Quotes About Cleverness

The dull always seek to be clever at the fool's expense, to somehow repay him for his cutting wit, but never are they clever, and often they are cruel.

Errors make excellent projectiles. They strike it cleverly in its vulnerable spot, in default of a cuirass, in its lack of logic;

But the work of the wise is one thing and the work of the merely clever is another.

Der Vorteil der Klugheit besteht darin, daß man sich dumm stellen kann. Das Gegenteil ist schon schwieriger.

I should not have cared to see it as an act of self-sacrifice even if it had been one; for there is nothing clever in self-sacrifice, nothing to pride oneself on.

The true spirit of conversation consists more in bringing out the cleverness of others than in showing a great deal of it yourself.

There is no accident so disastrous that a clever man cannot derive some profit from it nor any so fortunate that a fool cannot turn it to his disadvantage.

Gods of math and physics," she intoned, "I accept your gift of this clever, fair-haired boy.

Any luck?" Lazlo asked her when he saw her coming back from a test at the anchor. "Luck has nothing to do with it," she replied. "It's all strength and cleverness." She winked, flexing her hands like five-legged spiders. "And glue.

Medium clever," Simon acknowledged. "Like a cross between George Clooney in Ocean's Eleven and those MythBusters guys, but, you know, better-looking." "I'm always so glad I have no idea what you're vacantly chattering about," said Jace. "It fills me with a sense of peace and well-being.

cleverness that comes too late is hardly cleverness at all?

But if you must be clever, then be clever. Be brave. Sleep with fists closed and shoot straight.

I asked a queen once why she didn't want me. She wasn't a powerful queen, not a monarch of Spain or of Albania. Just a little kingdom of nowhere, but she married well and she had a crown. The queen of nowhere looked at me with her clear grey eyes and said: "Because I don't want to be in a story." Princesses usually grow up to be queens. The cleverness sticks long after the beauty goes.

How we would like to argue with September, and tell her that in the waiting lies the pleasure! That we here in the world of sensible folk know how to wait without twisted-up bellies and tapping feet and wishing for the sun to hurry up and rise and set. That a clever person is never bored, and a bored person is never clever. But though I am sly, I am a trickster, I am even cruel—I cannot lie.

To be clever enough to get all that money, one must be stupid enough to want it.

It's the people who try to be clever who never are; the people who are clever never think of trying to be.

I grew up with the mistaken impression that cleverness could exempt me from anything, but middle age teaches nothing if not the lesson that nobody is exempt.

Vedi Jim, tu sei una persona intelligente. Molto intelligente. Lo sei sempre stato ma purtroppo ti accontenti di essere solo una persona furba.

We make a notable company, declared Travante. I am as I am! Sir Pom-Pom is strong and brave, while Madouc is clever and resourceful. Also, with her copper-gold curls, her wry little face and her eyes of heartbreak blue she is both quaint and vastly appealing.

Pride, desire, compassion, cleverness, belligerence, fruitfulness, loyalty… and guilt. But above it all stands love. And if we desire to be more than human, that is the star by which we must set our sights.

The desire to be thought clever often prevents a man from becoming so.

Intelligence without wisdom is nothing more than stupidity that looks smart.

An honest man is all right even if he's an idiot...but a crook must have brains.

Man usually avoids attributing cleverness to somebody else unless it is an enemy.