Famous Quotes & Sayings

Soren Kierkegaard

The individual (no matter how well-meaning he might be, no matter how much strength he might have, if only he would use it) does not have the passion to rip himself away from either the coils of Reflection or the seductive ambiguities of Reflection; nor do the surroundings and times have any events or passions, but rather provide a negative setting of a habit of reflection, which plays with some illusory project only to betray him in the end with a way out: it shows him that the most clever thing to do is nothing at all.

Marc Jacobs

Sephora's business is really smart and clever - I'm all for anything that gets people up and out and into the social experience of shopping.

Tony Randall

Awards sell tickets, and they're a clever publicity stunt.

Thucydides

Athens' biggest worry was the sheer recklessness of its own democratic government. A simple majority of the citizenry, urged on and incensed by clever demagogues, might capriciously send out military forces in unnecessary and exhausting adventures.

Thucydides

Indeed it is generally the case that men are readier to call rogues clever than simpletons honest, and are ashamed of being the second as they are proud of being the first.

Robert A. Heinlein

Never try to have the last word. You might get it.

Robert A. Heinlein

One man's theology is another man's belly laugh.

Robert A. Heinlein

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

Tim Robbins

Bush is very clever. When the debate should have been about the deterioration of our cities and the lack of action by government, he sent in his idiot to make an outrageous statement about Murphy Brown.

Toni Morrison

Hospitality is gold in this City; you have to be clever to figure out how to be welcoming and defensive at the same time. When to love something and when to quit. If you don't know how, you can end up out of control or controlled by some outside thing like that hard case last winter.

Toni Morrison

Clever, but schoolteacher beat him anyway to show him that definitions belonged to the definers - not the defined.

Tom Stoppard

If you could stop every atom in its position and direction, and if your mind could comprehend all the actions thus suspended, then if you were really, really good at algebra you could write the formula for all the future; and although nobody can be so clever as to do it, the formula must exist just as if one could.

Tom Stoppard

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.

Sylvia Plath

So, now I shall talk every night. To myself. To the moon. I shall walk, as I did tonight, jealous of my loneliness, in the blue-silver of the cold moon, shining brilliantly on the drifts of fresh-fallen snow, with the myriad sparkles. I talk to myself and look at the dark trees, blessedly neutral. So much easier than facing people, than having to look happy, invulnerable, clever.

Tom Felton

I like physics. I think it is the best science out of all three of them, because generally it's more useful. You learn about speed and velocity and time, and that's all clever stuff.

Tom Baker

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

Thomas Carlyle

I never heard tell of any clever man that came of entirely stupid people.

Tom Shippey

Many sci-fi authors, we know, are as clever and tricky as so many Coyotes. Ms. Le Guin, though, has matured from the vividness and imagination she had from the beginning into wisdom and a clearsightedness that reaches past sympathy.

Steven Hall

There’s no way to really preserve a person when they’ve gone and that’s because whatever you write down it’s not the truth, it’s just a story. Stories are all we’re ever left with in our head or on paper: clever narratives put together from selected facts, legends, well edited tall tales with us in the starring roles

Stendhal

I no longer find such pleasure in that preeminently good society, of which I was once so fond. It seems to me that beneath a cloak of clever talk it proscribes all energy, all originality. If you are not a copy, people accuse you of being ill-mannered.

Shepard Fairey

The great thing about the Internet is, it has made it easier for people who are clever and resourceful to promote themselves.

Shawn Hatosy

Maybe I'm a little biased, but shows like 'Dexter' and 'Southland,' I'm just enthralled by that sort of storytelling, kind of clever and patient.

Steven Brust

A stupid person can make only certain, limited types of errors; the mistakes open to a clever fellow are far broader. But to the one who knows how smart he is compared to everyone else, the possibilities for true idiocy are boundless.

Steven Pinker

We often feel that a clever aphorism captures a truth that would require pages to defend in any other way.

Sun Tzu

What the ancients called a clever fighter is one who not only wins, but excels in winning with ease.

Sue Grafton

I read the paper every day. There are certain subjects that will catch my attention. I have an entire file of articles. Of course I make up the story, especially since most criminals are not very smart and fictional crime must be clever. I have to make sure the story I am telling is interesting and realistic. In this book I went on line and found out the manners of codes. I thought it interesting to use them as a jumping off point.

T. S. Eliot

Do I dare disturb the universe?

Scott Westerfeld

The world rests upon a turtle, which itself stands on the back of an elephant!” Alek tried not to laugh. “Then what does the elephant stand on, madam?” “Don’t try to be clever, young man.” She narrowed her eyes. “It’s elephants all the way down!

Julian Barnes

I'm interested in such things as the difference between how we perceive the world and what the world turns out to be. The difference is between the stories we tell others and the stories we tell ourselves. There is a wonderful Russian saying, which I use as the epigraph of one of my novels, which goes, He lies like an eyewitness. Which is very sly, clever and true.

Joseph Epstein

I have myself always been terrified of plagiarism - of being accused of it, that is. Every writer is a thief, though some of us are more clever than others at disguising our robberies. The reason writers are such slow readers is that we are ceaselessly searching for things we can steal and then pass off as our own: a natty bit of syntax, a seamless transition, a metaphor that jumps to its target like an arrow shot from an aluminum crossbow.

Joseph Farah

Up until now, I believed the nuclear threat to the U.S. from Iran was limited to the ability of terrorists to penetrate the borders or port security to deliver a device to a major city. ...While that threat should continue to be a grave concern for every American, these tests by Iran demonstrate just how devious the fanatical mullahs in Tehran are. We are facing a clever and unscrupulous adversary in Iran that could bring America to its knees.

Joss Whedon

I don't write just to be clever. But sometimes I do. And if you don't have an understanding of the language, then the way in which it's bent doesn't actually register. It's the old you-gotta-paint-like-them-before-you-can-paint-like-you thing.

Joss Whedon

I do remember what I said. The promise. To protect her. If I'd done that ... even if I didn't make it, you wouldn't've had to jump. I want you to know I did save you. Not when it counted, of course. But after that. Every night after that. I'd see it all again, do something different. Faster or more clever, you know? Dozens of times, lots of different ways ...Every night I save you.