not a speed reader. I am a speed understander."
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