intelligence Quotes

What my father gave me more than anything else is great tutoring and a great brain, frankly. You know, my father's brother was a top person at MIT, went to MIT, graduated from MIT, was a teacher at MIT, a professor at MIT, a great engineer. I mean, you know, I have very good genes.

Our politicians are stupid. And the Mexican government is much smarter, much sharper, much more cunning. And they send the bad ones over because they don't want to pay for them. They don't want to take care of them. Why should they when the stupid leaders of the United States will do it for them?

I understand the military. I know the military.

I think that a failure of statistical thinking is the major intellectual shortcoming of our universities, journalism and intellectual culture.

It's likely that taboo words are stored in the right hemisphere of the brain. Massive left hemisphere strokes or the entire surgical removal of the left hemisphere can leave people with no articulate speech other than the ability to swear, spout cliches and song lyrics.

Jews are known for many things, but strength, swiftness, and agility are not among them. There is one trait, as controversial as it is familiar, for which Jews are above all known, and that is shrewdness in business.

Obviously no language is innate. Take any kid from any race, bring them up in any culture and they will learn the language equally quickly. So no particular language is in the genes. But what might be in the genes is the ability to acquire language.

Being smarter gives you a tailwind throughout life. People who are more intelligent earn more, live longer, get divorced less, are less likely to get addicted to alcohol and tobacco, and their children live longer.

The brain is not a bag of traits. It's startlingly complex. There are few or no single genes with a consistent effect on the mind.

I don't think there was a thunderclap or a divine spark that suddenly made one species smart. You can see, in our ancestors, there was a gradual expansion of the brain; there was an expansion of the complexity of tools.