All Quotes By Tag: Intelligence

“Store up knowledge. Then question your own knowledge in order to expand your mind, both to build and to create more space. Then store up more knowledge. And so on. That is wisdom.”

“Perfect understanding of the infinite requires limitless intellectual capacity; our undivided attention is better suited for humbler aspirations.”

“I went to interview a man with a high reputation for wisdom, because I felt that here if anywhere I should succeed in disproving the oracle and pointing out to my divine authority ‘You said that I was the wisest of men, but here is a man who is wiser than I am.’ Well, I gave a thorough examination to this person… and in conversation with him I formed the impression that although in many people’s opinion, and especially in his own, he appeared to be wise, in fact he was not. Then when I began to try to show him that he only thought he was wise and was not really so, my efforts were resented both by him and by many of the other people present. However, I reflected as I walked away: ‘Well, I am certainly wiser than this man. It is only too likely that neither of us has any knowledge to boast of; but he thinks that he knows something which he does not know, whereas I am quite conscious of my ignorance. At any rate it seems that I am wiser than he is to this small extent, that I do not think that I know what I do not know… [A]s I pursued my investigation at the god’s command,… my honest impression was… that the people with the greatest reputations were almost entirely deficient, while others who were supposed to be their inferiors were much better qualified in practical intelligence.”

“I was well-read but perhaps that only made me stupid.”

“Diligence without intelligence is tragedy, not success.”

“I hope the field of computer science never loses its sense of fun. … What you know about computing other people will learn. Don’t feel as if the key to successful computing is only in your hands. What’s in your hands I think and hope is intelligence: the ability to see the machine as more than when you were first led up to it, that you can make it more.”

“Education wouldn’t stop you from passing over opportunities repeatedly. You can be educated and still be poor. It’s only your ‘true intelligence’ that would make you face one single cause until you succeed. You have no idea of what’s gonna happen next, so you gotta open your eyes wide to see. Life is all about ‘improvisation’ and not those sacred certificates.”

“From kindergarten to the valedictory address, schools grade, rank, and label their best performers. The top high school student wins the first major life contest, a competition in which most members of society participate. Following high school, victors enter subsequent contests at an advantage. The race is never restarted.”

“To be number one is to be publicly labeled a winner in the system that counts – a system of advancement through personal merit and effort in rugged competition. Labels of success – Rhodes scholar, Nobel laureate, Heisman Trophy winner – follow a person through life and define him or her to the public. One such label, valedictorian, marks academic winners. Schools in the United States have at least one common belief: high academic achievement is a good thing.”

“The stories of successful channels, stifling ruts, and missed paths all point to the same conclusion: the successful passage from school to postschool achievement requires an interpersonal process of increasing self-understanding, career socialization, and tacit knowledge.”

“For minority students, as for women and working-class white valedictorians, superior college grades did not lead smoothly to high-level satisfying work.”

“Male valedictorians attended Harvard, Yale, Princeton, MIT, and Stanford. Only one woman chose an Ivy League university-Cornell.”

“Women—and only women—lowered their intellectual self-esteem between high school graduation and sophomore year of college.”

“For academically talented women, in contrast, school success does not guarantee occupational success. Even the best female college students need people who will support them, encourage them, and – most important—who will connect them to opportunities.”

“Outstanding students of color arrived on campus without the web of white middle-class family and school structures that provided Anglo students with practical knowledge in such areas as college choice strategies and career planning.”