Genius creates, and taste preserves. Taste is the good sense of genius; without taste, genius is only sublime folly.
There is nobody so irritating as somebody with less intelligence and more sense than we have.
He who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would suffice.
Man is the most intelligent of the animals – and the most silly.
Genius always finds itself a century too early.
Genius ain’t anything more than elegant common sense.
Every true genius is bound to be naive.
A person must have a certain amount of intelligent ignorance to get anywhere.
If little else, the brain is an educational toy.
There is no greater evidence of superior intelligence than to be surprised at nothing.
Ah! yes, I know: those who see me rarely trust my word: I must look too intelligent to keep it.
Mad, adj. Affected with a high degree of intellectual independence.
Intelligence is not a science.
A man of genius has a right to any mode of expression.
God has placed no limits to the exercise of the intellect he has given us, on this side of the grave.
When a thought takes one’s breath away, a grammar lesson seems an impertinence.
Ignorance is no excuse, it’s the real thing.
It is better to have a fair intellect that is well used than a powerful one that is idle.
Remember to be as smart as you are.
Man knows so much and does so little.
To be able to fill leisure intelligently is the last product of civilization.
Some ways of using our thinking are really inspiring. There are people who use their thinking to race cars. People use their thinking to build rockets to the moon. It’s all just a use of your thinking.
Intellectuals are too sentimental for me.
My success was not based so much on any great intelligence but on great common sense.
Genius is independent of situation.
