#intellect

Self-actualization is what educated existence is all about. For members of the educated class, life is one long graduate school. When they die, God meets them at the gates of heaven, totes up how many fields of self-expression they have mastered, and then hands them a divine diploma and lets them in. ↗

— David Brooks

#graduate-school #intellectualism #meritocracy #self-actualization #upper-class

One entered the world, Denis pursued, having ready-made ideas about everything. One had a philosophy and tried to make life fit into it. One should have lived first and then made one's philosophy to fit life...Life, facts, things were horribly complicated; ideas, even the most difficult of them, deceptively simple. In the world of ideas, everything was clear; in life all was obscure, embroiled. Was it surprising that one was miserable, horribly unhappy? ↗

— Aldous Huxley

#education #ideas #intellectualism #life #philosophy

You know, sometimes I don't understand what's wrong with us. This is just about the most creative and imaginative country on earth—and yet sometimes we just don't seem to have the gumption to exploit our intellectual property. We split the atom, and now we have to get French or Korean scientists to help us build nuclear power stations. We perfected the finest cars on earth—and now Rolls-Royce is in the hands of the Germans. Whatever we invent, from the jet engine to the internet, we find that someone else carts it off and makes a killing from it elsewhere. ↗

— Boris Johnson

#cars #france #germany #intellectual-property #internet

…excuse my enthusiasm or rather madness, for I am really drunk with intellectual vision whenever I take a pencil or graver into my hand. ↗

— William Blake

#enthusiasm #inspiration #intellectual #madness #inspirational

Ideas are the source of all things ↗

— Plato

#knowledge #life #philosophy #wisdom #life

Sometimes the hardest thing in life is to know which bridge to cross and which to burn ↗

— Bertrand Russell

#intellectual #reluctant #life

In the political jargon of those days, the word "intellectual" was an insult. It indicated someone who did not understand life and was cut off from the people. All the Communists who were hanged at the time by other Communists were awarded such abuse. Unlike those who had their feet solidly on the ground, they were said to float in the air. So it was fair, in a way, that as punishment the ground was permanently pulled out from under their feet, that they remained suspended a little above the floor. ↗

— Milan Kundera

#gallows-humour #hanged #insult #intellectual #life

She was no intellectual, but men were scrupulous about avoiding intellectual women unless they had the sense to keep it well hidden. ↗

— Margaret Way

#men #smart #women #men

...There, as the sacred mysteries tell us, the Seraphim, Cherubim and Thrones occupy the first places; but, unable to yield to them, and impatient of any second place, let us emulate their dignity and glory. And, if we will it, we shall be inferior to them in nothing. ↗

— Giovanni Pico della Mirandola

#motivational #religion #motivational

There is in every intellect a natural exigency for a true concept of God: we are born with the thirst to know and to see Him, and therefore it cannot be otherwise. ↗

— Thomas Merton

#intellect #knowledge #nature