178 Being Clever Quotes

Following is our list of being clever quotations and slogans full of insightful wisdom and perspective about too clever.

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Famous Being Clever Quotes

It's good to be clever, but not to show it. — Proverbs

Cleverness is not wisdom. — Euripides

A clever person solves a problem. A wise person avoids it. - Albert Einstein

A clever person solves a problem. A wise person avoids it. — Albert Einstein

It's the people who try to be clever who never are; the people who are clever never think of trying to be. — Gilbert Parker

Cleverness is like rouge - liberal application makes a woman look common and desperate. Wit is knowing how to apply it. — Tessa Dare

Clever people master life; the wise illuminate it and create fresh difficulties. — Emil Nolde

The clever cat eats cheese and breathes down rat holes with baited breath. — W. C. Fields

Be smart, but never show it. — Louis B. Mayer

To be clever enough to get all that money, one must be stupid enough to want it. — Gilbert K. Chesterton

Hindsight is notably cleverer than foresight. — Chester W. Nimitz

Being smarter than you look is better than looking smarter than you are. — Jeremy Clarkson

A clever enemy is better than a stupid friend. — Turkish Proverbs

A lot of clever people have got everything except judgement — Clement Attlee

Half of seeming clever is keeping your mouth shut at the right times. — Patrick Rothfuss

I am so clever that sometimes I don't understand a single word of what I am saying. — Oscar Wilde

Short Being Clever Quotes

  • Man is a clever animal who behaves like an imbecile. — Albert Schweitzer
  • Behind every clever man is an even cleverer woman. — Matshona Dhliwayo
  • In fact, to gull a fool seems to me an exploit worthy of a witty man. — Giacomo Casanova
  • The bold are helpless without cleverness. — Euripides
  • Cunning surpasses strength. — Proverbs
  • Cunning... is but the low mimic of wisdom. — Plato
  • If you can be funny, it means you're intelligent. Your brain is working fast. — Amber Valletta
  • I never tell anyone exactly how clever I am. They would be too scared. — Eoin Colfer
  • Stupid — well, there are so many kinds of stupidity, and cleverness is one of the worst. — Thomas Mann

Top 10 Being Clever Quotes

The conflict with Hell cannot be maintained by men, even the most clever. The Immaculata alone has from God the promise of victory over Satan. — Maximilian Kolbe

If two smart, intelligent, clever guys sit together on a table, and you both want the same, where can be the problem? We all want to be successful. — Jurgen Klopp

A fool who pretends to be clever will only highlight his foolishness. — Tibetan Proverbs

I 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 Card

People care more about being thought to have taste than about being thought either good, clever or amiable. — Samuel Butler

Maybe one day we shall be glad to remember even these hardships. - Virgil

Maybe one day we shall be glad to remember even these hardships. — Virgil

I mean, I do love clever and witty, but I think that the 'Three Stooges' were geniuses. They'd have to be for their appeal to have lasted this long. — Paula Poundstone

Dreaming permits each and every one of us to be quietly and safely insane every night of our lives — William C. Dement

Don't cry for a man who's left you--the next one may fall for your smile. — Mae West

A female friend, amiable, clever, and devoted, is a possession more valuable than parks and palaces; and without such a muse, few men can succeed in life, none be contented. — Benjamin Disraeli

Being Clever Image Quotes

Being clever quote Yesterday I was clever. So I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise. So I am changing myself.
Yesterday I was clever. So I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise. So I am changing myself.

Being Yourself Clever Quotes

Discreetly keep most of your radical opinions to yourself. When with people be a listener a large part of the time. Be considerate in every word and act, and resist the tendency to say clever things. The best evidence of your culture is the tone and temper of your conversation. — Grenville Kleiser

You can be fat and still be sexy . It all depends on how you feel about yourself — Elizabeth Taylor

Josh Billings said, It is not only the most difficult thing to know oneself, but the most inconvenient one, too. Human beings have always employed an enormous variety of clever devices for running away from themselves, and the modern world is particularly rich in such stratagems. — John W. Gardner

Being clever quote A stupid man's report of what clever man says can never be accurate, because he unconsciously transl
A stupid man's report of what clever man says can never be accurate, because he unconsciously translates what he hears into something he can understand.

I'm crazy. I know I'm crazy 'cause Desmond Tutu told me, and he's very clever. He said, 'You must free yourself, be more of who you are. Be more crazy.' And I'm going to. — Craig Ferguson

Grass probably helped me as much as it hurt me. Especially as a performer. When you're high, it's easy to kid yourself about how clever certain mediocre pieces of material are. But, on the other hand, pot opens windows and doors that you may not be able to get through any other way. — George Carlin

Knowing others is to be clever. Knowing yourself is to be enlightened. Overcoming others requires force. Overcoming yourself requires strength. — Lao Tzu

Marketing yourself to a new person often involves being charismatic, clever and quick-but most jobs and most relationships are about being consistent, persistent and brave. — Seth Godin

Try to be original in your play and as clever as possible; but don't be afraid to show yourself foolish; we must have freedom of thinking, and only he is an emancipated thinker who is not afraid to write foolish things. — Anton Chekhov

...Albert-next-door doesn't care for reading, and he has not read nearly so many books as we have, so he is very foolish and ignorant, but it cannot be helped... Besides, it is wrong to be angry with people for not being so clever as you are yourself. — E. Nesbit

Too Clever Quotes

The young women in my classes are feisty and clever and believe, often with the passion of youthful optimism, that feminism is a battle already won. I worry for them - and for my daughters, too. — Louise Brown

I don't at all like knowing what people say of me behind my back. It makes me far too conceited. — Oscar Wilde

Major Strasser: You give him (Rick Blaine) credit for too much cleverness. My impression was that he's just another blundering American. Captain Renault: We musn't underestimate American blundering. I was with them when they blundered into Berlin in 1918. — Humphrey Bogart

We think too much and feel too little. More than machinery, we need humanity. More than cleverness, we need kindness and gentleness. Without these qualities, life will be violent and all will be lost. — Charlie Chaplin

If you are clever enough to figure out what men want, you are either too wise to marry them or too intimidating for them to marry you. — Oswald Spengler

I would prefer as friend a good man ignorant than one more clever who is evil too. — Euripides

Don't be too clever for an audience. Make it obvious. Make the subtleties obvious also. — Billy Wilder

I'd rather get a good clean laugh with good material, than an easy laugh by swearing or shocking. That's not clever or comedic, anybody can get a laugh that way, it's too easy. — Jim Dale

I loved having a crew. I loved being the person who woke at six in the morning and knew where to put the camera. I loved watching the actresses cry, and to know that if you were clever and didn't do too many rehearsals, that it just came that way. — Jane Birkin

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

Trying To Be Clever Quotes

Who does not wish to be beautiful, and clever, and rich, and to have back, in old age, the time spent trying to be any of them. — Robert Breault

Fate does not invite ugly boring people to save the world; and if you do try to save the world (without being beautiful, strong, clever, or wise), you will soon die pointlessly and how much adventure is there in that? — James Alan Gardner

If you have an important point to make, don't try to be subtle or clever. Use the pile driver. Hit the point once. Then come back and hit it again. Then hit it a third time; a tremendous whack. — Winston Churchill

It is never wise to try to appear to be more clever than you are. It is sometimes wise to appear slightly less so. — William Whitelaw

The coaches of some players who are my own age keep saying publically about me: "This guy is going to be one of the greats." I am clever enough to know that they do not truthfully think so. They are trying to shake my confidence. Of course, this is a matter of tactics. — Alexander Zverev

I can't quite see the point of poems like "Wittgenstein Goes for a Walk with A Hawk in Sherwood Forest." I know they're trying to be clever, but they're not. — Andre Naffis-Sahely

When I try to get clever I fail, so I stick with the basic issues of human life on earth - sex, death, relationships, discovering who you are, being hurt and confused. — Barbara Ess

I've written a lot of wordy, erudite, pretentious songs, but believe it or not, I'm usually doing my damnedest to resist the temptation to be overly "clever," and trying to keep things as accessible - and singable - as possible. — Peter Blegvad

It i impossible to foresee the consequences of being clever, so you try to avoid it whenever you can. — Christopher Strachey

What I strive to do with songwriting is be really honest, authentic and try to be open and share that with people. I choose that over trying to be clever, poetic, or lyrical. — Brett Dennen

Smart Clever Quotes

Men Wanted for Dangerous Expedition: Low Wages for Long Hours of Arduous Labour under Brutal Conditions; Months of Continual Darkness and Extreme Cold; Great Risk to Life and Limb from Disease, Accidents and Other Hazards; Small Chance of Fame in Case of Success. — Ernest Shackleton

Mercedes Benz : A mechanical device that increases sexual arousal in women. - P. J. O'Rourke

Mercedes Benz : A mechanical device that increases sexual arousal in women. — P. J. O'Rourke

Debugging is twice as hard as writing the code in the first place. Therefore, if you write the code as cleverly as possible, you are, by definition, not smart enough to debug it. — Brian Kernighan

Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines. - Steven Wright

Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines. — Steven Wright

Guy goes into a bar with a duck under his arm. Bartender says, "Where'd you get the pig?" Guy says, "This is a duck." Bartender says, "I was talking to the duck." — Rodney Dangerfield

I’m actually pale blue: it takes me a week of sunbathing to turn white. — Billy Connolly

I am all in favour of spontaneity, providing it is carefully planned and ruthlessly controlled. — John Gielgud

There will be a rain dance Friday night, weather permitting! — George Carlin

Never treat somebody’s cleverness as his life’s smartness. Cleverness is to hide the weakness and the smartness is to project the strength of his weakness. — Anuj

"More fun than a barrel of monkeys." Has anyone ever stopped to think how cranky, if not downright vicious, a barrelful of monkeys would be, especially once released from the barrel? — Tom Shales

Very Clever Quotes

The white man is very clever. He came quietly and peaceably with his religion. We were amused at his foolishness and allowed him to stay. Now he has won our brothers, and our clan can no longer act like one. He has put a knife on the things that held us together and we have fallen apart. — Chinua Achebe

I am neither especially clever nor especially gifted. I am only very, very curious. — Albert Einstein

The silliest woman can manage a clever man; but it needs a very clever woman to manage a fool. — Rudyard Kipling

I never make stupid mistakes. Only very, very clever ones. — Unknown

I'm so happy dancing while the grim reaper cuts, cuts, cuts, but he can't get me. I'm as clever as can be, and I'm very quick but don't forget; we've only got so many tricks. no one lives forever. — Danny Elfman

Sometimes the very learned and clever can be brilliantly foolish, especially when seized by an apparently good cause. — George Pell

Messi is a genius. He has everything. When I watch him, I see a player who is very, very skilful, very clever and his left foot is like Diego Maradona's. — Franz Beckenbauer

It's very professionally done, very clever songwriting. I like Backstreet Boys more than 'N Sync, Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, it's all very well done stuff. Much better than the Partridge Family and New Kids On The Block. I took my kids to see Backstreet Boys live and they flipped out — Gene Simmons

He's very clever, but sometimes his brains go to his head. — Margot Asquith

Emma Woodhouse, handsome, clever, and rich, with a comfortable home and happy disposition, seemed to unite some of the best blessings of existence; and had lived nearly twenty-one years in the world with very little to distress or vex her. — Jane Austen

Clever Person Quotes

You may be a well-educated, clever and virtuous person, but those qualities will not necessarily make you a successful businessman. You must give your best to each and every task you take on, and reflect on your performance with an honest and unprejudiced eye. — Konosuke Matsushita

But a hare, now, that is a different thing altogether. A hare is not a pet but a person. Hares are clever and brave and loving, and they have fairy blood in them. It’s a grand thing to have a hare for a friend. — Elizabeth Goudge

You cannot take any people, of any color, and exempt them from the requirements of civilization - including work, behavioral standards, personal responsibility, and all the other basic things that the clever intelligentsia disdain - without ruinous consequences to them and to society at large. — Thomas Sowell

Any clever person can make plans for winning a war if he has no responsibility for carrying them out. — Winston Churchill

Clever people can copy the handwriting of an artist - it's like forging a person's signature. — Henry Moore

Precisely because we do not communicate by singing, a song can be out of place but not out of character; it is just as credible that a stupid person should sing beautifully as that a clever person should do so. — W. H. Auden

At this point, if I were to psychoanalyze myself, I'd have to say I am a clown, cleverly disguised as a regular person. — Tim Duncan

A skunk is better company than a person who prides himself on being 'frank'. — Robert A. Heinlein

The class focuses intensely on making people more comfortable with doing a wider range of things - such as networking, self-promotion, building their own personal brand, cleverly acquiring resources, getting known - that they may have been less comfortable with before. — Jeffrey Pfeffer

Nixon's motto was, if two wrongs don't make a right, try three. — Norman Cousins

Clever Man Quotes

You can tell whether a man is clever by his answers. You can tell whether a man is wise by his questions. — Naguib Mahfouz

Education without values, as useful as it is, seems rather to make man a more clever devil. — C. S. Lewis

Fear is the destructive energy in man. It withers the mind, it distorts thought, it leads to all kinds of extraordinarily clever and subtle theories, absurd superstitions, dogmas, and beliefs. — Jiddu Krishnamurti

Take from a man his reputation for probity, and the more shrewd and clever he is, the more hated and mistrusted he becomes. — Marcus Tullius Cicero

What clever man has ever needed to commit a crime? Crime is the last resort of political half-wits. — Charles Maurice de Talleyrand

Many clever men like you have trusted to civilization. Many clever Babylonians, many clever Egyptians, many clever men at the end of Rome. Can you tell me, in a world that is flagrant with the failures of civilisation, what there is particularly immortal about yours? — Gilbert K. Chesterton

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

All great events hang by a single thread. The clever man takes advantage of everything, neglects nothing that may give him some added opportunity; the less clever man, by neglecting one thing, sometimes misses everything. — Napoleon Bonaparte

Tell me I'm clever, Tell me I'm kind, Tell me I'm talented, Tell me I'm cute, Tell me I'm sensitive, Graceful and wise, Tell me I'm perfect - But tell me the truth. — Shel Silverstein

Credulity is always a ridiculous, often a dangerous failing: it has made of many a clever man, a fool; and of many a good man, a knave. — Frances Wright

Over Clever Quotes

If only Muslims were clever politically, they could take over the United States and replace its constitutional government with a caliphate. — Siraj Wahhaj

Emotion will always win over coolness and cleverness. It's when a scene works emotionally and it's cool and clever, then it's great. That's what you want. — Quentin Tarantino

Therefore the victories of good warriors are not noted for cleverness or bravery. Therefore their victories in battle are not flukes. Their victories are not flukes because they position themselves where they will surely win, prevailing over those wh. — Sun Tzu

Objective truth itself is sometimes often seen as a right wing Republican-Christian plot to take over the government (though the rhetoric is cleverer than that, that's the bottom line). — Peter Kreeft

Play 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 Bogost

Sometimes all you need to do to win clever people over to a principle is to present it in the form of a shocking paradox. — Friedrich Nietzsche

I think it's clever how Rome have kept a load of old stuff. There's no overheads, yet people are going over there to see it. — Karl Pilkington

You know, the mark of intelligence is realizing when you're making the same mistake over and over and over again, and not hitting your head in the wall five hundred times before you understand that it's not a clever thing to do. — Linus Torvalds

A father may have a child who is ugly and lacking in all the graces, and the love he feels for him puts a blindfold over his eyes so that he does not see his defects but considers them signs of charm and intelligence and recounts them to his friends as if they were clever and witty. — Miguel de Cervantes

I love books that rhyme. And I love books that are clever and have little lines in them that are meant to amuse the parents who will no doubt be reading the book over and over and over again. — Savannah Guthrie

Being Smart Quotes

A man must be big enough to admit his mistakes, smart enough to profit from them, and strong enough to correct them. — John C. Maxwell

Not everything that is faced can be changed. But nothing can be changed until it is faced. — James A. Baldwin

The purpose of studying economics is not to acquire a set of ready-made answers to economic questions, but to learn how to avoid being deceived by economists. — Joan Robinson

What we think or what we know or what we believe is in the end of little consequence. The only thing of consequence is what we do — John Ruskin

I wish my name was Brian because maybe sometimes people would misspell my name and call me Brain. That's like a free compliment and you don't even gotta be smart to notice it. — Mitch Hedberg

You can be smart and happy or stupid and miserable. . . it's your choice — Gordon B. Hinckley

You must be oh-so smart, or oh-so pleasant. For years I was smart. I recommend pleasant...and you may quote me. — James Stewart

If you want your children to be smart, tell them stories. If you want them to be really smart, tell them more stories. If you want your children to be brilliant, tell them even more stories. — Albert Einstein

People typically only believe they're in a negotiation when dollars are involved. And maybe sometimes they're smart enough to see if there's a commodity that you can count being exchanged. And, of course, the commodity that we most commonly exchange is money. — Chris Voss

Be afraid of a stupid friend, not of a smart enemy. — Turkish Proverbs

Clever Woman Quotes

A clever woman often compromises her husband; a stupid woman only compromises herself. — Charles Maurice de Talleyrand

Show me a man or woman who cannot stand mysteries and I will show you a fool, a clever fool - perhaps - but a fool just the same. — Raymond Chandler

The surest aid in combating the male's disease of self-contempt is to be loved by a clever woman. — Friedrich Nietzsche

When a man wants a mystery, it is generally better to leave him mystified. Nobody loves a clever woman. — Philippa Gregory

No woman marries for money; they are all clever enough, before marrying a millionaire, to fall in love with him first. — Cesare Pavese

Good women are rarely clever and clever women are rarely good. — Adah Isaacs Menken

the world is not always kind to a clever woman even when she is visibly known to be earning her own living. There are always spiteful tongues wagging in the secret corners and byways, ready to assert that her work is not her own and and that some man is in the background, helping to keep her! — Marie Corelli

She is very clever, too clever for a woman. She lacks the indefinable charm of weakness. — Oscar Wilde

Lars von Trier is very, very, very clever about women. He gives the woman a space that I don't know any filmmaker does. Because in Breaking The Waves, protagonist Emily Watson is the Christ. Which man is doing that? I don't know any man giving that space to a woman. No one. — Chantal Akerman

I've always been clever enough to surround myself with the best in whatever field I'm working in... Good people make you look good. — Maggie Tabberer

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Read quotes by Albert Einstein

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Tessa Dare
quotes on love, marriage and books

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Emil Nolde
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More Being Clever Quotes

When you get hit that's when you've got to be calm. A professional fighter has to learn how to hit and not get hit, and at the same time be exciting. That's what professional boxing is about. You've got to be clever, you've got to be smart, and not get hit, and when you're able to do this, you're a fighter. — Cus D'Amato

We learned to be patient observers like the owl. We learned cleverness from the crow, and courage from the jay, who will attack an owl ten times its size to drive it off its territory. But above all of them ranked the chickadee because of its indomitable spirit. — Tom Brown, Jr.

I just miss you, in a quite simple desperate human way. Oh my dear, I can’t be clever and stand-offish with you: I love you too much for that. Too truly.You have no idea how stand-offish I can be with people I don’t love. I have brought it to a fine art. But you have broken down my defences. And I don’t really resent it. — Vita Sackville-West

You have to begin to ask yourself which components of my belief system are things that I arrived through naturally from my observation of nature, and which parts of them are placed into me by a system that is designed to turn people into consumers. And I think more often than not that a greater percentage of your personality is not you at all. It’s a tapestry that has been cleverly woven by a system designed to make people feel totally normal spending the majority of their lives driving in a commute and working in a sh*t job and being tired all the time. — Duncan Trussell

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

A professor can never better distinguish himself in his work than by encouraging a clever pupil, for the true discovers are among them, as comets amongst the stars. — Carl Linnaeus

Today's religion will be the future's mythology. Both believed at one time by many; but proved wrong by the clever. — Steve Crocker

That which can be destroyed by the truth, should be. — P. C. Hodgell

America didn’t bypass or escape civilization. It did something far more profound, far cleverer: it simply changed what civilization could be. — A. A. Gill

Good people are found not changed. Recently I read a headline that said, 'We don't teach people to be nice. We simply hire nice people.' Wow! What a clever short cut. — Jim Rohn

Ignorance of all things is an evil neither terrible nor excessive, nor yet the greatest of all; but great cleverness and much learning, if they be accompanied by a bad training, are a much greater misfortune. — Plato

Those who choose love - daring to feel to the depths of being, accepting responsibility for their actions, and seeking a purpose in life - will find that the world of significant living will unfold its cleverly concealed presence. — Barbara Marciniak

To be able to ask a question clearly is two-thirds of the way to getting it answered. — John Ruskin

This is a long tough road we have to travel. The men that can do things are going to be sought out just as surely as the sun rises in the morning. Fake reputations, habits of glib and clever speech, and glittering surface performance are going to be discovered. — Dwight D. Eisenhower

I've just finished reading some of my early papers, and you know, when I'd finished I said to myself, 'Rutherford, my boy, you used to be a damned clever fellow.' (1911) — Ernest Rutherford

What I want to talk to you about today is the difference between gifts and choices. Cleverness is a gift, kindness is a choice. Gifts are easy - they’re given after all. Choices can be hard. You can seduce yourself with your gifts if you’re not careful, and if you do, it’ll probably be to the detriment of your choices. — Jeff Bezos

If the Great Way perishes there will morality and duty. When cleverness and knowledge arise great lies will flourish. When relatives fall out with one another there will be filial duty and love. When states are in confusion there will be faithful servants. — Lao Tzu

I do love poop. I can't help it. The heart wants what it wants. I enjoy being clever and pithy and political, but nothing's going to get me like dumb stuff. — Sarah Silverman

If the Great Way perishes there will morality and duty. When cleverness and knowledge arise great lies will flourish. When relatives fall out with one another there will be filial duty and love. When states are in confusion there will be faithful servants. — Lao Tzu

Fear wears so many clever disguises it is virtually impossible to always recognize it. Fear disguises itself as the need to be somewhere else, doing something else, not knowing how to do something or not needing to do something. — Iyanla Vanzant

Obviously people want social calm, but if you do not let clever and ingenious people to participate, obviously there must be some dormant volcano that will erupt, sooner or later. — Lech Walesa

What a wonderful world this would be if there were as many wise people as there are clever people. — Unknown

Move quickly. Sound, calm mind. Be light in body. Have a clever mind. Master the basics. — Gogen Yamaguchi

Beware of Destination Addiction... a preoccupation with the idea that happiness is in the next place, the next job and with the next partner. Until you give up the idea that happiness is somewhere else, it will never be where you are. — Robert Holden

Our great democracies still tend to think that a stupid man is more likely to be honest than a clever man, and our politicians take advantage of this prejudice by pretending to be even more stupid than nature has made them. — Bertrand Russell

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