Welcome to our collection of cleverness quotes! Throughout history, humans have revered the quality of cleverness, recognizing its power to solve problems, navigate challenges, and inspire innovation. Whether it’s through witty remarks, ingenious inventions, or cunning strategies, clever individuals have left an indelible mark on society. From the sharp minds of philosophers and writers to the quick wit of comedians and thinkers, cleverness manifests in various forms, often serving as a beacon of intellect and creativity.
In this curated selection of quotes, we delve into the essence of cleverness, exploring its nuances and celebrating the brilliance it brings to the world. These quotes offer insights into the art of thinking outside the box, the importance of intelligence, and the beauty of clever solutions to complex problems. So, whether you seek inspiration, amusement, or a fresh perspective, join us as we journey through the realm of cleverness and uncover the wisdom encapsulated in these profound words.
The pun exists in a social and political void, caring nothing for the issues of its day, content merely to display itself in its small cleverness. Arthur Smith
Our job is to sell our clients’ merchandise… not ourselves. Our job is to kill the cleverness that makes us shine instead of the product. Our job is to simplify, to tear away the unrelated, to pluck out the weeds that are smothering the product message. William Bernbach
If we fail to appreciate the soul that Easternism gives us, then what we have is a disconnected, Greco-Roman, Western, egocentric, compartmentalized, reductionist, fragmented, linear thought process that counts on cleverness. Joel Salatin
The principal point of cleverness is to know how to value things just as they deserve. Francois de La Rochefoucauld
In older science fiction stories, they had to rely on storytelling as opposed to spectacle. The old run of the ‘Twilight Zone,’ the star was the writing and the storytelling, and the characters and the twists and the cleverness in the setup and payoff and execution. Josh Trank
Patience and tenacity are worth more than twice their weight of cleverness. Thomas Huxley
Cleverness is not wisdom. Euripides
Never stay up on the barren heights of cleverness, but come down into the green valleys of silliness. Ludwig Wittgenstein
Cleverness is serviceable for everything, sufficient for nothing. Henri Frederic Amiel
People used to expect literary novels to deepen the experience of living; now they are happy with any sustained display of writerly cleverness. Brian Reynolds Myers
A man likes his wife to be just clever enough to appreciate his cleverness, and just stupid enough to admire it. Israel Zangwill
The great gift of conversation lies less in displaying it ourselves than in drawing it out of others. He who leaves your company pleased with himself and his own cleverness is perfectly well pleased with you. Jean de la Bruyere
Entire ignorance is not so terrible or extreme an evil, and is far from being the greatest of all; too much cleverness and too much learning, accompanied with ill bringing-up, are far more fatal. Plato
All religions are founded on the fear of the many and the cleverness of the few. Stendhal
A blunder at the right moment is better than cleverness at the wrong time. Carolyn Wells
An age which is incapable of poetry is incapable of any kind of literature except the cleverness of a decadence. Raymond Chandler
From dead plant matter to nematodes to bacteria, never underestimate the cleverness of mushrooms to find new food! Paul Stamets
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
Science is always discovering odd scraps of magical wisdom and making a tremendous fuss about its cleverness. Aleister Crowley
Your normal Wall Street big-swinging Richard has enough of a lingering moral compass to at least tell himself that his wizardry benefits somebody or something besides himself. You know, his cleverness makes capital markets more efficient. It provides credit to productive enterprise. Whatever. Tina Brown
I hate clever-cleverness, but I love good honest cleverness. Tobias Hill
The queen of crime, Agatha Christie, was always more concerned about the clockwork cleverness of the plot, never the investigator. Christopher Fowler
Clever people will recognize and tolerate nothing but cleverness. Henri Frederic Amiel
The thing is, comedy’s gone in a weird direction. People are really into ironic comedy and fakeness and cleverness. Louis C. K.
Writing is good, thinking is better. Cleverness is good, patience is better. Hermann Hesse
It is a great act of cleverness to be able to conceal one’s being clever. Francois de La Rochefoucauld
If cleverness has often been a sign of decadence throughout history, the attempt to be too clever by half is an even more reliable marker of cultural decline. Bill Kristol
I am firmly of the opinion that women who make a lot of effort to hang onto their looks in middle age (unless they are beauties, entertainers or prostitutes) are rather sad, as one should surely have something more substantial to recommend one by this time, such as kindness or cleverness. Julie Burchill
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
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.
For me, writing post-apocalyptic novels isn’t so much about exploding helicopters and fifty-megaton doomsday bombs as it is about the pleasure of dealing with the best of everything that makes us human: cleverness, grit, loyalty, and self-sacrifice. Jeff Carlson
That’s the rub about ‘Community’ – for all the high-concept cleverness, it really comes down to vulgar humanism, the dumbest kind of sentimental identification. We watch it because we like these people and we miss them when they don’t show up. They become part of the stories we tell ourselves. Rob Sheffield
Basically, if you could get a good trailer out of the script, Roger had no objection to you making a really good movie. He liked it if you did. He liked the more cleverness and ingenuity you could bring to it. He just wasn’t going to give you any more money. John Sayles
Limits have to be set on how far one can simply use the… cleverness that we have to make changes. Leon Kass
What about Hong Chau? In typical supporting-part fashion, she shows up halfway through ‘Downsizing,’ already shrunk, an imperious Vietnamese house cleaner with a limp and sharp angles. The movie’s satirical cleverness upstages its rage; then Ms. Chau proves she’s capable of managing both. Wesley Morris
Books are in no hurry. An act of creation is in no hurry; it reads us, it privileges us infinitely. The notion that it is the occasion for our cleverness fills me with baffled bitterness and anger. George Steiner
The great thing about Twitter is, you get a lot back, and I read through a lot, and I want my fans to know that I do read a lot, and it’s why I do respond or retweet clever posts, and I’m constantly amazed by the cleverness of people on Twitter. Elizabeth Banks
The obstinacy of cleverness and reason is nothing to the obstinacy of folly and inanity. Harriet Beecher Stowe
In the life of our organism, we are continually dealing with a development of force followed by a state of equilibrium. Of course, the human being has no conscious knowledge of what is really going on within him, but what takes place is so infinitely wise that the cleverness of the human ego is nothing by comparison. Rudolf Steiner
The bold are helpless without cleverness. Euripides
I remember devouring the entire Hardy Boys series over one summer, enthralled by their bravery and cleverness. Dan Brown
I kept bugging them about making it more upscale, because I felt Abby, through her cleverness and business sense, was a character who would move up. And that’s what she did. Donna Mills
The more you know about somebody’s back story, the deeper you can delve into that well, and the more your comedic choices resonate full-body instead of just being quick, quippy one-liners that are just like a bunch of people trying to be clever. Because after a while, cleverness is just really obnoxious! Constance Wu