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”

  11 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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

  8 Copy quote

• The work of God can only be carried on by the power of God. The key is not $, organization, cleverness or education. No matter the society or culture, the city or town, God has never lacked the power to work through available people to glorify his name.

  Jim Cymbala

  Keys, Cities, Names

  Jim Cymbala (2010). “Fresh Wind Fresh Fire: What Happens When God's Spirit Invades the Hearts of His People”, p.109, ReadHowYouWant.com

  11 Copy quote

  Show source

• If a story is funny, and I made it up, then the big message is, `Aren't I clever?' .. If a story is funny and it actually happened, the big message is, `Isn't the world funny?' And actually I think that's a better message. I kind of want to think that about the world -- and it sounds less like boasting.

  Dave Gorman

  Clever, Thinking, Sound

  4 Copy quote

• 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

  7 Copy quote

• 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.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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.

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• The benefits of medical research are real - but so are the potential horrors of genetic engineering and embryo manipulation. We devise heart transplants, but do little for the 15 million who die annually of malnutrition and related diseases. Our cleverness has grown prodigiously - but not our wisdom.

  Martin Ryle

  Real, Heart, Engineering

  Letter to Professor Carlos Chagas, February 24, 1983.

  11 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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

  7 Copy quote

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

  Pittacus of Mytilene

  Good Faith, Industry, Sociability

  As quoted by Diogenes Laërtius, i. 78,

  15 Copy quote

  Show source

• it must be plain also that we should not anxiously strive for riches and honors by relying on our own diligence or cleverness or by depending on the favor of men or by trusting in the notion of good luck, but that we should always expect the Lord to direct us to the lot he has provided for us.

  John Calvin

  Good Luck, Men, Honor

  John Calvin, Henry Van Andel (2004). “Golden Booklet of the True Christian Life”, p.42, Baker Books

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• I always thought there was some cleverness to the joke diet in which you could eat as much as you want and as often as you want, but everything must be consumed naked in front of a full-length mirror. That would deter me!

  Gene Weingarten

  Mirrors, Naked, Want

  "Chatological Humor: The Big Fat Debate, Part 2". Live chat, www.washingtonpost.com. February 17, 2009.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Too great cleverness is but deceptive delicacy, true delicacy is the most substantial cleverness.

  Francois de La Rochefoucauld

  Delicacy, Deceptive

  4 Copy quote

• We judge matters so superficially that ordinary acts and words, done and spoken with some flair and some knowledge of worldly matters, often succeed better than the greatest cleverness.

  Madeleine de Souvre, marquise de Sable

  Judging, Ordinary, Done

  4 Copy quote

• I think the cleverness is inadvertent.

  Mike Birbiglia

  Thinking

  Source: www.hollywoodchicago.com

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• A net set up to catch fish may snare a duck; a mantis hunting an insect may itself be set upon by a sparrow. Machinations are hidden within machinations; changes arise beyond changes. So how can wit and cleverness be relied upon?

  Zicheng Hong

  Hunting, Ducks, Taoism

  4 Copy quote

• I try to think as little as possible, at least while working. I look at some of my early stories and can see the machination behind them, like a gear slowly moving. For example, sticking a dead father into the story to explain a character's sadness and bad decisions, or trying to impress myself with my own cleverness.

  Mary J. Miller

  Father, Moving, Character

  Source: therumpus.net

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Profits are not made by differential cleverness, but by differential stupidity.

  David Ricardo

  Stupidity, Made, Profit

  46 Copy quote

• Cleverness becomes a public nuisance.

  Oscar Wilde

  Nuisance

  4 Copy quote

• It is the individual voice, present to itself, that needs to be heard. We need to hear the process of the musician working on himself. We don't need to hear who is more clever with synthesizers. Our cleverness has created the world we live in, which in many ways, we're sorry about.

  Keith Jarrett

  Sorry, Clever, Voice

  9 Copy quote

• No better love than love with no objective, no more satisfying work than work with no purpose. If you could give up tricks and cleverness, that would be the cleverest trick!

  Rumi

  Giving Up, Would Be, Purpose

  18 Copy quote

• It's really easy to play harmonics, anyone can do it. It's another thing to be able to swing, to make to make a band swing, to create a groove. Harmonics ain't everything. Being able to play harmonics certainly does not make you a good bass player. Cleverness is no substitute for true awareness.

  Jaco Pastorius

  Player, Swings, Doe

  49 Copy quote

• People never will recollect that mere learning and mere cleverness are of next to no value in life, while energy and intellectual grip, the things that are inborn and cannot be taught, are everything.

  Thomas Huxley

  People, Intellectual, Energy

  Thomas Henry Huxley, Leonard Huxley (1900). “Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley”

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• If a man of good natural disposition acquires Intelligence [as a whole], then he excels in conduct, and the disposition which previously only resembled Virtue, will now be Virtue in the true sense. Hence just as with the faculty of forming opinions [the calculative faculty] there are two qualities, Cleverness and Prudence, so also in the moral part of the soul there are two qualities, natural virtue and true Virtue; and true Virtue cannot exist without Prudence.

  Aristotle

  Men, Two, Soul

  7 Copy quote

• I'm accused of cleverness as if it were a sin. She is merely clever, they say.

  Jennifer Stone

  Clever, Sin, Accused

  Jennifer Stone (1992). “Telegraph Avenue then”, Regent Pr

  4 Copy quote

  Show source