'Oh, you think too, do you?’ said Hamnpork. ‘Everyone’s thinking these days. I think there’s a good deal too much of this thinking, that’s what I think. We never thought about thinking when I was a lad. We’d never get anything done if we thought first.' (AM)
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The trouble with thinking was that, once you started, you went on doing it. (AM)
... HEX knew that its creators were infinitely cleverer than it was. And great masters of disguise, obviously. (SODW)
'I have certainly noticed that groups of clever and intelligent people are capable of really stupid ideas,’ said Lord Vetinari. (TT)
'... they say there’s a thin line between genius and madness…’
‘He’s fallen off it, then.' (J) ... Lord Vetinari survives by his wits, and can achieve with irony what most people can’t achieve with steel. (PP)
'People ought to think for themselves, Captain Vimes says. The problem is, people only think for themselves if you tell them to.' (MA)
It wasn’t that Ridcully was stupid. Truly stupid wizards have the life expectancy of a glass hammer. He had quite a powerful intellect, but it was powerful like a locomotive, and ran on rails and was therefore almost impossible to steer. (LL)
Also, there’s a certain glint in her eye generally possessed by those people who have found that they are more intelligent than most people around them but who haven’t yet learned that one of the most intelligent things they can do is prevent said people ever finding this out. (LL)
It was widely believed that, if Detritus could be taught to read and write sufficiently to sit down and do an intelligence test, he’d prove to be slightly less intelligent than the chair. (MP)
The ability to ask questions like ‘Where am I and who is the “I” that is asking?’ is one of the things that distinguishes mankind from, say, cuttlefish.*
*Although of course it’s not the most obvious thing and there are, in fact, some beguiling similarities, particularly the tendency to try to hide behind a big cloud of ink in difficult situations. (LC) 'Real stupidity beats artificial intelligence every time.' (H)
'Of course, Hex doesn’t actually think. Not as such. It just appears to be thinking.’
‘Ah. Like the Dean,’ said Ridcully. ‘Any chance of fitting a brain like this into the Dean’s head?’ ‘It does weigh ten tons, Archchancellor.’ ‘Ah. Really? Oh. Quite a large crowbar would be in order, then.' (H) Carrot often struck people as simple. And he was. Where people went wrong was thinking that simple meant the same thing as stupid. (MA)
He was incredibly simple, but in the same way that a sword is simple, or an ambush is simple. He was also possibly the most linear thinker in the history of the universe. (TC)
'That’s what intelligence does for your sex life,’said Don’t-call-me-Mr-Thumpy. ‘Rabbits never have that sort of trouble. Go, Sow, Thank You Doe.' (MP)
'He’s a sergeant, and they don’t deserve no respect at all sir. I should know. They’re cunning and artful, if they’re any good. I wouldn’t mind if he was an officer, sir. But sergeants are clever.' (MR)
'Tell me, Leonard,’he said. ‘Has it ever occurred to you that one day wars will be fought with brains?’
Leonard picked up his cup of coffee. ‘Oh dear. Won’t that be rather messy?’ he said. (FE) Not liking Christine would be like not liking small fluffy animals. And Christine was just like a small fluffy animal. It was certainly impossible for her to get a whole idea into her head in one go. She had to nibble it into manageable bits. (Ma)
The most dangerous man in the world should be introduced.
He has never, in his entire life, harmed a living creature. He has dissected a few, but only after they were dead, and had marvelled at how well they’d been put together considering it had been done by unskilled labour. For several years he hadn’t moved outside a large, airy room, but this was OK, because he spent most of his time inside his own head in any case. There’s a certain type of person it’s very hard to imprison. (MA) You had to deal with every day people who were foolish and lazy and untruthful and downright unpleasant, and you could certainly end up thinking the world would be considerably improved if you gave them a slap. But you didn’t
because, as Miss Tick had once explained: a) it would only make the world a better for a very short time; b) it would then make the world a slightly worse place; and c) you’re not supposed to be as stupid as they are. (W) It is well known that stone can think, because the whole of electronics is based on that fact, but in some universes men spend ages looking for other intelligences in the sky without once looking under their feet. This is because they’ve got the time-span all wrong. From stone’s point of view the universe is hardly created and mountain ranges are bouncing up and down like organ-stops while continents zip backwards and forwards in generally high spirits, crashing into each other from the sheer joy of momentum and getting their rocks off. It is going to be quite some time before stone notices its disfiguring little skin disease and starts to scratch, which is just as well. (ER)
Evil Lords were generally brighter than heroes. You needed some functioning brain cells to do the payroll even for half
a dozen henchmen. (LH) 'He never pays attention, he always knows the answers, and he can never tell you how he knows. We can’t keep thrashing him. He is a bad example to the other pupils. There’s no educating a smart boy.' (TOT)
They fought like tigers, they fought like demons, they fought like giants. What they didn’t do was fight like something with more than a spoonful of brain. (W)
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