Over 101 of the Best Brainy Quotes

We’ve put together a collection of over 101 brainy quotes about intelligence and creativity because if there’s one thing we can all agree on, it’s that intelligence is pretty darn awesome.

And if there are two things we can agree on, it’s that intelligence and creativity are even more awesome. In fact, the two often go hand in hand. We hope you’ll find them as inspiring as we do!

All the SMARTEST BRAINY QUOTES

1. “Do you know great minds enjoy excellence, average minds love mediocrity and small minds adore comfort zones?” ― Onyi Anyado
2. “Thousands of candles can be lighted from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared.” -Buddha
3. “There are only two great tragedies in life: one is not getting what you want and the other is getting it.” -Oscar Wilde
4. “Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is not to stop questioning.” -Albert Einstein
5. “Love takes off the masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within.” -James Baldwin
6. “Holding onto your anger is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die.” -Buddha
7. “Sometimes the questions are complicated, and the answers are simple.” -Dr. Seuss
8. “Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.”-Søren Kierkegaard
9. “What gets us into trouble is not what we don’t know. It’s what we know for sure that just ain’t so.” -Mark Twain
10. “It’s not that I’m so smart. It’s just that I stay with problems longer.” -Albert Einstein
11. “Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.” -Albert Einstein
12. “Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated.” -Confucius
13. “Knowing what must be done does away with fear.” -Rosa Parks
14. “When you walk in silence your excellence will always speak for you.” ― Onyi Anyado
15. “The two most important days of your life are the day that you’re born and the day that you find out why.” -Mark Twain
16. “Education is not the learning of the facts, but the training of the mind to think.” -Albert Einstein
17. “One of the things I’ve learned about vision is people will grab it mentally or, have a crab mentality.” ― Onyi Anyado
18. “In three words I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life: it goes on.” -Robert Frost
19. “​Belief is personal, Knowledge is Universal.” ― Abhijit Naskar
20. “I see who I am, and I am beyond who I was.” ― Steven Cuoco
21. “If a man’s wit be wandering, let him study the mathematics.” — Francis Bacon
22. “You deserve more in your life. Think big. Love more and share beyond your limits. You will then become limitless.” ― Steven Cuoco
23. “I like physics. I think it is the best science out of all three of them because generally, it’s more useful. You learn about speed and velocity and time, and that’s all clever stuff.” — Tom Felton
24. “I think I’m pretty smart. I think I’m pretty clever. But there’s a lot that you hone in on when you finish your education.” — Michelle Obama
25. “All deities are external manifestation of humanity’s internal divinity.” ― Abhijit Naskar
26. “As a writer, you get to play; you get alter time; you get to come up with the smart lines and the clever comebacks you wish you’d thought of.” — Iain Banks
27. “Reason is mechanical, wit chemical, and genius organic spirit.” — Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
28. “So vast is art, so narrow human wit.” — Alexander Pope
29. “My past is ahead of me because I am beyond my past.” ― Steven Cuoco
30. “The present moment is filled with joy and happiness. If you are attentive, you will see it.” -Thich Nhat Hanh
31. “A bird doesn’t sing because it has an answer, it sings because it has a song.” -Maya Angelou
32. “Throw your grain into the see and it will come back to you” ― Thabiso Monkoe
33. “Never stop acquiring the commonsense, it is as good as the knowledge.” ― Amit Kalantri
34. “We learn from experience that men never learn anything from experience.” -George Bernard Shaw
35. “God has blessed me with a penis, for what the fuck, I shall worry about someone’s penis, its usage and its performance” ― P.S. Jagadeesh Kuma
36. “Every man is a damn fool for at least five minutes every day; wisdom consists in not exceeding the limit.” -Elbert Hubbard
37. “Motivation doesn’t work unless your determination is up to the mark” ― Rafsan Al Musawver
38. “If you surrender to the wind, you can ride it.” -Toni Morrison
39. “We don’t see things the way they are. We see them the way we are.” -Talmud
40. “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” -Lao Tzu
41. “A life without a goal is like an unguided missile” ― Rafsan Al Musawver
42. “I always thought ‘Of Mice and Men’ was such a perfect book because there’s nothing not to understand, but it’s still really clever and moving and complicated, but everybody understands the complication.” — Nick Hornby
43. “All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make, the better.” -Ralph Waldo Emerson
44. “Be more concerned with your character than your reputation, because your character is what you really are, while your reputation is merely what others think you are.” -John Wooden
45. “Take a moment and sit with yourself. You may find what you are looking for.” ― Steven Cuoco
46. “Wit is the salt of conversation, not the food.” — William Hazlitt
47. “Wit is the sudden marriage of ideas which, before their union, were not perceived to have any relation.” — Mark Twain
48. “Being clever was when you looked at how things were and used the evidence to work out something new.” ― Mark Haddon
49. “I write because I don’t know what I think until I read what I say.” -Flannery O’Connor
50. “Learn from the mistakes of others. You can’t live long enough to make them all yourself.” -Eleanor Roosevelt
51. “The best connections are the ones who are like-minded and who value quality, integrity, truth, passion for life and the desire share-it-forward while leaving an unprecedented legacy in the world.” -Steven Cuoco”
52. “Many receive advice, only the wise profit from it.” -Harper Lee
53. “Wit is the epitaph of an emotion.” — Friedrich Nietzsche
54. “Wit is educated insolence.” — Aristotle
55. “Wit lies in recognizing the resemblance among things which differ and the difference between things which are alike.” — Madame de Stael
56. Don’t ever be depending on the rabbit’s foot for good luck when it obviously didn’t work for the rabbit.
57. “Reality exists in the human mind and nowhere else.” – George Orwell
58. “When someone asks a question, don’t assume they don’t know the answer. Clever people will always test you.” ― Wayne Gerard Trotman
59. “A wise man loves any kind of work, be it spiritual, physical or intellectual” – Sunday Adelaja 
60. “The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.” -F. Scott Fitzgerald
61. “A proverb is the wisdom of many and the wit of one.” — Lord John Russell
62. “A fine quotation is a diamond in the hand of a man of wit and a pebble in the hand of a fool.” — Joseph Roux
63. “Ask for a fish, and you only get one; ask for a net, and you can catch dozens.” ― Matshona Dhliwayo
64. “Wherever smart people work, doors are unlocked.” – Steve Wozniak 
65. “Life is a changing sequence of situations.If you do not change something, something will change you.” ― Ernest Agyemang Yeboah
66. “A wise bird does not lend even the smallest of its feathers to a hunter.” ― Matshona Dhliwayo
67. “The genius, wit, and the spirit of a nation are discovered by their proverbs.” — Francis Bacon
68. “The only freedom you truly have is in your mind, so use it.” – M.T. Dismuke 
69. “Ignore ignorance. The ultimate way to deal with men with ignorant mentality who are ignorance of your purpose on earth is to ignore their ignorance; capitalize on their ignorance and let them appreciate your purpose in awe and admiration” ― Ernest Agyemang Yeboah
70. “Tiptoeing on a tightrope past insider trading laws may be deft and clever, but it doesn’t make it right.” — Andrew Ross Sorkin
71. “You can’t have a goal without determination, because without the determination, the goal will die.” – Patrick L. Turner 
72. “Entrepreneur, become so disciplined that even your distractions become focused.” ― Onyi Anyado
73. “The world is divided into men who have wit and no religion and men who have religion and no wit.” — Avicenna
74. “Busy hands achieve more than idle tongues.” – Matshona Dhliwayo 
75. “It is better to have a clear cut enemy who hates you sincerely than a supposed loved one hates you but pretends to love you.” – Nurudeen Ushawu 
76. “when words make noise, silence can talk.” ― Ernest Agyemang Yeboah
77. “At twenty years of age, the will reigns; at thirty, the wit; and at forty, the judgment.” — Benjamin Franklin
78. “Much muscle, little mind, makes you strong but terribly blind” – Daren Martin 
79. “The call of distinction cannot be heard by the average, neither can the vision of distinction be seen by the eyes of the mediocre.” ― Onyi Anyado
80. “No government likes the clever and the honorable men, because it is impossible to bridle them; they are independent!” ― Mehmet Murat ildan
81. “If you want to find the secrets of the universe, think in terms of energy, frequency, and vibration.” – Nikola Tesla 
82. “In five minutes you should know if people have confirmed, calculated & considered your vision.” ― Onyi Anyado
83. “Wise people make trails and paths, clever walk on them – stupid people can’t decide.” ― Deyth Banger
84. “There are no limits in the universe of imagination.” – Steven Magee 
85. “Don’t let your ego surpass your reputation; that will lead to your downfall” – Cole Edward Willis
86. “the greatest clue to changing people is to know and understand what trigger change in people and effectively apply such things in wisdom.” ― Ernest Agyemang Yeboah
87. “You can tell whether a man is clever by his answers. You can tell whether a man is wise by his questions.” — Naguib Mahfouz
88. “A wise man will live as much within his wit as within his income.” — Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield
89. “Life is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced.” – Soren Kierkegaard 
90. “There exist no new mistakes anywhere. The same mistakes people committed are the same mistakes people are committing and the same mistakes shall people commit” ― Ernest Agyemang Yeboah
91. “Clever people master life; the wise illuminate it and create fresh difficulties.” — Emil Nolde
92. “It is a sad thing when men have neither the wit to speak well nor the judgment to hold their tongues.” — Jean de La Bruyère
93. “It is the province of knowledge to speak, and it is the privilege of wisdom to listen.” – Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. 
94. “Everyone has something to think about everyday, but it is not everyone who thinks about something everyday. And that is the difference” ― Ernest Agyemang Yeboah
95. “An intelligent mind who trusts nothing but the intelligence will eventually face problems which intelligence won’t solve.” ― Amit Kalantri
96. “Obviously, people want social calm, but if you do not let clever and ingenious people to participate, obviously there must be some dormant volcano that will erupt, sooner or later.” — Lech Walesa
97. “I think there is a basic comfort in clever people who know things.” — Hugh Laurie
98. “To be witty is not enough. One must possess sufficient wit to avoid having too much of it.” — Andre Maurois
99. “I appreciate simplicity, true beauty that lasts over time, and a little wit and eclecticism that make life more fun.” — Elliott Erwitt
100. “There is a certain majesty in simplicity which is far above all the quaintness of wit.” — Alexander Pope
101. “There are so many different kinds of stupidity, and cleverness is one of the worst.” ― Thomas Mann
102. “Intelligence is more important than strength, that is why earth is ruled by men and not by animals.” ― Amit Kalantri
103. “Cleverness isn’t always true nor is the truth always clever.” ― Criss Jami

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