| The Columbia World of Quotations. 1996. |
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| NUMBER: | 28697 |
| QUOTATION: | Intelligence is an excellence of mind that is employed within a fairly narrow, immediate and predictable range; it is a manipulative, adjustive, unfailingly practical quality—one of the most eminent and endearing of the animal virtues. Intelligence works within the framework of limited but clearly stated goals, and may be quick to shear away questions of thought that do not seem to help in reaching them. Finally, it is of such universal use that it can daily be seen at work and admired alike by simple or complex minds. Intellect, on the other hand, is the critical, creative, and contemplative side of mind. Whereas intelligence seeks to grasp, manipulate, re-order, adjust, intellect examines, ponders, wonders, theorizes, criticizes, imagines. Intelligence will seize the immediate meaning in a situation and evaluate it. Intellect evaluates evaluations, and looks for the meanings of situations as a whole. |
| ATTRIBUTION: | Richard Hofstadter (1916–1970), U.S. historian. Anti-Intellectualism in American Life, ch. 2, Random House (1963). |
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| | | The Columbia World of Quotations. Copyright © 1996 Columbia University Press. |
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