Human Intelligence Quotes:

Creativity is the greatest gift of human intelligence.

- Ken Robinson

source: FaceBook post by SirKenRobinson from Jul 19, 2012

topic: Creativity, Humans, Human Intelligence

The development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race.

- Stephen Hawking

topic: Race, Development, Ends, Human Intelligence

Within thirty years, we will have the technological means to create superhuman intelligence. Shortly after, the human era will be ended.

- Vernor Vinge

source: "The Coming Technological Singularity: How to Survive in the Post-Human Era". Vernor Vinge's remarks presented at the VISION-21 Symposium sponsored by NASA Lewis Research Center and the Ohio Aerospace Institute, edoras.sdsu.edu. March 30-31, 1993.

topic: Mean, Years, Eras, Singularity, Superhuman

There is a real danger that computers will develop intelligence and take over. We urgently need to develop direct connections to the brain so that computers can add to human intelligence rather than be in opposition.

- Stephen Hawking

topic: Real, Brain, Connections, Genetic Engineering, Human Intelligence

There are no great limits to growth because there are no limits of human intelligence, imagination, and wonder.

- Ronald Reagan

topic: Business, Patriotic, Intelligence Services, Economic Growth, Business Growth

It may be beyond the limits of human intelligence to understand how human intelligence works.

- Noam Chomsky

topic: May, Limits, Humans, Human Intelligence

Human intelligence is richer and more dynamic than we have been led to believe by formal academic education.

- Ken Robinson

topic: Educational, Believe, Academic, Intelligence And Education, Academic Education

Intelligence.  Nothing has caused the human race so much trouble as intelligence.

- Thelma Ritter

source: "Fictional character: Stella". "Rear Window", 1954.

topic: Rear Window, Human Intelligence

It is impossible to underrate human intelligence - beginning with one's own.

- Henry Adams

source: Henry Adams, Jacob Clavner Levenson (1989). “1903-1916”

topic: Intelligence, Impossible, Humans, Human Intelligence

Human intelligence is a reflection of the intelligence that produces everything. In knowing, we are simply extending the intelligence that comes to and constitutes us. We mimic the mind of God, so to speak. Or better, we continue and extend it.

- Huston Smith

source: Huston Smith, Jeffery Paine (2012). “The Huston Smith Reader”, p.43, Univ of California Press

topic: Reflection, Knowing, Mind, Human Intelligence

The techniques of artificial intelligence are to the mind what bureaucracy is to human social interaction.

- Terry Winograd

source: "Thinking Machines: Can there be? Are we?". Book by Terry Winograd, 1990.

topic: Mind, Technique, Social, Human Intelligence

Human folk are as a matter of fact eager to find intelligence in animals.

- Edward Thorndike

source: Edward Lee Thorndike (1898). “Animal Intelligence: An Experimental Study of the Associative Processes in Animals”

topic: Animal, Matter, Facts, Human Intelligence

Human intelligence may not be the best trick nature has to offer.

- Bryant H. McGill

topic: May, Being The Best, Tricks, Human Intelligence

Advertising: the science of arresting the human intelligence long enough to get money from it.

- Stephen Leacock

source: Stephen Leacock, Gerald Lynch (2002). “Leacock on Life”, p.29, University of Toronto Press

topic: Money, Fear, Long, Military Intelligence, Advertisement Negative

The object of pure Physic[s] is the unfolding of the laws of the intelligible world; the object of pure Mathematic[s] that of unfolding the laws of human intelligence.

- James Joseph Sylvester

source: "Memorabilia Mathematica". Book by Robert Edouard Moritz, 1914.

topic: Law, World, Physics, Human Intelligence

If you have peace of mind, when you meet with problems and difficulties they won’t disturb your inner peace. You’ll be able to employ your human intelligence more effectively. But, if your mental state is disturbed, full of emotion, it is very difficult to cope with problems, because the mind that is full of emotion is biased, unable to see reality. So whatever you do will be unrealistic and naturally fail.

- Dalai Lama

topic: Disturbance, Human Intelligence

The highest ideals are human intelligence, creativity and love. Respect these above all.

- Penn Jillette

source: Penn Jillette (2012). “God, No!: Signs You May Already Be an Atheist and Other Magical Tales”, p.1, Simon and Schuster

topic: Creativity, And Love, Idealism, Love Respect, Human Intelligence

A calm mind helps our human intelligence to assess the situation realistically.

- Dalai Lama

topic: Calm Mind, Human Intelligence

Human intelligence was more trouble than it was worth. It was more destructive than creative, more confusing than revealing, more discouraging than satisfying, more spiteful than charitable.

- Michael Crichton

source: Michael Crichton (2012). “The Andromeda Strain”, p.194, Vintage

topic: Creative, Confusing, Trouble, Human Intelligence

What AI could do is essentially be a power tool that magnifies human intelligence and gives us the ability to move our civilization forward. It might be curing disease, it might be eliminating poverty. Certainly it should include preventing environmental catastrophe. If AI could be instrumental to all those things, then I would feel it was worthwhile.

- Stuart J. Russell

topic: Moving, Civilization, Giving, Power Tools, Human Intelligence

We live in worlds that we have forged and composed. It's much more true than any of the species that you see. I mean, it seems to me that one of the most distinctive features of human intelligence is the capacity to imagine, to project out of our own immediate circumstances and to bring to mind things that aren't present here and now.

- Ken Robinson

source: "TED and Reddit asked Sir Ken Robinson anything — and he answered". blog.ted.com. August 12, 2009.

topic: Mean, Mind, World, Human Intelligence

Everything that civilisation has to offer is a product of human intelligence; we cannot predict what we might achieve when this intelligence is magnified by the tools that AI may provide, but the eradication of war, disease, and poverty would be high on anyone's list. Success in creating AI would be the biggest event in human history. Unfortunately, it might also be the last.

- Stephen Hawking

source: "Stephen Hawking: 'Transcendence looks at the implications of artificial intelligence - but are we taking AI seriously enough?'". www.independent.co.uk. May 1, 2014.

topic: War, Creating, Events, Civilisation, Human Intelligence

When we are angry we are blind to reality. Anger may bring us a temporary burst of energy, but that energy is blind and it blocks the part of our brain that distinguishes right from wrong. To deal with our problems, we need to be practical and realistic. If we are to be realistic, we need to use our human intelligence properly, which means we need a calm mind.

- Dalai Lama

topic: Block, Mean, Reality, Calm Mind, Practicality

Everything which is, is thought, but not conscious and individual thought. The human intelligence is but the consciousness of being. It is what I have formulated before: Everything is a symbol of a symbol, and a symbol of what? Of mind.

- Henri Frederic Amiel

source: Entry for December 30, 1850, "The Journal Intime of Henri-Frédéric Amiel", Book by Henri-Frédéric Amiel, translated by Mary Augusta Ward, 1882.

topic: Mind, Consciousness, Individual, Human Intelligence

The intelligence displayed by many dumb animals approaches so closely to human intelligence that it is a mystery. The animals see and hear and love and fear and suffer. They use their organs far more faithfully than many human beings use theirs. They manifest sympathy and tenderness toward their companions in suffering. Many animals show an affection for those who have charge of them, far superior to the affection shown by some of the human race. They form attachments for man which are not broken without great suffering to them.

- Ellen G. White

source: Ellen G. White (2013). “Ellen G. White Miscellaneous Periodical Articles - Book III of III”, p.305, Lulu Press, Inc

topic: Men, Animal, Race, Human Intelligence

Everything that we think God has in his mind necessarily proceeds from our own mind; it is what we imagine to be in God's mind, and it is really difficult for human intelligence to guess at a divine intelligence. What we usually end up with by this sort of reasoning is to make God the color-sergeant of our army and to make Him as chauvinistic as ourselves.

- Lin Yutang

source: Lin Yutang (1937). “The Importance of Living”

topic: Army, Thinking, Color, Human Intelligence

'Why do you think it is...', I asked Dr. Cook ... 'that brain surgery, above all else-even rocket science-gets singled out as the most challenging of human feats, the one demanding the utmost of human intelligence?' [Dr. Cook answered,] 'No margin for error.'

- Michael J. Fox

topic: Science, Thinking, Errors, Brain Surgery, Rocket Science

In the 1990s, human intelligence gathering was seriously neglected.

- Todd Akin

topic: Gathering, Neglect, Neglected, Intelligence Gathering, Human Intelligence

The 'stream' we call science always flows forward; sometimes reactionary beavers block its flow, but the stream is never defeated by this; it accumulates, gathers strength; its waters get over the barrage and continue on their course. The advancement of science is the advancement of God, for science is nothing but human intelligence, and human intelligence is the most valuable treasure God has bequeathed us.

- Mehmet Murat Ildan

topic: Block, Science, Water, Beavers, Advancement Of Science

The obstacles to peace are in the minds and hearts of men. In the study of matter we can be honest, impartial, true. That is why we succeed in dealing with it. But about the things we care for — which are ourselves, our desires and lusts, our patriotisms and hates — we find a harder test of thinking straight and truly. Yet there is the greater need. Only by intellectual rectitude and in that field shall we be saved. There is no refuge but in truth, in human intelligence, in the unconquerable mind of man.

- Norman Angell

source: Nobel Lecture, www.nobelprize.org. June 12, 1935.

topic: Hate, Heart, Men, Dealing With It, Rectitude

It may well happen that what is in itself the more certain on account of the weakness of our intelligence, which is dazzled by the clearest objects of nature; as the owl is dazzled by the light of the sun. Hence the fact that some happen to doubt about articles of faith is not due to the uncertain nature of the truths, but to the weakness of human intelligence; yet the slenderest knowledge that may be obtained of the highest things is more desirable than the most certain knowledge obtained of lesser things.

- Thomas Aquinas

source: Saint Thomas Aquinas, Catholic Way Publishing (2014). “The Summa Theologica: Complete Edition”, p.59, Catholic Way Publishing

topic: Christian, Light, Doubt, Certain Knowledge, Human Intelligence

Hard labour to succeed in the world? Hard labour no, no, human constitution, human physiology, human intelligence is made of infinite creative potential of Natural Law and therefore no-one has to work hard for success.

- Maharishi Mahesh Yogi

topic: Hard Work, Law, Creative, Human Intelligence

By the mid-1990s the number of people with some experience of using computers was many orders of magnitude greater than in the 1960s. In the Kasparov defeat they recognized that here was a great triumph for programmers, but not one that may compete with the human intelligence that helps us to lead our lives.

- Igor Aleksander

source: "How to Build a Mind". Book by Igor Aleksander, www.huffingtonpost.com. 2000.

topic: Order, Numbers, People, Human Intelligence

LAOCOON, n. A famous piece of antique scripture representing a priest of that name and his two sons in the folds of two enormous serpents. The skill and diligence with which the old man and lads support the serpents and keep them up to their work have been justly regarded as one of the noblest artistic illustrations of the mastery of human intelligence over brute inertia.

- Ambrose Bierce

topic: Son, Men, Illustration, Human Intelligence

There is no human feeling to the US securities markets and sometimes no discernible evidence of human intelligence either. But they work.

- Robert J. Eaton

topic: Business, Feelings, Sometimes, Human Intelligence

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

topic: Years, Community, Today, Intelligence Community, Degeneration

The game of science can accurately be described as a never-ending insult to human intelligence.

- Joao Magueijo

source: João Magueijo (2004). “Faster Than the Speed of Light: The Story of a Scientific Speculation”, Penguin Group USA

topic: Games, Insult, Humans, Human Intelligence

A top geneticist at Stanford says human intelligence is declining. You know what that means? We are seeing Congress at its smartest and most effective right now.

- Jay Leno

topic: Mean, Congress, Stanford, Human Intelligence

The thing that obsesses me more than anything is waste - the waste of human intelligence and creativity.

- Brian Eno

topic: Creativity, Waste, Humans, Human Intelligence

There is a limit to human intelligence, but there is no limit to human stupidity

- Piero Scaruffi

topic: Inspirational, Stupidity, Limits, Human Intelligence, Human Stupidity

With genetic engineering, we will be able to increase the complexity of our DNA, and improve the human race. But it will be a slow process, because one will have to wait about 18 years to see the effect of changes to the genetic code.

- Stephen Hawking

topic: Race, Dna, Engineering, Genetic Engineering, Human Intelligence

She hung up and I set out the chess board. I filled a pipe, paraded the chessmen and inspected them for French shaves and loose buttons, and played a championship tournament game between Gortchakoff and Meninkin, seventy-two moves to a draw, a prize specimen of the irresistible force meeting the immovable object, a battle without armour, a war without blood, and as elaborate a waste of human intelligence as you could find anywhere outside an advertising agency.

- Raymond Chandler

topic: War, Moving, Agency, Armour, Irresistible Force

The intelligence of the lower forms of animal life, like a great deal of human intelligence, does not involve a self.

- George H. Mead

topic: Animal, Self, Doe, Human Intelligence

The information that the intelligence people used was a combination of satellite information, signals intelligence, and human intelligence. We are not sure to what extent Saddam [Hussein] was trying to convey an incorrect picture to us.

- Colin Powell

source: Source: www.egonzehnder.com

topic: People, Trying, Hussein, Human Intelligence

We took out the safe haven in Afghanistan, but now there is, undoubtedly, a larger safe haven and we must rise to this occasion in collaboration and with alliances to confront it, and invest in the future much better human intelligence so we know what the next steps are.

- Martin O'Malley

topic: Safe Haven, Next Steps, Collaboration, Human Intelligence

Seek to have your life in God, not in things, not in people, not in places, not in circumstances, not in arguments, not in human intelligence, but in God.

- Theodore Austin-Sparks

topic: People, Argument, Circumstances, Human Intelligence

Our failure was that our intelligence community thought [Saddam Hussein ] had stockpiled weapons of mass destruction. That was a mistake. There is fallibility in human intelligence and in human decisions.

- Colin Powell

source: Source: www.egonzehnder.com

topic: Mistake, Mass Destruction, Community, Intelligence Community, Fallibility

Nothing is truly unnatural, because everything that exists, including human intelligence, is a product of nature. If human intelligence can devise ways for the genes from two men to result in a child, their doing so is an entirely natural event.

- A.C. Grayling

source: A.C. Grayling (2010). “The Reason of Things: Living with Philosophy”, p.150, Hachette UK

topic: Children, Men, Two, Human Intelligence

The object of pure Mathematic (is) that of unfolding the laws of human intelligence.

- James Joseph Sylvester

topic: Law, Unfolding, Humans, Human Intelligence

Suppose there are some things that we don't understand about the universe, but if you understand human intelligence and you understand the gaps in our abilities to think about things, maybe we can engineer in a computer more advanced intelligences that can help augment our ability to think.

- Edward Boyden

source: Source: www.huffingtonpost.com

topic: Thinking, Gaps, Helping, Human Intelligence