Cleverness Quotes - Page 4

• The winners stun us not by their cleverness, but by the fact that every tiny aspect of the business is just a touch better than the norm.

  Tom Peters

  Success, Tiny, Facts

  Tom Peters, Nancy Austin (1985). “A passion for excellence”

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• Did you measure to attain your height? Did you use geometry to radiate your limb? Did you lament storm-torn branches? Did you inventory your leaves for the sun? You did none of these things, yet man in his cleverness Cannot match your perfection.

  Ming-Dao Deng

  Men, Perfection, Tree

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• In late modernity we grow more and more accustomed to politicians and public figures who are indebted to their appetites for their "values," to their intellectual sloth for their "principles," to their rhetorical cleverness for their "conscience," and to their regimented conformism for their "philosophy."

  Kenny Smith

  Philosophy, Intellectual, Sloth

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• The eager or dutiful persons who subject themselves to these tidal waves of the classics and the moderns find everything wonderful in an absent-minded way. The wonder washes over them rather than into them, and one of its effects is to make anything shocking or odd suddenly interesting enough to gain a month's celebrity. And so another by-product of our come-one, come-all policy is the tendency to reward cleverness, not art, and to put one more hurdle in the path of the truly original artist.

  Jacques Barzun

  Art, Interesting, Rewards

  "A Surfeit of Fine Art". Essay by Jacques Barzun (1986) published in his book "The Culture We Deserve" (p. 127), 1989.

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• In science, modesty and genius do not coexist well together. (In Washington, modesty and cleverness don't.) Einstein is perhaps the most famous exception to the rule.

  Charles Krauthammer

  Exception To The Rule, Together, Genius

  "An Age-old Puzzle, Solved Modestly". articles.chicagotribune.com. July 05, 1993.

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• Cultivate truth, good faith, experience, cleverness, sociability, and industry.

  Pittacus of Mytilene

  Good Faith, Industry, Sociability

  As quoted by Diogenes Laërtius, i. 78,

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• A liar is a man who does now know how to deceive, a flatterer one who only deceives fools: he who knows how to make skilful use of the truth, and understands its eloquence, can alone pride himself in cleverness.

  Luc de Clapiers

  Liars, Lying, Pride

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• The fairies, as their custom, clapped their hands with delight over their cleverness, and they were so madly in love with the little house that they could not bear to think they had finished it.

  James M. Barrie

  Thinking, Hands, House

  James M. Barrie (2013). “The Little White Bird (Annotated Edition)”, p.115, Jazzybee Verlag

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• I am sick to death of cleverness. Everybody is clever nowadays. You can't go anywhere without meeting clever people. The thing has become an absolute public nuisance. I wish to goodness we had a few fools left. ALGERNON: We have. JACK: I should extremely like to meet them. What do they talk about? ALGERNON: The fools? Oh! about the clever people of course. JACK: What fools.

  Oscar Wilde

  Clever, Sick, People

  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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• Cleverness, after all, has its limitations. Its mechanical judgments and clever remarks tend to prove inaccurate with passing time, because it doesn't look very deeply into things to begin with.

  Benjamin Hoff

  Clever, Looks, Tao Of Pooh

  "The Tao of Pooh". Book by Benjamin Hoff, 1982.

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• You are so terribly nimble, so clever. I distrust your cleverness. You make a wonderful pattern, everything is in its place, it looks convincingly clear, too clear. And meanwhile, where are you? Not on the clear surface of your ideas, but you have already sunk deeper, into darker regions, so that one only thinks one has been given all your thoughts, one only imagines you have emptied yourself in that clarity. But there are layers and layers - you're bottomless, unfathomable. Your clearness is deceptive. You are the thinker who arouses most confusion in me, most doubt, most disturbance.

  Anais Nin

  Clever, Thinking, Ideas

  "Henry and June". Book by Anais Nin, 1986.

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• You stand for nothing. You respect nobody. The music you dance to is devoid of beauty, its lyrics empty of humor or cleverness.

  David Klass

  Empty

  David Klass (2007). “You Don't Know Me”, p.206, Macmillan

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• I do not live happily or comfortably With the cleverness of our times. The talk is all about computers, The news is all about bombs and blood. This morning, in the fresh field, I came upon a hidden nest. It held four warm, speckled eggs. I touched them. Then went away softly, Having felt something more wonderful Than all the electricity of New York City.

  Mary Oliver

  Morning, New York, Blood

  Mary Oliver (2009). “Evidence: Poems”, p.40, Beacon Press

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• Peter: Oh, the cleverness of me. Wendy: Of course, I did nothing... Peter: You did a little. Wendy: Oh, the cleverness of you.

  James M. Barrie

  Littles, Peter, Wendy

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• The masters of life know the way, for they listen to the voice within them, the voice of wisdom and simplicity, the voice that reasons beyond cleverness and knows beyond knowledge.

  Benjamin Hoff

  Voice, Simplicity, Way

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• It is amazing how complete is the delusion that beauty is goodness. A handsome woman talks nonsense, you listen and hear not nonsense but cleverness. She says and does horrid things, and you see only charm. And if a handsome woman does not say stupid or horrid things, you at once persuade yourself that she is wonderfully clever and moral.

  Leo Tolstoy

  Clever, Stupid, Doe

  Leo Tolstoy (1998). “The Kreutzer Sonata and Other Stories”, p.100, Oxford University Press, USA

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• She breathed deeply of the scent of decaying fiction, disintegrating history, and forgotten verse, and she observed for the first time that a room full of books smelled like dessert: a sweet snack made of figs, vanilla, glue, and cleverness.

  Joe Hill

  Sweet, Book, Snacks

  Joe Hill (2013). “NOS4R2”, p.73, Hachette UK

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• Thus, though I have heard of successful military operations that were clumsy but swift, cleverness has never been seen associated with long delays.

  Sun Tzu

  Art, Military, War

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• An ounce of prudence is worth a pound of cleverness.

  Baltasar Gracian

  Pounds, Wit, Prudence

  "The Art of Worldly Wisdom". Book by Baltasar Gracián, Maxim 92, 1647.

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• Fight to escape from your own cleverness. If you do, then you will find salvation and uprightness through Jesus Christ our Lord.

  John Climacus

  Faith, Jesus, Fighting

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• So I want to identify, if I can, the most important thing that we discover in life. At least, it is the most important thing that I have discovered. I will share it with you, like a precious jewel, fit for this occasion. I refer to love. Love for one another. Love for our community. Love for others everywhere in the world. Love transcends even scholarship, cleverness and university degrees. It is greater than pride and wealth. It endures when worldly vanities fade.

  Michael Kirby

  Love, Pride, Vanity

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• Greed has poisoned men's souls, has barricaded the world with hate, has goose-stepped us into misery and bloodshed.

  Charlie Chaplin

  Hate, Men, Greed

  "Fictional character: Hynkel (Dictator of Tomania / A Jewish Barber)". "The Great Dictator", www.imdb.com. October 15, 1940.

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• What a curious picture it is to find man, homo sapiens, of divine origin, we are told, seriously considering going underground to escape the consequences of his own folly. With a little wisdom and foresight, surely it is not yet necessary to forsake life in the fresh air and in the warmth of the sunlight. What a paradox if our own cleverness in science should force us to live underground with the moles.

  J. William Fulbright

  Men, Air, Moles

  "Fulbright of Arkansas: The Public Positions of a Private Thinker". Book by J. William Fulbright, 1963.

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• It startled him even more when just after he was awarded the Galactic Institute's Prize for Extreme Cleverness he got lynched by a rampaging mob of respectable physicists who had finally realized that the one thing they really couldn't stand was a smart-ass.

  Douglas Adams

  Smart, Science, Lynching

  Douglas Adams (2009). “The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy”, p.57, Pan Macmillan

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• I have never been clever enough - or egotistical enough to spend 300 pages dipping into the sludge of my own subconscious.

  Winston Graham

  Clever, Pages, Enough

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