cleverness Quotes

“Books! And cleverness! There are more important things! — Friendship! And Bravery!”

“Which would you rather be if you had the choice--divinely beautiful or dazzlingly clever or angelically good?”

“My idea of good company...is the company of clever, well-informed people, who have a great deal of conversation; that is what I call good company.′ ‘You are mistaken,’ said he gently, ‘that is not good company, that is the best.”

“She was sensible and clever, but eager in everything; her sorrows, her joys, could have no moderation.”

“The way a crow Shook down on me The dust of snow From a hemlock tree Has given my heart A change of mood And saved some part Of a day I had rued.”

“Everybody knew Bagheera, and nobody cared to cross his path.”

“He had discovered a great law of human action, without knowing it — namely, that in order to make a man or a boy covet a thing, it is only necessary to make the thing difficult to obtain.”

“Perhaps 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.”

“She’s as bright as the morning. She corresponds to your description;it is for that I wish you to know her. She fills all your requirements.” “More or less, of course.” “No; quite literally. She is beautiful, accomplished, generous, and for an American, well-born. She is also very clever and very amiable, and she has a handsome fortune.”

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.

“You have become clever all of a sudden.”

“I am sick to death of cleverness. Everybody is clever nowadays.”

“The lion cannot defend himself against snares and the fox cannot defend himself against wolves. Therefore, it is necessary to be a fox to discover the snares and a lion to terrify the wolves.”

“Once, so they say, he had to get home by swimming across a river in which there was a large and hungry pike. El-ahrairah combed himself until he had enough fur to cover a clay rabbit, which he pushed into the water. The pike rushed at it, bit it and left it in disgust. After a little, it drifted to the bank and El-ahrairah dragged it out and waited a while before pushing it in again. After an hour of this, the pike left it alone, and when it had done so for the fifth time, El-ahrairah swam across himself and went home. Some rabbits say he controls the weather, because the wind, the damp and the dew are friends and instruments to rabbits against their enemies.”

“Then his sense of adventure and mischief prompted him. He would go himself and bring back some news before they even knew that he had gone. That would give Bigwig something to bite on.”

″“Hazel,” he said quickly, “that’s a piece of flat wood—like that piece that closed the gap by the Green Loose above the warren—you remember? It must have drifted down the river. So it floats. We could put Fiver and Pipkin on it and make it float again. It might go across the river. Can you understand?” Hazel had no idea what he meant. Blackberry’s flood of apparent nonsense only seemed to draw tighter the mesh of danger and bewilderment.”

“Confident that he was clever, resourceful, and bold enough to escape any predicament, he was almost incapable of discouragement. When history carried him into war, this resilient optimism would define him.”

“But Mr. Fox was too clever for them. He always approached a farm with the wind blowing in his face, and this meant that if any man were lurking in the shadows ahead, the wind would carry the smell of that man to Mr. Fox’s nose from far away.”

Because of the self-confidence with which he had spoken, no one could tell whether what he said was very clever or very stupid.

“Did you never observe the narrow intelligence flashing from the keen eye of a clever rogue—how eager he is, how clearly his paltry soul sees the way to his end; he is the reverse of blind, but his keen eye-sight is forced into the service of evil, and he is mischievous in proportion to his cleverness?”

″‘You have appealed to Tash,’ said Aslan. ‘And in the temple of Tash you shall be healed. You must stand before the altar of Tash in Tashbaan at the great Autumn Feast this year and there, in the sight of all Tashbaan, your ass’s shape will fall from you and all men will know you for Prince Rabadash.‘”

“‘Rabbit’s clever,’ said Pooh thoughtfully. ‘Yes,’ said Piglet, ‘Rabbit’s clever.’ ‘And he has Brain.’ ‘Yes,’ said Piglet, ‘Rabbit has Brain.’ There was a long silence. ‘I suppose,’ said Pooh, ‘that that’s why he never understands anything.‘”

“A clever mind is not a heart. Knowledge doesn’t really care, wisdom does.”

“I read that the real Cleopatra wasn’t even that great-looking. She seduced everyone with how clever she was.”

“He is quiet and small, he is black From his ears to the tip of his tail; He can creep through the tiniest crack He can walk on the narrowest rail. He can pick any card from a pack, He is equally cunning with dice; He is always deceiving you into believing That he’s only hunting for mice. He can play any trick with a cork Or a spoon and a bit of fish-paste; If you look for a knife or a fork And you think it is merely misplaced - You have seen it one moment, and then it is gawn! But you’ll find it next week lying out on the lawn. And we all say: OH! Well I never! Was there ever A Cat so clever As Magical Mr. Mistoffelees!”

“The fact is, the Time Traveller was one of those men who are too clever to be believed.”

“Once there was a certain man who was very clever, but it was his character to always see the negative points of his jobs. In such a way, one will be useless.”

“She was a witch; and when she bewitched anybody, he very soon had enough of it; for she beat all the wicked fairies in wickedness, and all the clever ones in cleverness.”

“The desire to seem clever often keeps us from being so.”

“No man is clever enough to know all the evil he does.”

“Medea: In point of fact, my knowledge does not amount to much.”

“Oh, I will be cruel to you, Marya Morevna. It will stop your breath, how cruel I can be. But you understand, don’t you? You are clever enough. I am a demanding creature.”

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

“His system was so idiotically simple that some people can’t understand it, no matter how often it is explained. The people who can’t understand it are people who have to believe, for their own peace of mind, that tremendous wealth can be produced only by tremendous cleverness.”

“It doesn’t matter what they said. It’s what they felt. And that in their own way, in their unique, clever brother-sister shorthand, they were working it out.”

“‘Some clever children don’t discover how bright they are until after they’ve left school,’ continued Mr Holcombe, ‘and then spend the rest of their lives regretting the wasted years.‘”

“I would have liked to tell Mr. Palmer just how old and feeble that joke is, but instead I said, ‘Oh, of course, sir! How clever of you’ because I had learned a thing or two during my time at the Glenmore. About when to tell the truth and when not to.”

″‘Should you at any time come across a man with a limp,’ he added, ‘be wary of him. He works for Giles’s father. he’s clever and resourceful, but more important, he has no allegiance to anyone except his paymaster.‘”

“You’re smug, you’re irritating, you talk too much, you’re not half as clever as you think you are, and under it all? You’re pure evil.”

“I think you are very clever, Dad. But your friends the bees are very mad! But Dad! You left the honey there!”

“When a bear is smart, when a bear is clever, he never gives up. And I won’t ever!”

″ I never saw more honey! Never! Now don’t you think your dad is clever?”

“It must be frustrating for him to have a son as clever as me. It must be hard knowing that he can never win.”

″ I wanted to spend more time with this new Homer, this interesting and clever boy whom I’d known but not known for so many years.”

“Rowan knew, as Annad did not, that without the bukshah there would be not rich, creamy milk to drink, no cheese, curd, and butter to eat. There would be no tick gray wood for cloth.There would be no help to plow the fields or carry in the harvest. There would be no broad backs to bear the burden on the long journeys down to the coast to trade with the clever, silent Maris fold. The life of Rind dependen on the bukshah. Without them, the village, too, would die.”

“Mog was nice but not very clever. She didn’t understand a lot of things. A lot of other things she forgot. She was a very forgetful cat.”

″ I have secret plans and clever tricks”

“No battle plan can anticipate all contingencies. There are always unexpected factors including those stemming from the opponent’s initiative. A battle must thus becomes a balance between plan and improvisation, between error and correction. It is a narrow line. But it is a line one’s opponent must also walk. For all the balance of experience and cleverness, it is often the warrior who acts quickest who will prevail.”

″ ‘Someday, Nyasha, I will be queen, and you will be a servant in my household.’ ‘If that should come to pass,’ Nyasha responded, ‘I will be pleased to serve you. But why do you say such things? You are clever and strong and beautiful. Why are you so unhappy?’ ”

“Look at all these clever cats, cats from Spain, Brazil and France, cats from Greece, Japan and Norway, cats who sing and fly and dance...”

“It was piping hot when they took it out, and the villagers raised a mighty shout. ‘Isn’t it crusty? Aren’t we clever!‘”

“He worked hard - he knew now that he wasn’t as clever as he had thought. Besides, Sir Topham Hatt had been kind to him, and he wanted to learn all about freight cars so he could be a Really Useful Engine.”

“That’s quite absurd! You have merely to go to bed and blow out the candle. It is very difficult sometimes to keep awake, especially at church, but there is no difficulty at all about sleeping. Why, even babies know how to do that, and they are not very clever.”

“If your daughter is as clever as you say, bring her to my palace to-morrow, and I’ll put her to the test.”

“But it’s very thoughtful of you to say that. It shows a kind heart, and I think that’s so much more important than being clever.”

″‘Golly!’ he said. ‘You are clever! I bet my Granddad couldn’t do that, and he’s very good at making things.”

“This book has twelve stories about Polly and how she always managed to escape from the wolf by being cleverer than he was- which wasn’t very difficult because he was generally not at all clever. In fact he was rather stupid.”

“There is no such thing as a clever crook. If he was really that clever he wouldn’t be a crook at all.”

“You have to be as smart as paint to keep this Puddin’ in order. He’s that artful, lawyers couldn’t manage him.”

“Girls are just as clever as boys, and don’t you forget it.”

″...it is wrong to be angry with people for not being so clever as you are yourself.”

There’s Rabbit. He hasn’t Learnt in Books, but he can always Think of a Clever Plan.

“It wasn’t what Christopher Robin expected, and the more he looked at it, the more he thought what a Brave and Clever Bear Pooh was, and the more Christopher Robin thought this, the more Pooh looked modestly down his nose and tried to pretend he wasn’t.”

He is a clever man, a reading man; and I confess, that I do consider his attaching himself to her with some surprise.

“American girls are as clever at concealing their parents, as English women are at concealing their past,”

We will go back to our lines. It is true that we only see out of our eyes, and we are not very clever. But still, we are the only people tonight who have not been afraid. Good-night, you brave people.

“Too clever! No, my boy, you’re too clever. That beats everything.”

“He will lie—that is, the man who is a special case, the incognito, and he will lie well, in the cleverest fashion;”