A Quote by Isaac Asimov

Intelligence is a valuable thing, but it is not usually the key to survival. Sheer fecundity ... usually counts. The intelligent gorilla doesn't do as well as the less intelligent but more-fecund rat, which doesn't do as well as the still-less-intelligent but still-more-fecund cockroach, which doesn't do as well as the minimally-intelligent but maximally-fecund bacterium.

Isaac Asimov

Quote Topics

Counts Gorilla Intelligence Intelligent Key Less More Rat Sheer Still Survival Thing Valuable Valuable Thing Well Which

Quote Author

Isaac Asimov
American - Scientist
January 2, 1920 - April 6, 1992

Do we leave it to individuals to decide that they are the intelligent ones who should have more kids? And more troublesome, what about the less intelligent, who logically should have less? Who is going to break the bad news [to less intelligent individuals], and how will it be implemented?

John Tanton

My friends, I tell you repeatedly that the illusion that Life creates is very, very intelligent. The illusion itself is intelligent! Just understand how intelligent the intelligence must be in order to create an intelligent illusion. The intelligent illusion is so intelligent it will appear real to man every moment of his daily life!

Rajneesh

People generally treat me like I'm very intelligent and really, I'm much less intelligent than she is. Scully is insanely intelligent.

Gillian Anderson

...at the time, King Herbert felt that to remain safe, the kingdom needed an effective intelligence force." "An intelligent force?" said Will. "Not intelligent. Intelligence. Although it does help if your intelligence force was also intelligent.

John Flanagan

First, you have to be intelligent. I have never met a successful director who isn't intelligent. A director who is not intelligent might have one hit picture, but he won't be able to follow it up. So I look for intelligence.

Roger Corman

Is an animal less or more intelligent because it lives without clothes, central heating, and well, atom bombs ?

Jim Nollman

Intelligence is an interesting word. It is also something which, in my opinion, is misunderstood by many people. There are those who believe that we go to school to become intelligent. Or, the more experience a person has on a particular job, the more intelligent they become. This notion is not so. All knowledge is one hundred percent evenly present in all places, at all times. Aware is what you and I want to become. The more aware we become of this truth about intelligence, the better off we will be.

Bob Proctor

The most important thing is to know how to awaken in the still undeveloped masses an intelligent attitude towards religious questions and an intelligent criticism of religions.

Vladimir Lenin

I imagine that the intelligent people are the ones so intelligent that they don't even need or want to look 'intelligent' anymore.

Criss Jami

The difference between ignorant and educated people is that the latter know more facts. But that has nothing to do with whether they are stupid or intelligent. The difference between stupid and intelligent people-and this is true whether or not they are well-educated-is that intelligent people can handle subtlety. They are not baffled by ambiguous or even contradictory situations-in fact, they expect them and are apt to become suspicious when things seem overly straightforward.

Michael Moore

It is interesting that amongst children of preschool age, the more intelligent ones tend to sleep less than the dull ones. After the age of seven this relationship is reversed, the more intelligent schoolchildren sleeping more than the dull ones.

Desmond Morris

The difference between stupid and intelligent people - and this is true whether or not they are well-educated - is that intelligent people can handle subtlety.

Neal Stephenson

The best of America drifts to Paris. The American in Paris is the best American. It is more fun for an intelligent person to live in an intelligent country. France has the only two things toward which we drift as we grow older—intelligence and good manners.

F. Scott Fitzgerald

But many intelligent people have a sort of bug: they think intelligence is an end in itself. They have one idea in mind: to be intelligent, which is really stupid. And when intelligence takes itself for its own goal, it operates very strangely: the proof that it exists is not to be found in the ingenuity or simplicity of what it produces, but in how obscurely it is expressed.

Muriel Barbery

I haven't seen much correlation between good trading and intelligence. Some outstanding traders are quite intelligent, but a few aren't. Many outstanding intelligent people are horrible traders. Average intelligence is enough. Beyond that, emotional makeup is more important.