“Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.”
Albert Einstein
I love this quote by Einstein but I disagree and feel that imagination is best when in balance with knowledge or rational thinking or knowledge and imagination or creativity.
“The relationship between high IQ (analytical, data-processing intelligence) and creativity (divergent thinking, innovation) is often described as complementary but distinct. While a baseline of intelligence is generally required for high-level creativity, the two are not synonymous, with many thinkers arguing that creativity represents a higher or more “fun” application of intellect.”
I think in my books creativity and intelligence are equally important and for a successful and enjoyable life to have an equal balance of both like a seesaw going up and down.
High IQ
“Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less.”
Marie Curie
I love this quote by Marie Curie and agree that there is nothing to fear as fear evaporates once something is understood. For this essay on a high IQ verses a creative mind I have tried to have an equal number of male and female sources. At first, I had nine women and eleven males but after counting I went back and added three women so there would be a balance of intellects. In the same way that a balance between intelligence vs creativity is important there also needs to be a balance of female and male intelligence so there is a harmonious global community.
“The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination.”
Albert Einstein
This quote by Einstein is like the first quote of his that I included but once again I disagree and feel intelligence and imagination or high IQ creativity or imagination need to be in balance for success in life. In success I mean a healthy happy life. This sort of happy healthy life I am learning from my great grandmother friend Gwenda as I suffer quite a bit but she says nothing much bothers her.
“If you know you are on the right track, if you have this inner knowledge, then nobody can turn you off… no matter what they say.”
Barbara McClintock
I love this quote by Barbara McClintock but I must have a weaker mind as I don’t just rely on inner gut feeling or intuition but I also need outer validation from people older and wiser than me. I always say that there is nothing sage advice better than a grandmother’s apart from a great grandmother’s so once again thanks to Gwenda for keeping me on track as much as I also rely on my gut instinct or intuition.
“I know that I am intelligent, because I know that I know nothing.”
Socrates
I love this quote by the Greek intellectual giant Socrates and the true sign of being intelligent is starting each day with a clean slate as if you know nothing and have everything to learn.
High-IQ Intellectuals and Figures
Marilyn vos Savant: Recorded one of the highest IQs ever, often cited at 228.
“To acquire knowledge, one must study; but to acquire wisdom, one must observe.”
This quote by Marilyn really speaks to me that to gain wisdom not rote learning one must watch or observe.
Terence Tao: Renowned mathematician with a reported IQ of 225–230.
“You want to get to the top of the cliff. But that’s not what you focus on immediately. You focus on the next ledge just beyond your reach, because you need to do one clever thing to get up there. And then, once you get there, you do it again. A lot of this is rather boring and not very glamorous. But you can’t jump cliffs in a single bound.”
Terence Tao
I think this quote by Terence speaks to me and achieving things particularly intellectually it takes many small steps which isn’t glamorous.
Christopher Hirata: Cosmologist and former child prodigy with an IQ of 225.
On Gravity: “My metaphysical interpretation of the Equivalence Principle is that gravity is a fictitious force”.
Christopher Hirata:
I don’t understand this quote and everything I know about physics is from tv shows. I just know a little about the concept of the big bang theory coined by Stephen Hawking.
Kim Ung-Yong: Child prodigy with a reported IQ of 210.
“I’m trying to tell people that I’m happy the way I am. But why do people have to call my happiness a failure?” (In response to being labelled a “failed genius” in 2010).
Kim Ung-Yong:
I am no genius but I can relate to this quote by Kim as I have chosen a quiet life of drawing exhibiting and essay writing over a life of more success that my friends from art-school have. But to be honest I have tried hard with my creativity but getting there is meaning each day I keep being creative and starting from a clean slate as if each morning I wake up I know nothing.
Stephen Hawking: Renowned physicist with a reported IQ of 160.
“Look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Try to make sense of what you see, and wonder about what makes the universe exist. Be curious.”
I love this quote by Stephen Hawking and I think he is not just talking about looking up literally to the sky for inspiration. However, I do look at my feet too as I am literally always doing feet and shoe drawings and I feel it keeps me grounded.
High-IQ Celebrities and Entertainers
Quentin Tarantino: Director reportedly boasts an IQ of 160.
“When people ask me if I went to film-school I tell them, no, I went to films.”
Quentin Tarantino
I like this quote by Tarantino and he was always a film buff before he became Americas most respected director and film script writer after working in a video store.
Rowan Atkinson: Known for Mr. Bean, he has a master’s in electrical engineering and a reported 178 IQ.
“But I always feel that whatever I do, I could do better. I suppose it is perfectionism.”
Rowan Atkinson
I feel that being a perfectionist is half of the battle of creating something new as a creative in any field.
Conan O’Brien: Television host and Harvard graduate with a reported IQ of 160.
“Nobody in life gets exactly what they thought they were going to get. But if you work really hard and you’re kind, amazing things will happen.”
Conan O’Brien
This advice is kind of like what the Dalai Lama says about working hard and being kind to become successful.
Ashton Kutcher: Actor and investor with an estimated IQ of 160.
“I think Ryan Gosling is a really great actor who’s meticulous about his work. And I’d love to have the guts that Johnny Depp has to actually go outside the box on a character. When he plays a character, he plays it in a way that nobody else would.”
Ashton Kutcher
I like this quote by Ashton about his favourite male actors and I also adore Johnny Depp’s acting particularly his facial expressions to capture a character’s personality.
Sharon Stone: Actress with an estimated IQ of 154.
“People don’t change their behaviour unless it makes a difference for them to do so.”
Sharon Stone
This quote is interesting about why people change their behaviour but I change my behaviour from day to day as I learn new strategies on how to enjoy my life more.
Danica McKellar: Actress and mathematician with a reported IQ of 154.
“Believe it or not, lots of people change their majors and abandon their dreams just to avoid a couple of math classes in college.”
Danica McKellar
I loathed maths at school and it was compulsory otherwise I wouldn’t have done it. But now I feel grateful to have a calculator on my iPhone as it’s handy for keeping a budget.
Shakira: Singer and songwriter with a reported IQ of 140.
“I always had the intuition, even as a little child, that I was called for a big project.”
Shakira
I love this quote by Shakira about having faith in oneself and I had it as a teenager and at art-school as a young adult but I lost my way for many decades and have only started to get back on track in the past five years with hard work study and perseverance.
“These individuals often demonstrate exceptional cognitive abilities in fields requiring rapid learning, complex problem-solving, and high-level abstract thinking.”
Creativity
“Zaha Hadid is a powerful name in the world of innovative living spaces. A pioneering British-Iraqi architect, Hadid designed curvy and geometric buildings that seemed to defy the laws of physics.
The Guangzhou Opera House in China is one of her most famous buildings, but she has many others all over the globe. With a creative tenacity, Hadid was also a fierce advocate for other women in the male-dominated field of architecture.”
“Women are always told, ‘You’re not going to make it.’ They need confidence in themselves and people around them to help them to get on.”
Zaha Hadid
I love this quote by Zaha about empowering women and it’s not to just to have another perspective on contemporary architecture but the balance of power shall make a much more harmonious world.
“Diane von Furstenberg is a fashion designer, businesswoman, and philanthropist. She is best known for creating the popular wrap dress, which she intended to be both empowering and form-fitting for women of all body types. Her designs play with fun pops of colour and bold prints. She is also a huge proponent of uplifting other female entrepreneurs.”
“I don’t like to talk about my dreams. I like to make them happen. I prefer to talk about them when they’re done.”
Diane von Furstenberg
This quote by Diane seems like sage advice for me about not talking about your dreams but making them happen. However, I feel there needs to be a balance of planning one’s goals and planning in private and being modest. Today I wrote a long list of things I want to achieve in my life big and small and hope to eventually tick them off as I achieve them in private.
“Judith Butler (1956–): Philosopher known for work on gender performativity.”
“We act as if that being of a man or that being of a woman is actually an internal reality or something that is simply true about us, a fact about us, but actually it’s a phenomenon that is being produced all the time and reproduced all the time, so to say gender is performative is to say that nobody really is a gender from the start.”
Judith Butler
I like this quote by Judith and I feel that our identity as male or female or otherwise is in someways constructed by sociality expectations but I also feel we are born that way too.
“Julia Kristeva (1941–): Philosopher and psychoanalyst.”
“The phobic has no other object than the abject. But that word, “fear”- a fluid haze an elusive clamminess- no sooner has it cropped up than it shades off like a mirage and permeates all words of the language with nonexistence…”
Julia Kristeva
I am not sure about this quote by Julia Kristeva but I do agree that if one is fearful it can crop up like a mirage and permeate all our actions and words as if all other is abject.
Definition of fearful: “Fearful” describes being filled with apprehension, anxiety, or fear, often indicating a hesitant or timid state.
“Ada Lovelace Science & Tech: (1815–1852), considered the first computer programmer.”
“Imagination is the discovering faculty, pre-eminently. It is that which penetrates into the unseen worlds around us, the worlds of science.”
Ada Lovelace
I love this quote by Lovelace and it shows there has been important intellectual women through history who have made great discoveries in science and pushed the envelope.
“Martha Nussbaum (born 1947): American philosopher known for the capabilities approach.”
“As we tell stories about the lives of others, we learn how to imagine what another creature might feel in response to various events. At the same time, we identify with the other creature and learn something about ourselves.”
Martha Nussbaum
I love this quote by Martha and I feel it shows the benefits of having empathy. I first learnt about empathy while reading Harper Lees: To Kill a Mockingbird in school.
I just added this extra female intellectual’s quote as I tried to have an equal number of male and female genius’s but I counted them in my essay but forgot that I had included my own ideas and artworks.
“You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view.”
Harper Lee
This quote by Lee is a simple explanation of empathy. However, these days feminists don’t just say, him but include both female and male perspectives.
“Gaston Bachelard’s phenomenology of the imagination proposes to explore the human values of poetic images.”
“The characteristic of scientific progress is our knowing that we did not know.”
Gaston Bachelard
I love this quote by Bachelard that for scientific progress one must realise that one knows nothing. However, I don’t know much about science but I feel I must know nothing of my study of spiritualism in art and life. While in art school I read Bachelard’s; The Poetics of Space. I like his idea that the main purpose of the home is be a shelter for the dreamer.
“If your’e looking for work and have a choice of a job, choose a job that allows the opportunity for some creativity, and spending time with your family. Even if it means less pay. “
I love this quote by the Dalai Lama and I could probably make good money in some sort of day job but I live on less and draw and write essays every day. However, I have no family to spend my time with but do have a circle of friends who are like a family to me.
“Creativity is a great motivator because it makes people interested in what they are doing. Creativity gives hope that there can be a worthwhile idea. Creativity gives the possibility of some sort of achievement to everyone. Creativity makes life more fun and more interesting.”
Edward de Bono
This quote by Edward De Bono speaks to me and I have found I have learnt the most in life when my teachers have been incredibly funny and creative.
“Lateral thinking is the deliberate breaking of the shackles that inhibit creative and original thinking”.
Edward De Bono
First, I started with a beach photo and text underneath saying competing to be the world’s greatest grandmother and then this photo with me holding my high IQ sculpture and the text underneath: Competing to be the world’s greatest grandmother (in reference to my great grandmother friend Gwenda).
“A great-grandmother is a little bit parent, a little bit teacher, and a little bit best friend”.
Author unknown
This quote is a bit like what my great grandmother friend is like who I met about six months ago (Gwenda).
“The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honours the servant and has forgotten the gift.”
Albert Einstein
I agree with this Einstein quote more than the two other Einstein quotes in this essay and I agree that in western society there is too much emphasis on the rational mind and not a balance with the intuitive mind. In the photo of me holding a white intuitive thinking neon I honour that intuitive thinking can be a great internal source of wisdom and to keep us on track when the going gets tough and when our rational mind gives up thinking the situation is too difficult to overcome.
In conclusion I feel that neither a high IQ or a highly creative character are more important than the other but rather that they are best in balance for a healthy happy life. However also in my experience that when I am stuck in a situation, I rely more on intuition to figure out my way through that situation.
