Intellectualism quotes:

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Intellectualism came very late to America. That's why Americans are so proud of it. I found very few real intellectuals in America. But there are so many pseudo-intellectuals. -- Douglas Sirk
Give me rampant intellectualism as a coping mechanism. -- Chuck Palahniuk
Intellectualism, though by no means confined to doubters, is often the sole piety of the skeptic. -- Richard Hofstadter
Absurdity is the ecstasy of intellectualism. -- Criss Jami
Intellectualism is a poor master over passion -- Twe Stephens
Intellectual labor is a common technique for the avoidance of thinking. -- Peter Straub
Intellectualism' is the belief that our mind comes upon a world complete in itself, and has the duty of ascertaining its contents; but has no power of re-determining its character, for that is already given. -- William James
Anti-intellectualism has long been the anti-Semitism of the businessman. -- Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.
Reading is an activity subsequent to writing: more resigned, more civil, more intellectual. -- Jorge Luis Borges
England is perhaps the only great country whose intellectuals are ashamed of their own nationality. -- George Orwell
The stage is life, music, beautiful girls, legs, breasts, not talk or intellectualism or dried-up academics. -- Harold Clurman
Only here, because of the illusion of intellectualism, our society separates the validity of human expression. -- Joseph Jarman
The intellectual is, quite simply, a human being who has a pencil in his or her hand when reading a book. -- George Steiner
Systematic philosophical and practical anti-intellectualism such as we are witnessing appears to be something truly novel in the history of human culture. -- Johan Huizinga
On the heights it is warmer than people in the valley suppose, especially in winter. The thinker recognizes the full import of this simile. -- Friedrich Nietzsche
Give me lust, baby. Flash. Give me malice. Flash. Give me detached existentialist ennui. Flash. Give me rampant intellectualism as a coping mechanism. Flash. -- Chuck Palahniuk
It is always the task of the intellectual to "think otherwise." This is not just a perverse idiosyncrasy. It is an absolutely essential feature of a society. -- Harvey Cox
The intellectual is engage-he is pledged, committed, enlisted. What everyone else is willing to admit, namely that ideas and abstractions are of signal importance in human life, he imperatively feels. -- Richard Hofstadter
I think it is important for readers to know that it is possible to bring intellectualism and idealism to the White House and still be political enough to advance an agenda. -- A. Scott Berg
This mindless tolerance, which places observable scientific facts, subject to proof, on the same level as unprovable supernatural fantasy, has played a major role in the resurgence of both anti-intellectualism and anti-rationalism. -- Susan Jacoby
I have a morality. I don't know if it's the best morality. And I do like thinking. If people perceive that as a moral intellectualism, that's fine. That's up to them to decide. -- Stephen Colbert
In passing I draw attention to another English expression which often occurs in Dutch texts: "the real world". In Dutch - and I am afraid not in Dutch alone - its usage is almost always a symptom of a violent anti-intellectualism. -- Edsger Dijkstra
The displacement of the idea that facts and evidence matter by the idea that everything boils down to subjective interests and perspectives is - second only to American political campaigns - the most prominent and pernicious manifestation of anti-intellectualism in our time. -- Larry Laudan
There remains a degree of anti-black intellectualism in entertainment. Middle and upper-middle class blacks have often been portrayed as buffoons in popular culture; witness the characters of Carlton Banks on 'The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air' and Braxton P. Hartnabrig on 'The Jamie Foxx Show.' -- John Ridley
The whole foundation of Christianity is based on the idea that intellectualism is the work of the Devil. Remember the apple on the tree? Okay, it was the Tree of Knowledge. You eat this apple, you're going to be as smart as God. We can't have that. -- Frank Zappa
There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that "my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge. -- Isaac Asimov
The Cinderella of the church today is the prayer meeting. This handmaid of the Lord is unloved and unwooed because she is not dripping with the pearls of intellectualism, nor glamorous with the silks of philosophy; neither is she enchanting with the tiara of psychology. She wears the homespuns of sincerity and humility and so is not afraid to kneel! -- Leonard Ravenhill
My intellect was my greatest vanity. -- Dan Simmons
Intellectual despair is a subject for comedy. -- Marty Rubin
Philosophy is not a body of doctrine but an activity. -- Ludwig Wittgenstein
Wonder, as a quality of intellect, has fallen from favor. -- Lyanda Lynn Haupt
Some ideas are so stupid that only intellectuals believe them. -- George Orwell
Anti-intellectualism is one thing, but faith in wrongheaded pseudointellectualism is far worse. -- Jonathan Wilson
Which is better off, a lizard basking in the sun or a philosopher? -- Ursula K. Le Guin
Reading . . . is an activity subsequent to writing: more resigned, more civil, more intellectual. -- Jorge Luis Borges
There are some ideas so absurd that only an intellectual could believe them. -- George Orwell
An intellectual is a person who has discovered something more interesting than sex. -- Aldous Huxley
Find enjoyment and take pride in the intellectual pursuit of realizing your dreams. -- Ken Poirot
Don't believe those lies about intellectual people. They're only written to soothe the majority. -- E. M. Forster
I'd start to explain with the outward sheepish and inner pride of the nerd. -- Robert Lane Greene
All names disappear. Children should be taught that in elementary school. But we're afraid to teach them. -- Roberto Bolano
People do not like to think. If one thinks, one must reach conclusions. Conclusions are not always pleasant. -- Helen Keller
Intellectual discourse and investigation is admittedly great fun but only truly meaningful when conducted in the service of others. -- Sergio De La Pava
[...] rationalism is a form of intellectual bigotry which, in thinking about reality, tries to take it into account as little as possible. -- Jose Ortega y Gasset
Broadly put, philosophers think: politicians maneuver. Jefferson's genius was that he was both and could do both, often simultaneously. Such is the art of power. -- Jon Meacham
Prolonged travel in the alternate world of books can also make a reader more prone to fantasy thinking and estranged from his or her "real" life. -- Maureen Corrigan
A professional headshot in front of a bookshelf says you're an intellectual. A professional headshot peeking though a bookshelf says you're probably under a restraining order. -- Ryan Lilly
The tunnel under the wall of intellectual snobbery is the only way back to common sense reality, but most won't find it because it is beneath them. -- D.E. Navarro
Instead of feeling sorry for the exceptionally able student who has no one to talk to, we need to worry about what happens when the exceptionally able students hang out only with one another. -- Charles Murray
An Idea is nothing but Information, It won't do us any harm until we accept it as perception of truth in our mind, which in time will potentially evolve and construct major events in history. -- Djayawarman Alamprabu
The man of genius may dwell unknown, but one always may recognize the path he has followed into the forest. It was a giant who passed that way. The branches are broken at a height that other men cannot reach. -- Remy de Gourmont
Sounded to me like he had a pretty good idea what he was saying," Van replied, with surprisingly little anger. "It's a pity he had to overintellectualize like that. He did such good work, and then he had to go and intellectualize it. -- Jonathan Franzen
Part of the blame lies with intellectuals who are unable or unwilling to convey their ideas in terms that will play down to the cafe. But anyone who sits in that cafe and dismisses complexity by reveling in their own simplicity is no less pretentious. -- Michael Perry
Self-actualization is what educated existence is all about. For members of the educated class, life is one long graduate school. When they die, God meets them at the gates of heaven, totes up how many fields of self-expression they have mastered, and then hands them a divine diploma and lets them in. -- David Brooks
Enthralling! The mix of absurdism and intellectualism is perfect! -- Neil Genzlinger
The age of hairsplitting Jewish intellectualism is dead... The past lies in flames. -- Joseph Goebbels
It is debatable which is causing us more harm - hot-headed ignorance or cold-hearted intellectualism. -- Vance Havner
One must never underestimate the profound bigotry and anti-intellectualism and intolerance and illiberality of liberalism. -- Richard John Neuhaus
Anti-intellectualism is a disposition to discount the importance of truth and the life of the mind. -- Os Guinness
I agree, intellectualism in photography is overrated. I just wish it could be replaced by common sense. -- Bill Jay
You won't find God at the Seminary and you won't find wisdom in the halls of intellectualism. -- Charles R. Swindoll
I think that plain old intellectualism [can be] a more powerful force than the idea of the femme fatale. -- Lana Del Rey
Anti-intellectualism has spawned an irrelevant gospel. Today, we share the gospel primarily as a means of addressing felt needs. -- J.P. Moreland
Anti-intellectualism remains strongly entrenched in many parts of the church, but it is grounded in fear, not in faith. (p. 19) -- Robin R. Meyers
I inherited that penchant for intellectualism, a character flaw that these days can only be thoroughly eradicated by getting Z'ed up. -- John Green
I'm tired of ignorance held up as inspiration, where vicious anti-intellectualism is considered a positive trait, and where uninformed opinion is displayed as fact. -- Phil Plait
Americans are in serious intellectual trouble - in danger of losing our hard-won cultural capital to a virulent mixture of anti-intellectualism, anti-rationalism and low expectations. -- Susan Jacoby
I like, as a director and a spectator, simple, direct, frank films. Nothing disgusts me more than snobbism, mannerism, technical gratuity... and, most of all, intellectualism. -- John Ford
Spirituality authors, who are generally forgiving of most human foibles ... take a hard line on intellectualism.... Skepticism they view with contempt, as the refuge of the unenlightened. -- Wendy Kaminer
I searched through rebellion, drugs, diet, mysticism, religion, intellectualism and much more, only to begin to find that truth is basically simple and feels good, clear and right. -- Chick Corea
Cynicism and skepticism are the crudest form of quasi-intellectualism... Let the cynic become cynical of his cynicism and the skeptic skeptical of his skepticism and join the battle. -- R. C. Sproul
I asked many friends if Australian anti-intellectualism was still a living force and they all told me it was. If you are above average intelligence, hide this embarrassing fact. -- George Mikes
I think the anti-intellectualism of a lot of contemporary fiction is a kind of despairing of literature's ability to be anything more than perfectly bound blog posts or transcribed sitcoms. -- Ben Lerner
Let's face it: every campus has its share of students who can't quite comprehend that extreme political correctness is often born of the same intolerance and anti-intellectualism as standard-issue bigotry. -- Meghan Daum
There's a lot of anti-intellectualism in Britain. And the writer's views on this or that are really of less importance, as they see it, than that of the man in the street. -- Martin Amis
Intellectuals that approach me, only serve to feeding my intellectualism. Imaginists that approach me, only serve to enhancing my Imaginism. It's impossible to feed my I, for I am the Greatest 'I AM. -- Lionel Suggs

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