General Intelligence Quotes

#1. Excelling at chess has long been considered a symbol of more general intelligence. That is an incorrect assumption in my view, as pleasant as it might be.

Garry Kasparov

#2. The only inexplicable aspect of the process was that economic theory (which is, after all, what economics students were supposed to know) served almost no function in an investment bank. The bankers used economics as a sort of standardized test of general intelligence.

Michael Lewis

#3. So in regard to mental qualities, their transmission is manifest in our dogs, horses and other domestic animals. Besides special tastes and habits, general intelligence, courage, bad and good tempers. etc., are certainly transmitted.

Charles Darwin

#4. Modern tests of working memory require the individual to switch repeatedly between two demanding tasks, retaining the results of one operation while performing the other. People who do well on these tests tend to do well on tests of general intelligence.

Daniel Kahneman

#5. Modern Darwinism makes it abundantly clear that many less ruthless traits, some not always admired by robber barons and Fuhrers - altruism, general intelligence, compassion - may be the key to survival.

Carl Sagan

#6. The remedy for our social evils does not consist so much in changing the system of government as it does in increasing the general intelligence of the people so that they may learn how to govern.

Charles Lindbergh

#7. The sudden hunch, the creative leap of mind that "sees" in a flash how to solve a problem in a simple way, is something quite different from general intelligence.

Martin Gardner

#8. General intelligence and practical intelligence are "orthogonal": the presence of one doesn't imply the presence of the other.

Malcolm Gladwell

#9. You can either have high specific intelligence or high general intelligence, but not both.

Kim Stanley Robinson

#10. 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.

Alexander Mackenzie

#11. Lashley also reported no apparent change in the general behavior of a rat when significant fractions - say 10 percent - of its brain were removed. But no one asked the rat of its opinion.

Carl Sagan

#12. The idea that intelligence can be quantitatively measured along a single linear scale has caused untold harm to our society in general, and to education in particular.

Neil Postman

#13. My understanding is that what was provided was general order of battle information, not operational intelligence. I certainly have no knowledge of US participation in preparing battle and strike packages and doubt strongly that that occurred.

Frank Carlucci

#14. Anyone that insults my country, my intelligence, my feminist ideals, all women in general, and a favorite childhood food, and refers to both himself and me in the third person in one sentence automatically gets an honorary spot on my Hate With Every Fiber of My Being For All Time list.

J.T. Geissinger

#15. It is not depravity that afflicts the human race so much as a general lack of intelligence.

Agnes Repplier

#16. That it should still be necessary, at this late stage in the senility of the human race to argue that women have a fine and fluent intelligence is surely an eloquent proof of the defective observation, incurable prejudice, and general imbecility of their lords and masters.

H.L. Mencken

#17. And, as a general rule, it is more advisable to show your intelligence by saying nothing than by speaking out; for silence is a matter of prudence whilst speech has something in it of vanity

Arthur Schopenhauer

#18. The fool generalizes the particular; the nerd particularizes the general; some do both; and the wise does neither

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

#19. The too perfect security of the Upper-worlders had led them to a slow movement of degeneration, a general dwindling in size strength and intelligence.

H.G.Wells

#20. You'll remember Dr. Rice said that several times: It was not a warning about the place and the method and the time - it was a general warning. And that points out the imperfection, if you would, of our intelligence.

Lee H. Hamilton

#21. The higher the general average of intelligence, all things else being equal, the less the disposition to be meddlesome, critical, and overbearing.

Paul Harris

#22. It cannot be denied that he has had many exceptional ideas, and that he is a highly intelligent man. For my part, however, I have always been taught to take a broad overview of things, in order to be able to deduce from them general rules, which might be applicable elsewhere.

Rene Descartes

#23. What is important to a relationship is a harmony of emotional roles and not too great a disparity in the general level of intelligence.

Mirra Komarovsky

#24. 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.

Sun Tzu

#25. The general plot of life is sometimes shaped by the different ways genuine intelligence combines with equally genuine ignorance.

Lucy Grealy

#26. An intelligence analyst may attribute an attack to al Qaeda, whereas a policy maker could opt for the more general 'extremist.'

Michael Hayden

#27. I believe that at the end of the century the use of words and general educated opinion will have altered so much that one will be able to speak of machines thinking without expecting to be contradicted.

Alan Turing

#28. The general intellectual level of South Florida is somewhere just above "functionally retarded".

Tucker Max

#29. The rub is that the pursuit of happiness, as an end in itself, tends automatically, and widely, to be replaced by the pursuit of pleasure with a consequent general softening of the fibers of will, intelligence, spirit.

Whittaker Chambers

#30. to secure as much of the advantages of centralised power and intelligence, as can be had without turning into governmental channels too great a proportion of the general activity, is one of the most difficult and complicated questions in the art of government.

John Stuart Mill

#31. So this general with the background in intelligence who is supposed to conquer Afghanistan can't even figure out what Rolling Stone is? We're not talking Guns & Ammo here; we're talking the antiwar hippie magazine.

Maureen Dowd

#32. 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.

Paul Bremer

#33. As a former attorney general. I have the greatest respect for the criminal justice system. But it is not good at intelligence gathering.

Kelly Ayotte