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beware the clever man that makes the wrong look right
Sep 10, 2025
Fools lie, clever men stick to the truth.
So many, though reluctant to admit it. Shun clever men, and rather suffer fools.
I have a fantastic husband. Here's the honeymoon part: I still think he's the funniest, wittiest, most clever man I've ever known.
There's a road to hell that is paved with good intentions but it's a long route. The quicker path is paved with the kind of ignorance that clever men who just don't want to know are best at.
It is impossible for a dove to catch a swallow, for a clever man to catch a genius.
I never heard tell of any clever man that came of entirely stupid people.
A fool is a person who guesses and gets it wrong, a clever man is one who guesses, regardless of time period, and gets it right.
Wise man is a lake full with fishes; clever man is a fisherman who often visits this lake!
The right thoughts of the clever man are a ladder which takes you higher places. By climbing these ladders, one day you yourself become such a ladder itself!
In a stupid society, a clever man can come into the power; but in a clever society no stupid can come into the power!
In every fall, clever man discovers the secrets of further rising!
Stupid man produces noise; clever man produces silence!
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.
Meadowlark Lemon is one very clever man, unique and truly one of a kind.
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.
Only the clever men can be flexible; others are condemned to remain as rigid!
A clever man should handle his interests so that each will fall in suitable order of their value.
Our great democracies still tend to think that a stupid man is more likely to be honest than a clever man.
Passion often renders the most clever man a fool, and sometimes renders the most foolish man clever.
The greatest fools are ofttimes more clever than the men who laugh at them.
No Jew was ever fool enough to turn Christian unless he was a clever man.
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.
For the female of the species is more deadly than the male.
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.
Education without values, as useful as it is, seems rather to make man a more clever devil.
Nothing shows a man's character more than what he laughs at.
I'm constantly pitching one episode where we see life through Castle's eyes. I think Castle's just a little off as far as his perception goes. A very, very clever man, but I want to see the world as Castle sees it - kind of a rose-colored glasses, all the women find him irresistible, all the guys find him super cool and do whatever he says.
I love hearing details of writers' craft, as cannibals eat the brains of clever men to get cleverer.
A clever man commits no minor blunders.
So now the question is, basically, right now, how will the Osama Bin Laden tape affect the election? And I have a feeling that it could tilt the election a bit. In fact, I'm a little inclined to think that Karl Rove, the political manager at the White House, who is a very clever man, that he probably set up bin Laden to this thing.
A clever man reaps some benefit from the worst catastrophe, and a fool can turn even good luck to his disadvantage.
Fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves.
People who, not being in love themselves, feel that a clever man should only be unhappy about a person who is worth his while; which is rather like being astonished that anyone should condescend to die of cholera at the bidding of so insignificant a creature as the comma bacillus.
The great Chinese classics have always said that it's better not to fight; that the clever man achieves his ends without violence; that a battle delayed is better than a battle fought.
Clever and attractive women do not want to vote; they are willing to let men govern as long as they govern men.
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.
You can tell whether a man is clever by his answers. You can tell whether a man is wise by his questions.
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.
A woman's guess is much more accurate than a man's certainty.