John Piper Quotes

The noblest pleasure is the joy of understanding.

You see, some non-Catholic friends of mine have questioned the depth of my faith because of the fact that I have a good education.

Reason is God's crowning gift to man.

I've been blessed with a good head on my shoulders and quite a good ability of discernment. I can see through people.

To think, and to feel, constitute the two grand divisions of men of genius - the men of reasoning and the men of imagination.

It is useless to tell one not to reason but to believe - you might as well tell a man not to wake but sleep.

There's a popular concept of 'intelligence' as book smarts, like calculus or chess, as opposed to, say, social skills. So people say that 'it takes more than intelligence to succeed in human society.' But social skills reside in the brain, not the kidneys.

Education makes us more stupid than the brutes. A thousand voices call to us on every hand, but our ears are stopped with wisdom.

Science is a first-rate piece of furniture for a man's upper chamber, if he has common sense on the ground-floor. But if a man hasn't got plenty of good common sense, the more science he has, the worse for his patient.

I think I have good judgment.

We all agree that pessimism is a mark of superior intellect.

To live is to think.

We should take care not to make the intellect our god; it has, of course, powerful muscles, but no personality.

There have to be people who are vocal about the advancement of knowledge over faith.

The higher the voice the smaller the intellect.

It's hard enough to tell good stories about people who analyze information for a living. It's even harder to do a good show about people who think for a living.

I'm quite interested in my own mental processes, simply because I'm a failed scientist, and because I'm interested in how the brain and the mind works, and I like to avoid easy descriptions.

When people ask me what I do, strangers on a plane, perhaps, I tell them that I think. Thinking is excellent exercise, as much as swimming or jogging.

I studied the Bible and philosophy in college, and I think in a certain sense that's the kind of stuff that still makes my brain work.

I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with senses, reason and intellect has intended us to forego their use and by some other means to give us knowledge which we can attain by them.

If a person is intelligent, then of course he is either an agnostic or an atheist. Just as he is a physical coward. They are automatic definitions of high intelligence.

What could be wiser and to give people who can think the leisure in which to do it.

If you will give the matter a moment's thought, you'll see that memory is the highest faculty of the human mind.

What we showed you was you can have analytic reasoning that can be passionate.

Italians think with their heads.