Also see Knowledge - or lack thereof!, Knowledge Song Lists, Foolishness Song Lists, Ideas and Changes Song Lists, Word Play and Higher Education.



Quotes


Quotes about Genius


Quotes about Wisdom


Quotes about education


How Smart Are You?

(Passing requires four correct answers)

  1. How long did the Hundred Years War last?
  2. Which country makes Panama hats?
  3. From which animal do we get catgut?
  4. In which month do Russians celebrate the October Revolution?
  5. What is a camel's hair brush made of?
  6. The Canary Islands in the Pacific are named after what animal?
  7. What was King George VI's first name?
  8. What color is a purple finch?
  9. Where are Chinese gooseberries from?
  10. What is the color of the black box in a commercial airplane?

Answers:

  1. 116 years
  2. Ecuador
  3. sheep and horses
  4. November
  5. squirrel fur
  6. dogs
  7. Albert
  8. crimson
  9. New Zealand
  10. orange, of course

Great Accomplishments Depend on More Than Genetic Genius

(Erma Bombeck)

The controversial sperm bank in San Diego County has a limited partnership, no drive-up window and a low rate of interest.
Depositors are limited to Nobel Prize winners and erudite scholars. It doesn't matter who withdraws as long as she is female and willing to carry a baby sired by a genius.
The purpose, the director says, is to create 'brighter children' from the ranks of whites.
I was thinking about this the other morning when I turned on the light in my bathroom. Had a less-than-physically-perfect deaf man not invented it, I would be in darkness.
I turned on the radio for my morning news fix and realized if a deformed hunchback had not had a major part in its development, I would be left in silence.
I literally grew up under a president whose political record has never been matched, you who could not walk or, indeed, move his legs.
A high school dropout had invented the automobile I drove. Two brothers from Dayton, Ohio, who also dropped out of high school, had developed the planes I traveled in.
I thought of Leo Tolstoy, Thomas Hardy and Joseph Conrad, who never had won a Nobel Prize for literature.
I thought of the parade of black athletes who had stirred this country with their accomplishments and all the minorities who had battled their way through prejudice to make a million contributions to our arts and sciences. I thought of Martin Luther, who had an I.Q; of 115, and Abraham Lincoln, who also was below 'genius' level.
None of them would have been eligible as sperm donors of the 'new society'.
But mostly, I thought of a man who finished the fourth grade and worked for a Midwestern city, who married a 14-year-old girl from an orphanage . . . and had me.
A genetic disaster? Maybe. But I'm bright enough to know genes don't dominate us . . . we overcome them.

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