Quotes About Cleverness

But if you're very clever, I think there's something that can unhinge you if you're not careful.

The one thing she'd been able to count on her entire life was her cleverness. She was so often right. It was humbling and disorienting to realize that she in truth knew nothing at all. One only ever saw a fraction of someone, whatever it was they chose to show you, and extrapolated a whole person from that. And saw them through a prism of one's own prejudices.

But we have to be stronger and braver and cleverer than men are and not give them what they want simply because we find them charming. At which point, contrary creatures that they are, they will find us irresistible.

You are a devious woman, Blackthorn,' she said. 'I prefer the term strategic thinker.

we have come to depend on the instant rush of energy and delight we feel when we display our cleverness by making an unkind remark and the spurt of triumph when we vanquish an annoying colleague. Thus do we assert ourselves and tell the world who we are. It is difficult to break a habit upon which we depend for our sense of self.

Charlie's affable countenance stood in direct opposition to their mother's line. Her face, even with the bruises, was clearly still beautiful. She had always been so clever in the way that made people laugh rather than recoil. Relentlessly happy, Gamma had said. The kind of person people just like.

He's the only man I ever knew who had rubber pockets so he could steal soup.

...the greatest weapon against big stupid men was a sharp mind.

Don't think so much of your own Cunning, as to forget other Men's; a Cunning Man is overmatched by a cunning Man and a Half.

You can persuade a man to believe almost anything provided he is clever enough, but it is much more difficult to persuade someone less clever.

A man does not please long when he has only species of wit.

Whoever possesses abundant joy must be a good man: but he is probably not the cleverest man, although he achieves exactly what it is that the cleverest man strives with all his cleverness to achieve.

To a crafty man, a crafty and an halfe.

Cleverness is a quality a man likes to have in his wife as long as she is some distance away from him. Up close, he'll take kindness any day of the week, if there's nothing more alluring to be had.

Put a very clever man next to a genius, his brightness will immediately turn to dullness!

Only the clever men can be flexible; others are condemned to remain as rigid!

Revolutionary men with principles were not really different from the rest. They used their cleverness to get, in return for principles, what other men buy with their money.

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

The first thing I do in the morning is brush my teeth and sharpen my tongue.

I'd rather rely on mother nature's wisdom than man's cleverness

Patience and tenacity are worth more than twice their weight of cleverness.

You've got a degree in philosophy; so you think you're cleverer than me. But I'm not just some drama queen. Cause it's where you're at, not where you've been.

My scholarly expectation is then that I may succeed in becoming clever in philosophy in spite of my stupidity.

Kindness is true wisdom—not cleverness.