Popular quotes about Clever! Wisdom and inspiration are here!
You think youโre a very clever fellow, donโt you?โ Saldur challenged. โNo, Your Grace,โ Merrick replied. โClever is the man who makes a fortune selling dried-up cows, explaining how it saves the farmers the trouble of getting up every morning to milk them. Iโm not cleverโIโm a genius.
Michael J. SullivanI don't have any one way to tell a story. I don't have any rule book of how it's supposed to be done. But I've always said that if a story would be more emotionally involving told, beginning, middle, and end, I'll tell it that way. I won't jigsaw it, just to show what a clever boy I am. I don't do anything in my script just to be clever.
Quentin TarantinoBut if you must be clever, then be clever. Be brave. Sleep with fists closed and shoot straight.
Catherynne M. ValenteI'm not a boy-writer, I've never been. I wanted to be a boy-writer when I was young, and I think that held me back. I wanted to be very clever, and funny, but I'm not very clever and not terribly funny. I've finally accepted my limits, and I do what I can do.
Paul AusterThe most powerful political moments for me come when I feel like my actions are aligned with a certain truth. I can feel it. When I'm talking to a group and I'm saying something truthful, I can feel a power that comes out of those statements that is different than when I'm just being glib or clever.
Barack ObamaCleopatra stood at one of the most dangerous intersections in history; that of women and power. Clever women, Euripides had warned hundreds of years earlier, were dangerous.
Stacy SchiffThe nice thing about the queen of Flanders' daughter, had been that she did not laugh at him. A lot of people laughed at you when you went after the Questing Beast - and never caught it - but Piggy never laughed. She seemed to understand at once how interesting it was, and made several sensible suggestions about the way to trap it. Naturally, one did not pretend to be clever or anything, but it was nice not to be laughed at. One was doing one's best.
T. H. WhiteYou lose your anonymity just like a helium balloon with a string. Therefore people are going to have their own opinion and they're going to write in whatever clever manner they desire
Kim BasingerI want my recipes to be clever examples of a bigger story, a celebration of resource responsibility and spending with purpose.
Melissa d'ArabianIt cannot be said often enough that science fiction as a genre is incredibly educational - and I'm speaking the written science fiction, not 'Star Trek.' Science fiction writers tend to fill their books if they're clever with little bits of interesting stuff and real stuff.
Terry PratchettA good Judoka never anticipates his action in a match, but his mind is as clever as a polished mirror which enables him to foresee precisely anything to happen and he displays freedom of his physique to cope with any change. Such mental state and physical action are called sei or tranquility and do or action, sometimes they are called ju and go or tenderness and sturdiness, in and yo or negative and positive, etc.
Kyuzo MifuneClever men are impressed in their differences from their fellows. Wise men are conscious of their resemblance to them.
R. H. TawneyFootball is a game based on emotion and intelligence. Anyone can be clever, the trick is not to think the other guy is stupid.
Jose MourinhoBut since the Modernists (as they are commonly and rightly called) employ a very clever artifice, namely, to present their doctrines without order and systematic arrangement into one whole, scattered and disjointed one from another, so as to appear to be in doubt and uncertainty, while they are in reality firm and steadfast, it will be of advantage, Venerable Brethren, to bring their teachings together here into one group, and to point out the connexion between them, and thus to pass to an examination of the sources of the errors, and to prescribe remedies for averting the evil.
Pope Pius XWho 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 NazianzusThe only thing that shocks me is public interest in people who shouldn't be interesting at all, like Jade Goody. We've gone past Andy Warhol and all those clever, arty and witty things that were done and said in the sixties...the fifteen minutes, and so on. Now your celebrities don't have to do anything, they're just voted in. And that shocks me.
Marco PirroniHow dare the smooth talkers, the clever official blabbers, open their mouths and boast of progress. . . . Here they hold jubilant peace conferences in which they talk against war. . . . But the same righteous Governments, who are so nobly, industriously active to establish the eternal peace, are preparing, by their own confession, complete annihilation for six million people, and there is nobody, except the doomed themselves, to raise his voice in protest although this is a worse crime than any war . . .
Max NordauAgainst the beautiful and the clever and the successful, one can wage a pitiless war, but not against the unattractive: then the millstone weighs on the breast.
Graham GreenePerhaps to be able to learn things quickly isn't everything. To be kind is worth a great deal to other people...Lots of clever people have done harm and have been wicked.
Frances Hodgson BurnettCivilization rests on a set of promises; if the promises are broken too often, the civilization dies, no matter how rich it may be, or how mechanically clever. Hope and faith depend on the promises; if hope and faith go, everything goes.
HerbertFrom now on the enemy is more clever than you. From now on the enemy is stronger than you. From now on you are always about to lose.
Orson Scott CardIs this a topic whose time has truly come? The integration of science and religion? Or have I just written a clever book that temporarily impressed a few people and will otherwise go as quickly as it came?
Ken WilberI am so stupid that I cannot understand philosophy; the antithesis of this is that philosophy is so clever that it cannot comprehend my stupidity. These antitheses are mediated in a higher unity; in our common stupidity.
Soren KierkegaardModern 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 WildeOne problem with our current society is that we have an attitude towards education as if it is there to simply make you more clever, make you more ingenious... Even though our society does not emphasize this, the most important use of knowledge and education is to help us understand the importance of engaging in more wholesome actions and bringing about discipline within our minds. The proper utilization of our intelligence and knowledge is to effect changes from within to develop a good heart.
Dalai LamaWhoever is the first in the field and awaits the coming of the enemy will be fresh for the fight... Therefore the clever combatant imposes his will on the enemy... By holding out advantages to him, he can cause the enemy to approach of his own accord; or by inflicting damage, he can make it impossible for the enemy to draw near.
Sun TzuYou are very clever,' said the old man shyly. 'I would like to eat your brains, one day,' For some reason the books of etiquette that Daphne's grandmother had forced on her didn't quite deal with this. Of course, silly people would say to babies, 'You're so sweet I could gobble you all up!', but that sort of nonsense seemed less funny when it was said by a man in war paint who owned more than one skull. Daphne, cursed with good manners, settled for, 'It's very kind of you to say so.
Terry PratchettI need you to be clever, Bean. I need you to think of solutions to problems we haven't seen yet. I want you to try things that no one has ever tried because they're absolutely stupid.
Orson Scott CardThere is no good talking to him," said a Dragon-fly, who was sitting on the top of a large brown bulrush; "no good at all, for he has gone away." "Well, that is his loss, not mine," answered the Rocket. "I am not going to stop talking to him merely because he pays no attention. I like hearing myself talk. It is one of my greatest pleasures. I often have long conversations all by myself, and I am so clever that sometimes I don't understand a single word of what I am saying." "Then you should definitely lecture on Philosophy," said the Dragon-fly.
Oscar WildeOnly in Britain could it be thought a defect to be too clever by half. The probability is that too many people are too stupid by three-quarters.
John MajorI have always been very fond of them (drama critics) . . . I think it is so frightfully clever of them to go night after night to the theatre and know so little about it.
Noel CowardNo government likes the clever and the honorable men, because it is impossible to bridle them; they are independent!
Mehmet Murat IldanAudiences are very sophisticated and they know the nuts and bolts of the genre - certainly with horror more than others I think. But they attract lots of people, they're much derided as a genre but people go and see them and they're not all dumb. There's some very clever horror films. Stephen King gets a lot of flack for not being a proper writer because he's a horror writer, but I think he writes some brilliant books. I think it's wrong to just bin it before looking at it.
Reece ShearsmithI have learned that particularly clever ideas do not always stand up under close scrutiny.
Barbara MertzI've always enjoyed things that are popular,I mean, obviously, there are plenty of things that are popular that I hate. But when something like that is done right, I just think they nail it. I just think Modern Family is a really clever show.
Doug BensonPlaying nuts is a game like any other, neither better than tops, nor worse than cards. The game is played in various ways. There are 'holes' and 'bank' and 'caps.' But every game finishes up in the same way. One boy loses, another wins. And, as always, he who wins is a clever fellow, a smart fellow, a good fellow.
Sholom AleichemHonestly, I just assume that whatever is going to happen to me is going to happen. There it goes: someone is there, someone isn't there. This girl is here. This food is here. I think the clever people are the ones who do a little as possible.
Kevin AyersNothingโs changed. Youโll go home. Youโll be bored. Youโll be ignored. No one will listen to you, really listen to you. Youโre too clever and too quiet for them to understand. They donโt even get your name right.
Neil GaimanOne has the idea of a stupid man as perfectly healthy and ordinary, and of illness as making one refined and clever and unusual.
Thomas MannNever drink diet soda. It shows you have no nerve. Only drink real colas, caffeine-packed energy drinks, or vitamin water. Hate champagne because thatโs what everyone expects you to love. Energy drinks are the best party drinks. You never get tired, you never get a hangover, and you can make fun of all the loaded people who think theyโre clever but are really acting stupid.
Paris HiltonI don't think successful musicians were really put on this planet in order to have a great time, pat themselves on the back and say, 'Oh, what a clever boy I am!' I think that, like most artists, we were put on the planet to suffer just a little. And we do.
Ian Anderson