...the test of a first-rate ...

...the test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function. One should, for example, be able to see that things are hopeless and yet be determined to make them otherwise. This philosophy fitted on to my early adult life, when I saw the improbable, the implausible, often the \
...the test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function. One should, for example, be able to see that things are hopeless and yet be determined to make them otherwise. This philosophy fitted on to my early adult life, when I saw the improbable, the implausible, often the "impossible," come true.
 F. Scott Fitzgerald

Quotes from the same author

When a man is tired of life on his 21st birthday it indicates that he is rather tired of something in himself.
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 F. Scott Fitzgerald
Thirty--the promise of a decade of loneliness, a thinning list of single men to know, a thinning brief-case of enthusiasm, thinning hair.
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 F. Scott Fitzgerald
mother says that two souls are sometimes created together and--and in love before they're born.
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 F. Scott Fitzgerald
Never confuse activity with action.
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 F. Scott Fitzgerald
I think they're very attractive,' Abe agreed. 'I just don't think they're attractive, that's all.
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 F. Scott Fitzgerald