Quotes about Intellect

To learn is a natural pleasure, not confined to philosophers, but common to all men.

An unliterary man may be defined as one who reads books once only.

To read, write, and converse in due proportions, is, therefore, the business of a man of letters.

The only thing about a man that is a man is his mind.

Man by Nature desires to know.

A man with so large a brain must have something in it.

Wonder is the desire of knowledge.

The human mind may perceive truth only through thinking, as is clear from Augustine.

For this reason truth is defined by the conformity of intellect and thing; and hence to know this conformity is to know truth.

For there are some who have such a presumptuous opinion of their own ability that they deem themselves able to measure the nature of everything; I mean to say that, in their estimation, everything is true that seems to them so, and everything is false that does not. So that the human mind, therefore, might be freed from this presumption and come to a humble inquiry after truth, it was necessary that some things should be proposed to man by God that would completely surpass his intellect.

Objection 1: It seems that God does not know evil things. For the Philosopher (De Anima iii) says that the intellect which is not in potentiality does not know privation. But "evil is the privation of good," as Augustine says (Confess. iii, 7). Therefore, as the intellect of God is never in potentiality, but is always in act, as is clear from the foregoing (A[2] ), it seems that God does not know evil things.

A library is not a luxury but one of the necessities of life.