Directory of Mark Twain's maxims, quotations, and various opinions:

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INTELLECT

What a fine thing it is to have an intellect, and room enough in the seat of your breeches to hold it. - marginalia in newspaper article from The New York Times, 1908 (reprinted in Greatness at Your Fingertips catalog, by Bob Slotta) A man's brain (intellect) is stored powder; it cannot be touched itself off; the fire must come from the outside. - Notebook, 1898 The gods offer no rewards for intellect. There was never one yet that showed any interest in it... - Mark Twain's Notebook

Portrait of Twain from the Dave Thomson collection.

[Man] He has just one stupendous superiority. In his intellect he is supreme. The Higher Animals cannot touch him there. It is curious, it is noteworthy, that no heaven has ever been offered him wherein his one sole superiority was provided with a chance to enjoy itself. Even when he himself has imagined a heaven, he has never made provision in it for intellectual joys. It is a striking omission. It seems a tacit confession that heavens are provided for the Higher Animals alone. This is matter for thought; and for serious thought. And it is full of a grim suggestion: that we are not as important, perhaps as we had all along supposed we were.
- "The Lowest Animal"

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