Talent vs. Genius

Talent is like a marksman who hits a target which others cannot reach; genius is like the marksman who hits a target, as far as which others cannot even see.

— Arthur Schopenhauer, German philosopher


Aristotle on Thought

It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.

— Aristotle


Education

An education isn’t how much you have committed to memory, or even how much you know. It’s being able to differentiate between what you do know and what you don’t.

— Anatole France


Intelligent Mind

An intelligent mind is a mind which is not satisfied with explanations, with conclusions; nor is it a mind that believes, because belief is again another form of conclusion. An intelligent mind is an inquiring mind, a mind that is watching, learning, studying.

— Jiddu Krishnamurti


Intelligence

The best evidence for the existence of intelligent life in the universe lies in the fact that they have steadfastly refused to contact us.

– Richard Boyd

I saw this quote as a letter-to-the-editor in one of the San Francisco Bay Area papers several years ago. I love the twisted logic and the inherent presumptions that it contains. Some attempts at logical arguments for the existence of God share these logical fallacies.

I do not know who Richard Boyd is. At the time the newspaper simply indicated that he was from Berkeley. A quick Google search yields a philosophy professor at Cornell who previously taught at UC Berkeley. Could be. In any case, it is a delightful quote that I have repeated dozens of times.

Thank you Mr. Boyd.