To young people born under the weird planet of the SAT, intelligence was equated with agility, with raw acuity. It produced a certain sort of person of which I was a typical specimen: the mental contortionist, able to rise to almost every challenge placed before him, except the challenge of real self-knowledge.

Others can challenge and motivate us, but we must reach down deep into our souls and call forth our God-given intelligence and capabilities. We cannot do this when we depend on the efforts of someone else.

It's really difficult to navigate attention and stardom and celebrity status and still try to maintain yourself and hold onto your intelligence and integrity. It's really challenging.

When we see animals doing remarkable things, how do we know if we're simply seeing tricks or signs of real intelligence? Are talented animals just obeying commands, or do they have some kind of deeper understanding? One of the biggest challenges for animal researchers is to come up with tests that can distinguish between the two.

The 21st century - and the atheists - needs the presence of religion, just as religion must deal with the real challenges and the thinkers of the day in order to sharpen the conscience and the intelligence of those who study the timeless sacred texts in a spirit of responding to the questions of their time.

It is difficult, if not impossible, to argue that laws written in the 1970s are adequate for today's intelligence challenges.

In these troubled, uncertain times, we don't need more command and control; we need better means to engage everyone's intelligence in solving challenges and crises as they arise.

Books are challenging and inspirational to me.

While the majority of my childhood memories are beautiful, I also have experienced the challenges that Nigeria has faced since independence.

There are a few people who are, let's say, personality-challenged, who would like to set up a cult, but in large part they fail due to the innate stroppiness and independence of their fellow pagans.

Drone attacks are against the national sovereignty and a challenge for the country's autonomy and independence. Therefore, we won't tolerate these attacks in our territorial jurisdictions.

Every Fourth of July, our Declaration of Independence is produced, with a sublime indignation, to set forth the tyranny of the mother country and to challenge the admiration of the world. But what a pitiful detail of grievances does this document present in comparison with the wrongs which our slaves endure!

It's important for women to work. They need to keep their independence, to keep earning and being challenged.

When we were filming 'The Darkest Hour,' we didn't even know what the aliens were going to look like, we didn't even have a graphic reference. So it was definitely a big challenge to sell those kind of extreme moments when you're just generating them from your own imagination.

The worlds I paint leave a lot to engage the imagination by hinting at what lies beyond the four edges of the painting. I think getting beyond the four edges of an opportunity or challenge is one of the basic skills you need in business.

Imagination which comes into play in falling in love is different from any other. Certainly in my case, and I've fallen in love all my life, one imagines the person to be as you want them to be. They frequently turn out to be someone different, for better or worse.

Regardless of who originally made it popular, any hit song becomes a challenge to the ingenuity and imagination of other musicians and performers.

I'd love to play more challenging roles, characters that would stretch my comfort zone and imagination.

Today mythical thinking has fallen into disrepute; we often dismiss it as irrational and self-indulgent. But the imagination is also the faculty that has enabled scientists to bring new knowledge to light and to invent technology that has made us immeasurably more effective.

Courses in the humanities, in particular, often seem impractical, but they are vital, because they stretch your imagination and challenge your mind to become more responsive, more critical, bigger.

On the sets of the movie 'Manto,' I found that one of the challenges of embodying real-life stories is the mixed medium of facts and imagination, and how one's collage of experiences colour ones representation on celluloid.

I think artists can influence only through making music that challenges people, excites them and flips them out. Music that repeats what you know in ever-decreasing derivation, that's unchallenging and unstimulating, deadens our minds, our imagination and our ability to see beyond the hell we find ourselves in.

Learning a musical instrument is challenging, it demands fine motor skills and coordination. It develops children's listening, thinking skills, imagination and perseverance. It brings out the very best in the children as they work collaboratively with their peers and teachers.

I have fallen in love with the imagination. And if you fall in love with the imagination, you understand that it is a free spirit. It will go anywhere, and it can do anything.