The rock.

Perfect. I agree.

The figure has the muscles of a wrestler or gladiator, but is perfectly still.
Brow knotted, he seems to be pondering some idea more complex and more important than he’s ever faced before; without the vocabulary or experience to even put his thoughts into words.
I always got the impression that when he finally got his thoughts in order and reached his decision, he would take swift and irrevocable action. Will his judgement be good? Oh, did you know the original is part of a much larger bronze work by Rodin called “The Gates of Hell”? Makes you think, don’t it?

A statue called, “The Intellectual” would be quite different.
Cast from Styrofoam, matchstick arms folded across it’s hollow chest, its thin, curled lip and arched brows would pronounce to the world that it had no need to think because it already had all the answers!

Thinkers can be educated or uneducated, young, old, male, female; but they are Real and they do Real things.
Intellectuals (at least the self-proclaimed kind) are an affectation of prosperous civilizations.
Like a dog trained to walk on it’s hind legs, it is not done well; but you are surprised to find it done at all!
(nod to Samuel Johnson).

Is a top scientist an intellectual if she expresses no interests beyond carbon atoms? Is the jazz historian intellectual? Or does he just listen to jazz and memorize facts about records and musicians and write anecdotal books about them?

The scientist would be despised by San Francisco intellectuals for working at EXXON. The Jazz Historian would be idolized for existing; even more so after dying of a heroin overdose at 36.

Intellectuals are recognizable only by intellectuals in the same way that dogs will never mistake a small pony for big dog.

http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/10/who_wrote_dreams_from_my_fathe_1.html

— Freemon the Intellectual.

-1- It means I want to learn Portuguese…but why? Because I want to chase Brazillian women….er well change chase to catch. But as a side effect I understand our inner workings better.
-2- It means I want to be good with words but also ideas. Big ideas that allow me to understand the world. Then do something.
-3- I want to take apart my emotions and understand myself and thereby many others better. I want to be a better friend.
-4- I want to understand the universe and to that end I am beholden to understand cold hard logic, math and physics.

So next time a person uses the word intellectual look at the intellectual muscles. Are they huge and rippling? Or is it just a girly man using big works and shouting like a wild beast as he poses.

I always liked that statue; too bad liberals have gone and ruined it for me.

“Some people put a much greater value on appearing smart not appearing stupid over ever doing anything useful.”

[Be quiet or I'll edit your comments to make it look like you misspelled everything. -Ed.]

[Man, I can't write anything without a red line spell check. You don't know how many times I looked over that trying making sure I didn't accidentally put a letter out of place and I still did it anyway. -Ed.]

I think I am that I am, therefore I Am. — Barack Obama

There is speculation that William Ayers was the ghost writer of Dreams of my Father because of nautical references peppered throughout the memoir. This quote may disprove those theories because it smacks of a certain sailor man.