Clever People Quotes

Man is a rational animal—so at least I have been told. … Aristotle, so far as I know, was the first man to proclaim explicitly that man is a rational animal. His reason for this view was … that some people can do sums. … It is in virtue of the intellect that man is a rational animal. The intellect is shown in various ways, but most emphatically by mastery of arithmetic. The Greek system of numerals was very bad, so that the multiplication table was quite difficult, and complicated calculations could only be made by very clever people.

There are no circumstances, however unfortunate, that clever people do not extract some advantage from.

I realized that so many clever people respect fashion so much.

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

...and there I suddenly found my articulate self in a dazzling land of smiling, jostling people wearing and not wearing all sorts of costumes and doing all sorts of clever things. And that's when I knew! What other life could there be but that of an actor?

If you're going to have a book full of clever people and nobody ever jokes, it's just not going to ring true to the reader. That said, humor writing is the hardest kind of writing there is.

Honestly, I just assume that whatever is going to happen to me is going to happen. There it goes: someone is there, someone isn't there. This girl is here. This food is here. I think the clever people are the ones who do a little as possible.

The problem with being clever, Serene thought with a sigh, is that everyone assumes you're always planning something.

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

People in England talk about stupid Hollywood idiots, but the industry attracts some of the cleverest people in the world.

Clever people are always the best conversations lexicon.

The inspiration comes from everywhere, from what I grew up with. There's so much silliness and nonsense in the world that we regard as normal working procedure. The satirical point of the view may be to counterpoint that. The way we look at classics has been hijacked by the intelligentsia - Shakespeare is highbrow and seen as something clever people do, which isn't right at all. I basically pull inspiration from everywhere.

The very cunning conceal their cunning; the indifferently shrewd boast of it.

If something looks like a tax avoidance scheme, then that's probably what it is - and there's lots of clever people working day and night to close them down.

I've driven all through America and I know there are a lot of clever people between the coasts. But they have a slightly old-fashioned view of the world. Whereas New York is one of the most multicultural, multiracial, tolerant places on Earth.

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.

Humor is important. If you're going to tell any sort of realistic story, you're going to have to have humor in it, because people are funny. Clever people especially.

Country people tend to consider that they have a corner on righteousness and to distrust most manifestations of cleverness, while people in the city are leery of righteousness but ascribe to themselves all manner of cleverness.

The really clever people now want to be lawyers or journalists.

Film schools didn't exist when I was growing up. I learned by working with clever people. Good writers and cinematographers.

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

I would like to say a few things about that photo in 'Tatler'. I have no regrets. The article was about the 20 cleverest people in England, covered up only by the thing that makes them clever. A saxophonist, for example, had only his saxophone, and an artist, his easel. So I was covered by books.

One begins to mistrust very clever people when they become embarrassed.

You must not think, sir, to catch old birds with chaff.