The imagination of the genius vastly surpasses his intellect; the intellect of the academic vastly surpasses his imagination

Just as no monkey is as good-looking as the ugliest of humans, no academic is worthier than the worst of the creators

The best way to measure the loss of intellectual sophistication - this "nerdification," to put it bluntly - is in the growing disappearance of sarcasm, as mechanic minds take insults a bit too literally.

I suspect the I.Q., SAT, and school grades are tests designed by nerds so they can get high scores in order to call each other intelligent...Smart and wise people who score low on IQ tests, or patently intellectually defective ones, like the former U.S. president George
W. Bush, who score high on them (130), are testing the test and not the reverse.

My best definition of a nerd: someone who asks you to explain an aphorism

Wit seduces by signaling intelligence without nerdiness.