The Brain-is wider than the Sky-
For-put them side by side-
The one the other will contain
With ease-and You-beside.
The Brain is deeper than the sea -
For - hold them - Blue to Blue -
The one the other will absorb -
As Sponges - Buckets - do -
Emily Dickinson
To find yourself, think for yourself. Socrates
Ideas must work through the brains and arms of men, or they are no better than dreams. Ralph Waldo Emerson
To avoid criticism: do nothing; say nothing; be nothing.Elbert Hubbard
Brain against brute force - and brain came out on the top - as its bound to do. Kenneth Grahame ("Toad" in The Wind in the Willow)
Happiness is never stopping to think if you are.Paul Sondreal
We do not see things as they are. We see things as we are.The Talmud
I'm not a genius. I'm just passionately curious. Einstein
Don't wait for your ship to come in - swim out to it.Unknown
Nothing is more intolerable than to have to admit to yourself your own mistakes.Ludwig van Beethoven
Worrying does not empty tomorrow of its troubles, but empties today of its strength.Corrie Ten Boom
Success is failure that tried one more time.Unknown
Speak when you are angry and you'll make the best speech you'll ever regret. Laurence J. Peter
I not only use all the brains that I have, but all that I can borrow. Woodrow Wilson (1856 - 1924)
There is nobody so irritating as somebody with less intelligence and more sense than we have. Don Herold
Only the curious will learn and only the resolute overcome the obstacles to learning. The quest quotient has always excited me more than the intelligence quotient. Eugene S. Wilson
Seize the moment of excited curiosity on any subject to solve your doubts; for if you let it pass, the desire may never return, and you may remain in ignorance. William Wirt (1772 - 1834)
Any fool can criticize, condemn, and complain - and most fools do. Dale Carnegie
Honest criticism is hard to take - especially when it comes from a relative, a friend, an acquaintance, or a stranger. Franklin P. Jones
To live a creative life, we must lose our fear of being wrong. Joseph Chilton Pearce
Education's purpose is to replace an empty mind with an open one. Malcolm Forbes (1919 -
If you don't know where you are going, you will probably end up somewhere else.Laurence J. Peter
Intelligence without ambition is a bird without wings. C. Archie Danielson
Talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence win championships. Michael Jordan
Continuous effort, not strength or intelligence is the key to unlocking our potential. Liane Cardes
It is not good enough to have a good mind; the main thing is to use it well. Charles Du Bos
Creativity is allowing oneself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep. Howard Aiken
I am always doing that which I can not do, in order that I may learn how to do it. – Pablo Picasso
It is not the answer that enlightens, but the question. Eugene Ionesco Decouvertes
Great minds discuss ideas, mediocre minds discuss events, small minds discuss personalities. Eleanor Roosevelt
Strength of mind is exercise, not rest. Alexander Pope
When we long for life without difficulties, remind us that oaks grow strong in contrary winds and diamonds are made under pressure. Peter Marshall
If you can dream it, you can do it. Always remember that this whole thing was started with a dream and a mouse. Walt Disney
You must be the change you wish to see in the world. Mahatma Gandhi
Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
He had found that the harder it was to do something, the more comfortable he felt after he had done it. Marguerite de Angeli
Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm. Winston Churchill
If you don’t know where you are going, any road will take you there. Lewis Carroll
So many things are possible just as long as you don’t know they’re impossible. Norton Juster
To love oneself is the beginning of a life-long romance. Oscar Wilde
Intelligence is the ability to take in information from the world and to find patterns in that information that allow you to organize your perceptions and understand the external world. – Brian Greene, physicist & author
Mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself, but talent instantly recognizes genius. – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function. – F. Scott Fitzgerald
Men fear thought as they fear nothing else on earth -- more than ruin -- more even than death.... Thought is subversive and revolutionary, destructive and terrible, thought is merciless to privilege, established institutions, and comfortable habit. Thought looks into the pit of hell and is not afraid. Thought is great and swift and free, the light of the world, and the chief glory of man. – Bertrand Russell
To repeat what others have said, requires education; to challenge it, requires brains. – Mary Pettibone Poole
It is not worth an intelligent man's time to be in the majority. By definition, there are already enough people to do that. – G. H. Hardy
Hide not your talents. They for use were made. What's a sundial in the shade? – Benjamin Franklin
Those who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night. – Edgar Allan Poe
The greatest intelligence is precisely the one that suffers most from its own limitations. – Andre Gide
It is not enough to have a good mind; the main thing is to use it well. – Rene Descartes
I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use. – Galileo Galilei
I've always felt that a person's intelligence is directly reflected by the number of conflicting points of view he can entertain simultaneously on the same topic. – Abigail Adams
You cannot solve a problem from the frame of mind that created the problem in the first place. – Albert Einstein
True wisdom is less presuming than folly. The wise man doubteth often, and changeth his mind; the fool is obstinate, and doubteth not; he knoweth all things but his own ignorance. – Akhenaton
The energy of the mind is the essence of life. – Aristotle
Don't measure yourself by what you have accomplished, but by what you should have accomplished with your ability. – John Wooden
If you don't invest very much, then defeat doesn't hurt very much and winning is not very exciting. – Dick Vermeil
Intelligence is like a river: the deeper it is, the less noise it makes. – Unknown
A great pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do. – Walter Bagehot
Paralyze resistance with persistence. – Woody Hayes
There are times when the greatest change needed is a change of my viewpoint. – C. M. Ward
Unless you try to do something beyond what you have already mastered, you will never grow. – Ronald E. Osborn
If you don’t make mistakes, you’re not working on hard enough problems. And that’s a big mistake. – F. Wikzek
You can never hold a person down without staying down with him. – Booker T. Washington
One can never consent to creep when one feels an impulse to soar! – Helen Keller
Every gift contains a danger. Whatever gift we have we are compelled to express. And if the expression of that gift is blocked, distorted, or merely allowed to languish, then the gift turns against us, and we suffer. – L. Johnson
With regard to excellence, it is not enough to know, but we must try to have and use it. – Aristotle
It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare; it is because we do not dare that they are difficult. – Seneca
Satisfaction of one's curiosity is one of the greatest sources of happiness in life. – Linus Pauling
No bird soars too high if he soars with his own wings. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
The wisest mind has something yet to learn. – George Santayana
There are risks and costs to action. But they are far less than the long range risks of comfortable inaction. – John F. Kennedy
Being different isn't always a bad thing. – Alicia, The Fantastic Four
Creativity is like life insurance. If you are creative, you are never afraid, because you can design yourself out of any situation. – Li Edelkoort
It is our choices that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities. – Dumbledore, in J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
My mind rebels at stagnation. Give me problems, give me work, give me the most abstruse cryptogram, or the most intricate analysis, and I am in my own proper atmosphere. I can dispense then with artificial stimulants. But I abhor the dull routine of existence. I crave for mental exaltation. – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocrities. The latter cannot understand it when a man does not thoughtlessly submit to hereditary prejudices but honestly and courageously uses his intelligence and fulfills the duty to express the results of his thought in clear form.. – Albert Einstein
"The truly creative mind in any field is no more than this: A human creature born abnormally, inhumanly sensitive. To him...a touch is a blow, a sound is a noise, a misfortune is a tragedy, a joy is an ecstasy, a friend is a lover, a lover is a god, and failure is death. Add to this cruelly delicate organism the overpowering necessity to create, create, create - - - so that without the creating of music or poetry or books or buildings or something of meaning, his very breath is cut off from him. He must create, must pour out creation. By some strange, unknown, inward urgency he is not really alive unless he is creating." – Pearl Buck
All of us do not have equal talent, but all of us should have an equal opportunity to develop our talent. – John F. Kennedy Civil Rights Address
Genius without education is like silver in the mine. – Benjamin Franklin
What we want is to see the child in pursuit of knowledge, and not knowledge in pursuit of the child. – George Bernard Shaw
Do not worry about your difficulties in mathematics. I can assure you that mine are still greater. – Albert Einstein
The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal. – Aristotle
I asked Mom if I was a gifted child. She said they certainly wouldn't have PAID for me. – Calvin (Calvin & Hobbes)
The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing. One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery every day. Never lose a holy curiosity. – Albert Einstein
The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift. – Albert Einstein
Persons of genius, it is true, are, and are always likely to be, a small minority; but in order to have them, it is necessary to preserve the soil in which they grow. Genius can only breathe freely in an atmosphere of freedom. – John Stuart Mill
I insist thus emphatically on the importance of genius, and the necessity of allowing it to unfold itself freely both in thought and in practice, being well aware that no one will deny the position in theory, but knowing also that almost every one, in reality, is totally indifferent to it. People think genius a fine thing if it enables a man to write an exciting poem, or paint a picture. But in its true sense, that of originality in thought and action, though no one says that it is not a thing to be admired, nearly all, at heart, think that they can do very well without it. Unhappily this is too natural to be wondered at. Originality is the one thing which unoriginal minds cannot feel the use of. – John Stuart Mill
Loneliness does not come from having no people about one, but from being unable to communicate to others the things that seem important to oneself, or from holding certain views which others find inadmissible . . . If a man knows more than others, he becomes lonely. – Carl Jung, 1989, p. 356
The kind of intelligence a genius has is a different sort of intelligence. The thinking of a genius does not proceed logically. It leaps with great ellipses. It pulls knowledge from God knows where. – Dorothy Thompson
The more intelligent one is, the more men of originality one finds. Ordinary people find no difference between men. – Blaise Pascal
Modified from a collection by Carolyn K., Director, Hoagies' Gifted Education Page