Top 150 Brainy Quotes

It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.

To every action there is always opposed an equal reaction.

It is quality rather than quantity that matters.

Clarity is the counterbalance of profound thoughts.

Others have seen what is and asked why. I have seen what could be and asked why not.

Be nice to people on your way up because you’ll meet them on your way down.

We are not permitted to choose the frame of our destiny. But what we put into it is ours.

You cannot step into the same river twice.

An education system suits some more than others. It can lead you out into life or lead you on a wild goose chase. It can help to make you miserable, or dull and nasty and insipid, or profoundly stupid in the special way that ‘brainy’ people can be.

Our knowledge is a little island in a great ocean of nonknowledge.

Many a man curses the rain that falls upon his head, and knows not that it brings abundance to drive away the hunger.

The final forming of a person’s character lies in their own hands.

Brainy’s the new sexy.

Thinking is more interesting than knowing, but less interesting than looking.

We do not judge the people we love.

I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand.

In the end, people are persuaded not by what we say, but by what they understand.

Memory is more indelible than ink.

Subtlety may deceive you; integrity never will.

We can learn something new anytime we believe we can.

I do not seek. I find.

At the end of the day, teachers aren’t going to mess about trying to make me into an Einstein, ’cause it was never gonna happen. We can’t all be brainy, can we? That’s just the way the world is.

A pure hand needs no glove to cover it.

You cannot push any one up a ladder unless he be willing to climb a little himself.

I was super brainy and a proper geek at school, but there would always be a boy. But that sort of obsession did turn me into a songwriter. My writing has always come from that feeling of infatuation.

The return we reap from generous actions is not always evident.

If you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always gotten.

Brainy folks were also present in Lyndon Johnson’s administration, especially in the Pentagon, where Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara’s brilliant ‘whiz kids’ tried to micro-manage the Vietnam war, with disastrous results.

There are three classes of people: those who see, those who see when they are shown, those who do not see.

Talent is a faculty that is highly developed, but genius commands all the faculties.

One of the greatest joys known to man is to take a flight into ignorance in search of knowledge.

Every man must decide for himself whether he shall master his world or be mastered by it.

Sometimes you can know too much. A lot of brainy people like Stephen Fry are quite depressive.

It is one thing to praise discipline, and another to submit to it.

You can’t be taught to be brainy. You’ve either got it or you don’t.

You exist only in what you do.

Talent works, genius creates.

There are things known and there are things unknown, and in between are the doors of perception.

The farther reason looks the greater is the haze in which it loses itself.

You’re either part of the solution or you’re part of the problem.

Nobody cares how much you know, until they know how much you care.

Mystery creates wonder and wonder is the basis of man’s desire to understand.

A man should look for what is, and not for what he thinks should be.

Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.

Unless we remember we cannot understand.

Patience and tenacity are worth more than twice their weight of cleverness.

The rung of a ladder was never meant to rest upon, but only to hold a man’s foot long enough to enable him to put the other somewhat higher.

We cannot teach people anything; we can only help them discover it within themselves.

Judge a man by his questions rather than his answers.

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

It isn’t the mountain ahead that wears you out; it’s the grain of sand in your shoe.

If not me, who? And if not now, when?

Ideals are the world’s masters.

There are no elements so diverse that they cannot be joined in the heart of a man.

The possible ranks higher than the actual.

A certain amount of opposition is a great help to a man. Kites rise against, not with, the wind.

Every moment is a golden one for him who has the vision to recognize it as such.

Great tranquility of heart is his who cares for neither praise nor blame.

We are all gifted. That is our inheritance.

Once we accept our limits, we go beyond them.

Our nature is the mind. And the mind is our nature.

To be is to do.

We have all the light we need, we just need to put it in practice.

All action results from thought, so it is thoughts that matter.

I have always thought the actions of men the best interpreters of their thoughts.

Rough diamonds may sometimes be mistaken for worthless pebbles.

‘I don’t need brains,’ says the billionaire contemptuously. ‘I’m brainy enough myself!’ The broker cries out in desperation, ‘What, in heaven’s name, do you want?’ ‘Goodness,’ is the answer.

Quality is never an accident. It is always the result of intelligent effort.

The universe is full of magical things, patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper.

It is easier to fight for one’s principles than to live up to them.

One can resist the invasion of an army but one cannot resist the invasion of ideas.

We see things as we are, not as they are.

The very essence of instinct is that it’s followed independently of reason.

The time is always right to do what is right.

A man doesn’t know what he knows until he knows what he doesn’t know.

Idealism increases in direct proportion to one’s distance from the problem.

Nothing endures but personal qualities.

Progress lies not in enhancing what is, but in advancing toward what will be.

The destiny of man is in his own soul.

What we do belongs to what we are; and what we are is what becomes of us.

Nothing is so good as it seems beforehand.

Men can starve from a lack of self-realization as much as they can from a lack of bread.

Yesterday’s home runs don’t win today’s games.

It is the set of the sails, not the direction of the wind that determines which way we will go.

We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.

To be is to be the value of a variable.

The place to improve the world is first in one’s own heart and head and hands.

God gives the nuts, but he does not crack them.

Well begun is half done.

Truth has no special time of its own. Its hour is now – always.

It’s not that I’m so smart, it’s just that I stay with problems longer.

It is not enough to have a good mind; the main thing is to use it well.

Nothing exists except atoms and empty space; everything else is opinion.

Everything that is beautiful and noble is the product of reason and calculation.

Believe and act as if it were impossible to fail.

When all else is lost, the future still remains.

The more refined and subtle our minds, the more vulnerable they are.

He who defends everything defends nothing.

A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep.

High achievement always takes place in the framework of high expectation.

People without firmness of character love to make up a fate for themselves; that relieves them of the necessity of having their own will and of taking responsibility for themselves.

There are three musts that hold us back: I must do well. You must treat me well. And the world must be easy.

Lend yourself to others, but give yourself to yourself.

What we plant in the soil of contemplation, we shall reap in the harvest of action.

The envious man grows lean at the success of his neighbor.

We should not moor a ship with one anchor, or our life with one hope.

If I am what I have and if I lose what I have who then am I?

The winds and the waves are always on the side of the ablest navigators.

Intellectuals solve problems, geniuses prevent them.

It is easy to get everything you want, provided you first learn to do without the things you cannot get.

The brainy class is made up of individuals who think for themselves and beyond formal education are continuous learners who tend to be self-taught.

What worries you, masters you.

True greatness consists in being great in little things.

Ill habits gather unseen degrees, as brooks make rivers, rivers run to seas.

Be intent upon the perfection of the present day.

Wit is the salt of conversation, not the food.

I think; therefore I am.

A fine quotation is a diamond in the hand of a man of wit and a pebble in the hand of a fool.

Do not let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do.

We don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are.

I believe things cannot make themselves impossible.

We adore chaos because we love to produce order.

We must be our own before we can be another’s.

A brainy person does not abuse copyright; instead they respect it and uphold it.

Talent does what it can; genius does what it must.

Never mistake motion for action.

You create your own reality.

The soul is placed in the body like a rough diamond, and must be polished, or the luster of it will never appear.

If kids and teenagers can get into a band, it’s probably not because they think it’s brainy.

No snowflake in an avalanche ever feels responsible.

Be sure your wisest words are those you do not say.

Write to be understood, speak to be heard, read to grow.

If you do not conquer self, you will be conquered by self.

Prosperity tries the fortunate, adversity the great.

The mind is like an iceberg, it floats with one-seventh of its bulk above water.

In wisdom gathered over time I have found that every experience is a form of exploration.

All wish to possess knowledge, but few, comparatively speaking, are willing to pay the price.

I’m reading a book, because I’m brainy. No, it is a book – if you don’t know, it is like a blog except bigger.

Pesticides came about after the first world war. Some brainy petrochemical money maker said, ‘Hey, that mustard gas worked great on people, maybe we could dilute it down and spray it on our crops to deal with pests.’

Be less curious about people and more curious about ideas.

We can believe what we choose. We are answerable for what we choose to believe.

The final forming of a person’s character lies in their own hands.

Tell me to what you pay attention and I will tell you who you are.

To work with the hands or brain, according to our requirements and our capacities, to do that which lies before us to do, is more honorable than rank and title.

If in doubt, don’t. If still in doubt, do what’s right.

The actions of men are the best interpreters of their thoughts.

We all have ability. The difference is how we use it.

None so deaf as those that will not hear. None so blind as those that will not see.

I like both athletic girls and girly girls. It depends on their personality. I like girls who can go out and play sports with me and throw the football around, but you don’t want a girl who’s too much tougher than you. I like brainy girls who can respond to what I’m saying.

Good order is the foundation of all things.