Iconic designer Massimo Vignelli says:
I would define intellectual elegance as a mind that is continually refining itself with education and knowledge. Intellectual elegance is the opposite of intellectual vulagarity.
Elegance in everything is something to strive for...to cultivate...to refine....to guard....and intellectual elegance sounds eminently strive-able.
There's more where this thought came from. Check out:
http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2013/01/10/massimo-vignelli-debbie-millman/