Top 1200 Clever People Quotes & Sayings

How clever am I? I'm really quite clever. I mean, look, I've got a first-class degree from Oxford.

My father was a very clever man. My mother was not clever. An extraordinary woman, but simple.

Most companies, 97 percent or more, put all their focus on clever advertising and clever taglines to get people to buy average or mediocre products. You need to back off and offer a really good product or service.

Rock n' roll is dirty, and it's bad, and it's either clever or it's not clever.

What's that one that people seem to like so much? 'Fleabag.' I watched that and it was that sort of Oxbridge 'Oh, I'm so clever and witty, aren't I?' I don't like that stuff. But then I don't like 'Mrs Brown's Boys' either. I like things that are clever but hide it.

There are so many people who are clever. There are 8000 people at Princeton who are more clever than the three of us at this table. BUT, we have the ability to give something that they don't have...which is us.

Because one species is more clever than another, does it give it the right to imprison or torture the less clever species? Does one exceptionally clever individual have a right to exploit the less clever individuals of his own species? To say that he does is to say with the Fascists that the strong have a right to abuse and exploit the weak - might is right, and the strong and ruthless shall inherit the earth.

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

Show me a clever nation; then I will show you a clever government!

Advisers who think that they are very clever while all around them are a bit thick, and that all the problems of the world would be solved if the thick listened to the clever, are liable to be disappointed.

With wives, men hide behind the air of bravado, which is basically a defence mechanism, I think. Clever creatures, women. Very clever.

Bush 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.

I was clever enough to know that John Donne was offering something that was awfully enjoyable. I just wasn't clever enough to actually enjoy it.

If you want to be clever in your picture, don't let anybody catch you at it. If they catch you, you're not clever.

It takes a clever man to turn cynic and a wise man to be clever enough not to.

There are people who try to figure things out. Often, magic is presented in a way that sets up a challenge that I actually find kind of appalling. You know, "I'm clever, I can do something, and you don't know what it is." And that instills in the audience the idea that, "Yes, I do. You're not that clever."

You can persuade a man to believe almost anything provided he is clever enough, but it is much more difficult to persuade someone less clever.

I wanted to be clever, but being funny came first. That's how you know someone is clever. They don't come out and tell you pi to 13 places - they tell you a joke.

I think some authors suffer from a need to try to prove that they're clever and educated. I try not to suffer from that. I would rather sacrifice my own narrative in the exercise of writing a biography. So I'm not worried about whether I'm clever.

Social 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.

Reductionism and elimination make one feel clever, but what happens when the meditator drops her fixation on feeling clever?

When I was young, I admired clever people. Now that I am old, I admire kind people.

Very clever people are often very clever at creating rationalisations for insane beliefs.

The point of doing TV is not to prove how clever you are, but to make other people realise how clever they are; and I think it's the same with books.

Most 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.

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?

The beautiful thing about comedy in the U.K. is that it has a clever twist to it, and when you really break it down, the joke isn't filthy at all: it's clever.

Stupid people like to delude themselves that while they may not be clever, they were at least able to compensate with feelings and insights denied to the intellectual....It was precisely this kind of false belief that made stupid people so stupid. The truth was the clever people had infinitely more resources from which to make the leaps of connection that the world called intuition. What was 'intelligence' after all, but the ability to read into things?

People 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.

There are still an awful lot of intelligent, clever constructive Americans and they are still doing clever constructive things.

Clever people, people who are cunning, do not know what love is because their minds are so sharp, because they are so clever, because they are so superficial - which means to be on the surface, and love is not a thing that exists on the surface.

Plenty of clever children have to pretend to be not clever or else they get bullied by the thick.

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

I'm very clever at hiding poems perhaps more clever than I am at writing them.

The height of cleverness is in one's ability to be very clever without seeming clever at all.

However a man who was honest and clever was always, ALWAYS more difficult to scam than someone who was both dishonest and clever. Sincerity. It was so difficult , by definition, to fake.

People often say to me - how clever you are! How brilliant to be able to go from ballet to theatre as you do. I answer that it is not clever at all. It is the gift of looking at oneself coolly, of calculating the future objectively. I could see the danger signals as far as ballet was concerned before anyone else did, that's all.

But am I clever and right or clever and wrong?

It's no use trying to be clever-we are all clever here; just try to be kind-a little kind.

The defenders can be clever and use everything within the laws of the game to stop the strikers scoring goals and, while some pulling is allowed, you need to be clever.

not all clever words are true. ... And inversely most things that are true are not clever.

I had been proud of my awareness, aware of my pride, and proud of that awareness again. It went on like this: How clever I am that I know I am so stupid, how stupid I am to think that I am clever, and how clever I am that I am aware of my stupidity, etc.

do you think it is better to be clever than to be good?” “Good for what?” asked the Doctor. “You are good for nothing unless you are clever.

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.

Rick And Morty' is the most consistently brilliant, densely plotted and enjoyable television show I have ever seen. It's childish, yet super-clever, without ever being clever-clever.

No, I wouldn't direct a movie, no. I couldn't. I don't have the patience for it, I don't have the people skills. You have to be clever. I'm not really clever in that kind of way. And you have to be able to manipulate people, but at the same time allow them to feel like they are manipulating you, to get the kind of movie that you want.

Women are very intelligent and not appreciated. We try to pretend that we are not clever, and it's such a pity that we can't show how clever we are.

I don't mind people putting us down, because if everybody really liked us, it would be a bore. You've got to have people putting you down. It doesn't give any edge to it if everybody just falls flat on their face saying, "You're great." We enjoy some of the criticisms as well, they're quite funny; some of the clever criticisms, not the ones that don't know anything, but some of the clever ones are quite fun.

A plain sock by itself is terribly boring, but it could score points by having a clever stitch pattern, or maybe by being made out of a very beautiful yarn that's an enchantment to work with. (Sadly, it is still infuriatingly true that being beautiful without being clever is almost worth more points than being clever without being beautiful, but such are the rules of life and knitting-they are cruel, but there anyway).

I . . . am always half afraid of finding a clever novel too clever--& of finding my own story & my own people all forestalled.

What I've found over the years working on various projects is, you can have a clever book or clever tagline, but there has to be a story to go along with it that leads to something bigger. Something with a little more texture to it.

We scientists are clever — too clever — 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!

A clever quote opens new paths in the minds of the clever!

But if you must be clever, then be clever. Be brave. Sleep with fists closed and shoot straight.

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.

If all the good people were clever And all the clever people were good The world would be nicer than ever We thought that it possibly could. But somehow, 'tis seldom or ner The two hit it off as they should The good are so harsh to the clever The clever so rude to the good!

You think you’re a very clever fellow, don’t you?” Saldur challenged. “No, Your Grace,” Merrick replied. “Clever 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. I’m not clever—I’m a genius.

Most people can tire of a lecture in fifteen minutes, clever people can do it in five, and sensible people don't go to lectures at all.

a person who was clever ought to be clever enough not to be unjust or deliberately unkind to anyone.

Remember that anybody who is clever enough to set you free is clever enough to enslave you.