Clever Quotes - Page 33

• People try to do all sorts of clever and difficult things to improve life instead of doing the simplest, easiest thing-refusing to participate in activities that make life bad.

  Leo Tolstoy

  People, Trying, Difficult

  "Path of Life". Book by Leo Tolstoy, p. 210, 1909.

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• Who should listen to discussions of theology? Those for whom it is a serious undertaking, not just another subject like any other for entertaining small-talk, after the races, the theater, songs, food, and sex: for there are people who count chatter on theology and clever deployment of arguments as one of their amusements.

  Gregory of Nazianzus

  Christian, Song, Sex

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• 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.

  Thomas Merton

  Spiritual, Grace, Use

  Thomas Merton (2009). “Contemplative Prayer”, p.70, Image

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• Christianity is not a matter of persuading people of particular ideas, but of inviting them to share in the greatness of Christ. So pray that I may never fall into the trap of impressing people with clever speech, but instead I may learn to speak with humility, desiring only to impress people with Christ himself.

  Ignatius of Antioch

  Fall, Humility, Greatness

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• 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.

  Tom Shippey

  Past, Imagination, Coyotes

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

  John Steinbeck

  Beautiful, Book, Men

  John Steinbeck (1989). “Steinbeck: A Life in Letters”, p.372, Penguin

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• Modern pictures are, no doubt, delightful to look at. At least, some of them are. But they are quite impossible to live with; they are too clever, too assertive, too intellectual. Their meaning is too obvious, and their method too clearly defined. One

  Oscar Wilde

  Art, Intellectual, Doubt

  Oscar Wilde (1930). “The Picture of Dorian Gray: The Importance of Being Earnest ; The Ballad of Reading Gaol and Other Works of Oscar Wilde”

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• 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.

  Johnny Vegas

  Song, Pie, Tunes

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• TV—a clever contraction, derived from the words Terrible Vaudeville. We call it a medium, because nothing's well done.

  Goodman Ace

  Done, Vaudeville, Tvs

  Letter to Groucho Marx, in 'The Groucho Letters' (1967) p. 114

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• I would never create an image for myself; I'm not that clever.

  Ellie Goulding

  "Biography/ Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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• Indeed it is generally the case that men are readier to call rogues clever than simpletons honest, and are ashamed of being the second as they are proud of being the first.

  Thucydides

  Men, Proud, Rogues

  Thucydides, Victor Davis Hanson, Robert B. Strassler (2008). “The Landmark Thucydides”, p.200, Simon and Schuster

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• It's so easy to persecute an older, overweight, unwise, crude, ignorant woman who may very well be a good person at heart who has achieved a great deal in her life. So easy to vilify her and hate her and try to destroy her life. Woe to anyone today who is not slender, young, clever and politically correct.

  Anne Rice

  Hate, Heart, Ignorant

  "Anne Rice defends Paula Deen" by Erin Strecker, www.cnn.com. June 25, 2013.

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• Be good, sweet maid, and don't forget that this involves being as clever as you can.

  C. S. Lewis

  Sweet, Maids, Forget

  C. S. Lewis (2012). “The Complete C. S. Lewis Signature Classics”, p.74, HarperCollins UK

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• We scientists are clever — too clever — are you not satisfied? Is four square miles in one bomb not enough? Men are still thinking. Just tell us how big you want it!

  Richard P. Feynman

  Men, Thinking, Squares

  Richard P. Feynman (2015). “The Quotable Feynman”, p.260, Princeton University Press

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• With QE3, we are essentially being bought out with our own money...and unemployment is being used to facilitate this process in a very clever manner. Monetary inflation is currently being offset by labor deflation. The way you avoid collapse is by printing money and stealing assets. The way you avoid inflation is with labor deflation.

  Catherine Austin Fitts

  Printing Money, Unemployment, Way

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• The students in your youth ministry don’t need your clever ideas and great programming skills. They need a living model—a man or woman of God who is passionate about his or her faith.

  Doug Fields

  Men, Skills, Ideas

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• Age is a clever thief. It takes a little from you each day, so you're not aware of your loss until it'd irreversible.

  James Lee Burke

  Loss, Age, Thieves

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• There's been so many different types of musicals and it's a funny genre because there's a fine line between clever and stupid. It really takes a genius to know how to do it.

  Melissa Etheridge

  Stupid, Different, Genius

  "Melissa Etheridge takes a look back in 12th album". Interview with Mark Kennedy, www.sandiegouniontribune.com. September 5, 2012.

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• Everybody has a capacity for a happy life. All these talks about how difficult times we live in, that's just a clever way to justify fear and laziness.

  Lev Landau

  Happy Life, Laziness, Way

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• More than anything I have learned that we are all frail people, vulnerable and wounded; it is just that some of us are more clever at concealing it than others! And of course the great joke is that it is O.K. to be frail and wounded because that is the way the almighty transcendent God made people.

  Sheila Cassidy

  People, Way, Vulnerable

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• 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.

  Guillermo del Toro

  Wise, Believe, Simple

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• It is easy to be clever if you leave something important out.

  Peter Redgrove

  Important, Easy, Ifs

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• Words from the past: "It's a clever idea, Mr. Bell, but don't wire us, we'll wire you.

  Robert Breault

  Past, Ideas, Wire

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• Aphorism, n.: A concise, clever statement you don’t think of until too late.

  James Alexander Thom

  Thinking, Too Late, Aphorism

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• I was born and brought up in Liverpool with my clever little sister Jemma, who is 14 and wants to be a vet. My mum Jane is an administrator and my dad Peter is a taxi driver.

  Jennifer Ellison

  Dad, Little Sister, Vets

  "My CV: Jennifer Ellison". www.mirror.co.uk. November 10, 2005.

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