130 Quotations Found

I dream of a world where the truth is what shapes people’s politics, rather than politics shaping what people think is true.

Author: Neil deGrasse Tyson | Subjects: Concepts, Intelligence | Knowledge, Politics & Public Policy

Knowledge and ability are tools, not things to show off.

Author: Haruki Murakami | Subjects: Ability | Skill, Concepts, Intelligence | Knowledge, Personal Improvement, Psychology | Behavior

The person who says he knows what he thinks but cannot express it usually does not know what he thinks.

Author: Mortimer Adler | Source: Farnam Street | Subjects: Concepts, Education | Scholarship, Intelligence | Knowledge, Personal Improvement, Thought | Inquiry

When you write out an idea from start to finish in simple language that a child can understand (tip: use only the most common words), you force yourself to understand the concept at a deeper level and simplify relationships and connections between ideas. If you struggle, you have a clear understanding of where you have some gaps. That tension is good–it heralds an opportunity to … [ Read more ]

Author: Shane Parrish | Source: Farnam Street | Subjects: Concepts, Education | Scholarship, Intelligence | Knowledge, Personal Improvement

Genius, that power which dazzles mortal eyes, is oft but perseverance in disguise.

Author: Orison Swett Marden | Subjects: Concepts, Intelligence | Knowledge, Personal Improvement

What is an exaggeration to one class of minds and perceptions, is plain truth to another.

Author: Charles Dickens | Subjects: Concepts, Education | Scholarship, Facts | Bias, Information, Intelligence | Knowledge

When we look at a representation of reality, we can choose to either see it as descriptive or as prescriptive. Descriptions teach us, but they also give us room to innovate. Prescriptions can get us stuck.

Author: Shane Parrish | Source: Farnam Street | Subjects: Concepts, Education | Scholarship, Intelligence | Knowledge, Personal Improvement

In all affairs it’s a healthy thing now and then to hang a question mark on the things you have long taken for granted.

Author: Bertrand Russell | Subjects: Concepts, Education | Scholarship, Intelligence | Knowledge, Personal Improvement

One of the painful things about our time is that those who feel certainty are stupid, and those with any imagination and understanding are filled with doubt and indecision.

Author: Bertrand Russell | Subjects: Concepts, Intelligence | Knowledge, Personal Improvement

Knowledge is good and ignorance is evil: to this principle the lover of the world can admit no exception. Nor is it power in and for itself that is the source of danger. What is dangerous is power wielded for the sake of power, not power wielded for the sake of genuine good.

Author: Bertrand Russell | Subjects: Concepts, Insight, Intelligence | Knowledge, Life & Society, Power

We may seek knowledge of an object because we love the object or because we wish to have power over it. The former impulse leads to the kind of knowledge that is contemplative, the latter to the kind that is practical.

Author: Bertrand Russell | Subjects: Concepts, Education | Scholarship, Intelligence | Knowledge, Personal Improvement

The good life is one inspired by love and guided by knowledge. Neither love without knowledge, nor knowledge without love can produce a good life.

Author: Bertrand Russell | Subjects: Concepts, Intelligence | Knowledge, Life & Society, Love, Personal Improvement

No thief, however skillful, can rob one of knowledge, and that is why knowledge is the best and safest treasure to acquire.

Author: L. Frank Baum | Subjects: Communication, Intelligence | Knowledge

Talent is like the marksman who hits a target which others cannot reach; genius is like the marksman who hits a target […] which others cannot even see.

Author: Arthur Schopenhauer | Subjects: Ability | Skill, Concepts, Intelligence | Knowledge, Personal Improvement, Psychology | Behavior

Truths are illusions which we have forgotten are illusions — they are metaphors that have become worn out and have been drained of sensuous force, coins which have lost their embossing and are now considered as metal and no longer as coins.

Author: Friedrich Nietzsche | Subjects: Concepts, Education | Scholarship, Intelligence | Knowledge

For every two people who offered a rational and informed reason for why they were supporting Biden or Trump, there was another–almost always a Trump supporter–who offered an explanation divorced from reality. You could call this persistent style of untethered reasoning “unlogic.” Unlogic is not ignorance or stupidity; it is reason distorted by suspicion and misinformation, an Orwellian state of mind that arranges itself around … [ Read more ]

Author: Charlotte Alter | Source: Time | Subjects: Concepts, Intelligence | Knowledge, Politics & Public Policy, Thought | Inquiry

Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies.

Author: Friedrich Nietzsche | Subjects: Concepts, Education | Scholarship, Intelligence | Knowledge, Perception | Observation, Thought | Inquiry

One thing a person cannot do, no matter how rigorous his analysis or heroic his imagination, is to draw up a list of things that would never occur to him.

Author: Thomas Schelling | Subjects: Concepts, Intelligence | Knowledge, Life & Society, Miscellaneous, Perception | Observation

Human intelligence is incredibly useful but it doesn’t safeguard you against having false beliefs, because that’s not what intelligence is for. Intelligence is associated with coming up with more convincing bullshit and with being a better liar, but not associated with a better ability to recognize one’s own bias. Unfortunately, intelligence has very little influence on your ability to rationally evaluate your own beliefs, or … [ Read more ]

Author: Diana Fleischman | Source: Nautilus | Subjects: Concepts, Education | Scholarship, Intelligence | Knowledge, Personal Improvement

I have always believed, and I still believe, that whatever good or bad fortune may come our way we can always give it meaning and transform it into something of value.

Author: Hermann Hesse | Subjects: Concepts, Education | Scholarship, Intelligence | Knowledge, Personal Improvement, Wisdom