Clever Quotes

A book is like a man - clever and dull, brave and cowardly, beautiful and ugly.

Many sci-fi authors, we know, are as clever and tricky as so many Coyotes. Ms. Le Guin, though, has matured from the vividness and imagination she had from the beginning into wisdom and a clearsightedness that reaches past sympathy.

True contemplation is not a psychological trick but a theological grace. It can come to us ONLY as a gift, and not as a result of our own clever use of spiritual techniques.

Girls! Girls! Those of you who have hearts, and therefore a wish for happiness, homes and husbands by and by, never develop a reputation for being clever.

In every fall, clever man discovers the secrets of further rising!

The clever men of Oxford, know all that there is to be knowed but they none of them know one half as much as intelligent Mr. Toad.

The worst sort of clever men are those who know better than the Bible.

Credulity is always a ridiculous, often a dangerous failing: it has made of many a clever man, a fool; and of many a good man, a knave.

Never have anything to do with an unlucky place, or an unlucky man. I have seen many clever men, very clever men, who had not shoes to their feet. I never act with them. Their advice sounds very well, but they cannot get on themselves; and if they cannot do good to themselves, how can they do good to me?

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.

Passion often renders the most clever man a fool, and sometimes renders the most foolish man clever.

What clever man has ever needed to commit a crime? Crime is the last resort of political half-wits.

Clever men are good, but they are not the best.

No man is clever enough to know all the evil he does.

To succeed in the world, it is much more necessary to possess the penetration to discern who is a fool, than to discover who is a clever man.

Every man is a damn fool for at least five minutes every day; wisdom consists in not exceeding the limit.

It takes a clever man to turn cynic and a wise man to be clever enough not to.

A fool tries to look different: a clever man looks the same and is different.

It's a wicked world, and when a clever man turns his brain to crime it is the worst of all.

The silliest woman can manage a clever man; but it needs a very clever woman to manage a fool.

Sister, they send you out for one and you bring back two... and a half. Such a clever girl.

She has her gown nicely in place tonight, doesn't she? Black velvet and sparkles, not a thread left hanging. Clever girl, this city. Even the sky is her friend.

I mean, I do love clever and witty, but I think that the 'Three Stooges' were geniuses. They'd have to be for their appeal to have lasted this long.

When a man steals your wife, there is no better revenge than to let him keep her.

If at first you don't succeed, destroy all evidence that you tried.

Lots of us when we're children believe 'oh well, if the world knew us as we really are, they'd know what wonderful, clever, brilliant, charming people we really are.'

You may be a well-educated, clever and virtuous person, but those qualities will not necessarily make you a successful businessman. You must give your best to each and every task you take on, and reflect on your performance with an honest and unprejudiced eye.

People often get the wrong impression of Mick. The clever businessman is just one side of Mick. The other side is the same as the rest of us, a true rocker!

I mean, props to Paris Hilton because she's doing it really well and for someone that's such a wealthy heiress she doesn't really have to lift a finger at all. She was the first example of really strong branding and is obviously a very clever businesswoman. I remember recently they printed in a British magazine, they compared her to Kim Kardashian in the sales of perfume and all of this other stuff. She still makes huge revenue from all of her different business endeavors.

Men are only clever at shifting blame from their own shoulders to those of others.

A clear conscience is usually the sign of a bad memory.

Awards sell tickets, and they're a clever publicity stunt.

We have learned to whittle the Eden Tree to the shape of a surplice peg, We have learned to bottle our parents twain in the yelk of an addled egg. We know that the tail must wag the dog, for the horse is drawn by the cart, But the devil whoops, as he whooped of old; It's clever, but is it art?

It's clever, but is it Art?

If you’re that clever you can argue yourself into anything.

Any legend, any creature, any symbol we ever stumble on, already exists in a vast cosmic reservoir where archetypes wait. Shapes looming outside our Platonic cave. We naturally believe ourselves clever and wise, so advanced, and those who came before us so naïve and simple...when all we truly do is echo the order of the universe, as it guides us.

I am so clever that sometimes I don't understand a single word of what I am saying.

I think being sexy and comfortable in your body is a wonderful thing, and I don't mind being acknowledged for it or appreciated for it. I know what I'm capable of. I know that I'm a relatively smart girl - I'm clever - and I feel like the sexy image only stands to make me a more powerful human being.

Through clever and constant application of propaganda, people can be made to see paradise as hell, and also the other way round, to consider the most wretched sort of life as paradise.

While writing Cold Mountain, I held maps of two geographies, two worlds, in my mind as I wrote. One was an early map of North Carolina. Overlaying it, though, was an imagined map of the landscape Jack travels in the southern Appalachian folktales. He's much the same Jack who climbs the beanstalk, vulnerable and clever and opportunistic.

Her seductive power, however, did not lie in her looks [...]. In reality, Cleopatra was physically unexceptional and had no political power, yet both Caesar and Antony, brave and clever men, saw none of this. What they saw was a woman who constantly transformed herself before their eyes, a one-woman spectacle.Her dress and makeup changed from day to day, but always gave her a heightened, goddesslike appearance. Her words could be banal enough, but were spoken so sweetly that listeners would find themselves remembering not what she said but how she said it.

I sang 'American Pie' a lot in my stage set. It had a knack of uniting an audience in a sing-along. It's a clever song about American history but wrapped in a fantastic tune.

You're not drunk if you can lie on the floor without holding on.

Narcissism is actually a clever guise adopted to mask its exact opposite, which is a deep well of self-loathing, a well of low self-esteem, rather than high self-esteem. This helps explain why narcissists are so sensitive to criticism, why narcissists tend to break into outrage if they're criticized, because their self-esteem is actually much more brittle than it seems, and once they're challenged, that mask falls apart.

I hate a stupid man who can't talk to me, and I hate a clever man who talks me down. I don’t like a man who is too lazy to make any effort to shine; but I particularly dislike the man who is always striving for effect. I abominate a humble man, but yet I love to perceive that a man acknowledges the superiority of my sex, and youth and all that kind of thing. . . A man who would tell me that I am pretty, unless he is over seventy, ought to be kicked out of the room. But a man who can't show me that he thinks me so without saying a word about it, is a lout.

One must search diligently to find laudatory comments on education (other than those pious platitudes which are fodder for commencement speeches). It appears that most persons who have achieved fame and success in the world of ideas are cynical about formal education. These people are a select few, who often achieved success in spite of their education, or even without it. As has been said, the clever largely educate themselves, those less able aren't sufficiently clever or imaginative to benefit much from education.

The height of cleverness is in one's ability to be very clever without seeming clever at all.

Even more than getting compliments on social media, what I love is when some random stranger says something very funny or insightful about my books, often in 140 characters or less! It's a very casual, low-stakes, non-burdensome way of connecting that I think is fun for both the writer and the reader. And there are a lot of clever people out there who have no connection to publishing.

Tomorrow is a mystery. Today is a gift. That is why it is called the present.

Religion is for people who fear hell, spirituality is for people who have been there.