Quotes about Cleverness

If you have an important point to make, don't try to be subtle or clever. Use a pile driver. Hit the point once. Then come back and hit it again. Then hit it the third time - a tremendous whack.

By being so long in the lowest form [at Harrow] I gained an immense advantage over the cleverer boys. . . . I got into my bones the essential structure of the ordinary British sentence - which is a noble thing. Naturally I am biased in favor of boys learning English; I would make them all learn English: and then I would let the clever ones learn Latin as an honor, and Greek as a treat.

William Symonds, in his 1612 history of the Virginia colonies, also omits the Pocahontas episode, relating instead that Smith secured his release through his own clever connivance: "A month those Barbarians kept him prisoner, many strange triumphes and conjurations they made of him, yet hee so demeaned himselfe amongst them, as he not only diverted them from surprising the Fort, but procured his owne liberty, and got himselfe and his company such estimation amongst them, that those Salvages admired him as a demi-God. ...So he had inchanted those poor soules (being their prisoner) in demonstrating unto them the roundnesse of the world, the course of the moone and starres, the cause of the day and night the largenes of the seas the quallities of our ships, shot and powder, The devision of the world, with the diversity of people, their complexions, customs and conditions. All which he fained to be under the command of Captaine Newport, whom he tearmed to them his father; of whose arrival, it chanced he so directly prophesied, as they esteemed him an oracle; by these fictions he not only saved his owne life, and obtained his liberty, but had them at that command, he might command what he listed."

So, rather than appear foolish afterward, I renounce seeming clever now.

One of the lessons of history is that nothing is often a good thing to do and always a clever thing to say.

Without order or authority in the spirit of man the free way of life leads through weakness, disorganization, self-indulgence, and moral indifference to the destruction of freedom itself. The tragic ordeal through which the Western world is passing was prepared in the long period of easy liberty, during which men . . . forgot that their freedom was achieved by heroic sacrifice. . . . They forgot that their rights were founded on their duties. . . . They thought it clever to be cynical, enlightened to be unbelieving, and sensible to be soft.

Half the world is composed of idiots, the other half of people clever enough to take indecent advantage of them.

Secular education can make men clever, but it cannot make them good.

Two men wrote a lexicon, Liddell and Scott; Some parts were clever, but some parts were not. Hear, all ye learned, and read me this riddle, How the wrong par wrote Scott, and the right part wrote Liddell.

What seems to grow fairer to me as life goes by is the love and the grace and tenderness of it; not its wit and cleverness and grandeur of knowledge - grand as knowledge is - but just the laughter of children, and the friendship of friends, and the cozy talk by the fire, and sight of flowers, and the sound of music.

Am I not sensitive, clever, well-mannered, considerate, passionate, charming, as kind as I'm handsome and heir to a throne?

All religions are founded on the fear of many and the cleverness of few.

All religions are founded on the fear of the many and the cleverness of the few.

I am so stupid that I cannot understand philosophy; the antithesis of this is that philosophy is so clever that it cannot comprehend my stupidity. These antitheses are mediated in a higher unity; in our common stupidity.

Tell me I'm clever, Tell me I'm kind, Tell me I'm talented, Tell me I'm cute, Tell me I'm sensitive, Graceful and wise, Tell me I'm perfect- But tell me the truth

But the Devil whoops, as he whooped of old: "It's clever, but is it Art?"

Women say . . . that if men had to have babies there would soon be no babies in the world. . . . I have sometimes wished that some clever man would actually have a baby in some new labor-saving way; then all men could take it up, and one of the oldest taunts in the world would be stilled forever.

He [Kippis] might be a very clever man by nature for aught I know, but he laid so many books upon his head that his brains could not move.

Ignorance of all things is an evil neither terrible nor excessive, nor yet the greatest of all; but great cleverness and much learning, if they be accompanied by a bad training, are a much greater misfortune.

How clever of me. I have found such a pathway into hell that I can never get back out.

The turtle lives 'twixt plated decks Which practically conceal its sex I think it clever of the turtle In such a fix to be so fertile.

You can tell whether a man is clever by his answers. You can tell whether a man is wise by his questions.

21. An ounce of loyalty is worth a pound of cleverness.

When a woman gives more attention to her dinner than to the clever man beside her, she furnishes conclusive evidence that she has more than half covered her century run.

Sell your cleverness and purchase bewilderment.

The Bible has noble poetry in it; and some clever fables; and some blood-drenched history; and a wealth of obscenity; and upwards of a thousand lies.

We judge matters so superficially that ordinary acts and words, done and spoken with some flair and some knowledge of worldly matters, often succeed better than the greatest cleverness.

He who uses trickery should at least make use of his judgment to learn that he can scarcely hide treacherous conduct for very long among clever men who are determined to find him out, although they may pretend to be deceived in order to disguise their knowledge of his deceitfulness.

Neither you nor I nor anybody else knows what makes a mathematician tick. It is not a question of cleverness. I know many mathematicians who are far abler than I am, but they have not been so lucky. An illustration may be given by considering two miners. One may be an expert geologist, but he does not find the golden nuggets that the ignorant miner does.

The world is full of half-enlightened masters. Overly clever, too "sensitive" to live in the real world, they surround themselves with selfish pleasures and bestow their grandiose teachings upon the unwary. Prematurely publicizing themselves, intent upon reaching some spiritual climax, they constantly sacrifice the truth and deviate from the Tao. What they really offer the world is their own confusion. The true master understands that enlightenment is not the end, but the means. Realizing that virtue is her goal, she accepts the long and often arduous cultivation that is necessary to attain it. She doesn't scheme to become a leader, but quietly shoulders whatever responsibilities fall to her. Unattached to her accomplishments, taking credit for nothing at all, she guides the whole world by guiding the individuals who come to her. She shares her divine energy with her students, encouraging them, creating trials to strengthen them, scolding them to awaken them, directing the streams of their lives toward the infinite ocean of the Tao.