Popular quotes about Clever! Wisdom and inspiration are here!
Mr. [Aldous] Huxley has been the alarming young man for a long time, a sort of perpetual clever nephew who can be relied on to flutter the lunch party. Whatever will he say next? How does he think of those things? He has been deplored once or twice, but feeling is in his favor: he is steadily read. He is at once the truly clever person and the stupid person's idea of the clever person; he is expected to be relentless, to administer intellectual shocks.
Elizabeth BowenPeople sometimes ask: Is Putin a clever man? Yes, he's clever in his own way, when it comes to political intrigue, and he's got a good head for numbers. But as soon as he took office, the first thing he did was to institute a new anthem based on the old Soviet one; that was a very major step, not a petty issue. He began at once to appeal to people's basest instincts. It is true that people in Russia are used to obedience.
Vladimir VoinovichWe scientists are clever โ too clever โ 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. FeynmanBush is a very stupid man. The American people are not stupid, they are very clever. I can't understand how such clever people came to elect such a stupid president.
Mohammed Saeed al-SahafOur [American] money system is structurally brittle. It doesn't matter if you put a very clever guy or a stupid guy at the wheel. The clever guy will take a half hour to have an accident, and the stupid guy will take ten minutes.
Bernard LietaerMost people think that 'I don't recall' is a clever answer. But it isn't that clever. You might not recall that you had bacon and eggs for breakfast- but if you killed your mother, you'll remember it.
F. Lee BaileyTruth and fact are old-fashioned and out-of-date, my friends, fit only for the dull and vulgar to live by. Appearance, not reality, is what the clever dog grasps at in these clever days. We spurn the dull-brown solid earth; we build our lives and homes in the fair-seeming rainbow-land of shadow and chimera.
Jerome K. Jeromedo you think it is better to be clever than to be good?โ โGood for what?โ asked the Doctor. โYou are good for nothing unless you are clever.
Henry JamesSocial media is a giant distraction to the ultimate aim, which is honing your craft as a songwriter. There are people who are exceptional at it, however, and if you can do both things, then that's fantastic, but if you are a writer, the time is better spent on a clever lyric than a clever tweet.
Bryan AdamsAlways remember you are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, smarter than you think and twice as beautiful as you'd ever imagined. Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself
RumiI want my recipes to be clever examples of a bigger story, a celebration of resource responsibility and spending with purpose.
Melissa d'ArabianTo lead a child (or anyone else!), even inadvertently, away from faithfulness, away from loyalty and bedrock belief simply because we want to be clever or independent is license no parent nor any other person has ever been given.
Jeffrey R. HollandPol Pot - he rounded up anybody he thought was intellectual and had them executed. And how he told someone was intellectual or not was whether they wore glasses. If they're that clever, take them off when they see him coming!
Ricky GervaisClever men are impressed in their differences from their fellows. Wise men are conscious of their resemblance to them.
R. H. TawneyClever people are never credited with their follies: what a deprivation of human rights!
Friedrich NietzscheThe worst part of an eminent man's conversation is, nine times out of ten, to be found in that part by which he means to be clever.
Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron LyttonWitticism. A sharp and clever remark, usually quoted and seldom noted; what the Philistine is pleased to call a joke.
Ambrose BierceFrom 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 CardThe Doctor: Doctor Song, you've got that face on again. River: What face? The Doctor: The "He's hot when he's clever" face. River: This is my normal face. The Doctor: Yes it is. River: Oh, shut up. The Doctor: Not a chance.
Steven MoffatThe Spider is an ode to my mother. She was my best friend. Like a spider, my mother was a weaver. . . Like spiders, my mother was very clever. Spiders are friendly presences that eat mosquitoes. We know that mosquitoes spread diseases and are therefore unwanted. So, spiders are helpful and protective, just like my mother.
Louise BourgeoisI think some journalists and bloggers want their articles to be clever, and the way into that is by writing nasty things. I think our culture likes to be mean. I don't just find this in fashion - I find it in the news. More and more, it is about ripping people apart.
Tom FordABOYNE (vb.) To beat an expert at a game of skill by playing so appallingly that none of his clever tactics or strategies are of any use to him.
Douglas AdamsI've been composing music all my life and if I'd been clever enough at school I would like to have gone to music college.
Anthony HopkinsIt was a hard name having growing up as a child. Some kids would call me names like "Birbiglebug" and "Birbibliography" and "Faggot". Some were more clever than others.
Mike BirbigliaI've determined the ideal job for me is one where I can write clever essays about my life and my employer will give me enough money not only to live a comfortable existence, but also to buy many, many new pairs of shoes.
Jen LancasterI have always thought it rather interesting to follow the involuntary movements of fear in clever people. Fools coarsely display their cowardice in all its nakedness, but the others are able to cover it with a veil so delicate, so daintily woven with small plausible lies, that there is some pleasure to be found in contemplating this ingenious work of the human intelligence.
Alexis de TocquevilleHuman beings, because we're so clever, have removed every single one of those population limiting factors... So nothing controls our increase in numbers except our own wish. Since I first started making television programs, the population of the world has increased three times. That's an extraordinary notion. Can it increase four times? Can it increase five times? The Earth is a finite size. So a point will eventually come when we run out of food, when we run out of space and when we will have destroyed most of the natural world. So ought we to do something about it before that happens?
David AttenboroughCleverness, 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 HoffI 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 CowardYou drive me insane June. You're the scariest, most clever, bravest person I know, and sometimes I can't catch my breath because I'm trying so hard to keep up. There will never be another like you. You realize that, don't you? Billions of people will come and go in this world, but there will never be another like you.
Marie LuI asked my mum, who's a very clever psychotherapist, and she says that kids love stories about death; they need it, they need to have stories that deal with death and explain it, as a place to put their fears.
Roald DahlAudiences 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 ShearsmithWise man is a lake full with fishes; clever man is a fisherman who often visits this lake!
Mehmet Murat IldanPlay isn't you being clever, or finding a trick, or finding a way of covering over your own misery, or persuading someone to do what you want. It's the process of working with the materials that you find and discovering what's possible with them.
Ian BogostSomewhere along the line you have to trust someone. You've just got to be clever enough to pick someone who's smart and wholesome and worthy-and then just listen to what they say.
David JoynerWhich would you rather be if you had the choice--divinely beautiful or dazzlingly clever or angelically good?
Lucy Maud MontgomeryI didn't like the way I looked, the way I dressed and moved, what I achieved and what I felt I was worth. But there was so much energy in me, such belief that one day I'd be handsome and clever and superior and admired, such anticipation when I met new people and new situations. Is that what makes me sad? The eagerness and belief that filled me then and exacted a pledge from life that life could never fulfill? Sometimes I see the same eagerness and belief in the faces of children and teenagers and the sight brings back the same sadness I feel in remembering myself.
Bernhard SchlinkPeople who, not being in love themselves, feel that a clever man should only be unhappy about a person who is worth his while; which is rather like being astonished that anyone should condescend to die of cholera at the bidding of so insignificant a creature as the comma bacillus.
Marcel ProustI 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 AndersonThe most common self-inflicted put-down is 'I am not a pastor-I am just a layperson.' This is all part of a clever satanic scheme to neutralize apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers along with the entire army of disciples, already positioned in the marketplace.
Ed SilvosoThe first casualty in any war is the truth. In World War II, I was part of a group of people who used to meet once a week with the sole purpose of analyzing the news and trying to work out what we weren't being told. We thought that we were clever, but we had absolutely no idea what was really going on. It was only years later that we learned the true story.
Doris LessingWar has become an affair of machines...and soldiers are little more than clever mechanics.
Alberto MoraviaWe all have found ourselves in awkward, embarrassing situations, often brought on by ourselves - thinking we are saying something clever, for example, when it turns out to sound really mean or stupid. Those are the kind of embarrassing situations that we could have avoided. "Welcome to the human race," is about the only comfort we can give ourselves.
Phyllis Reynolds Naylor