Adroit Quotes & Sayings

A man who knows the world will not only make the most of everything he does know, but of many things he does not know, and will gain more credit by his adroit mode of hiding his ignorance than the pedant by his awkward attempt to exhibit his erudition. — Charles Caleb Colton

I'm very confident that Nick Hornby always gets it right as a writer. He has the vernacular and passion. He is adroit and dry, and balances humor with the humanity of life. — Pierce Brosnan

When a workman is unceasingly and exclusively engaged in the fabrication of one thing, he ultimately does his work with singular dexterity; but, at the same time, he loses the general faculty of applying his mind to the direction of the work. His every day becomes more of adroit and less industrious; so that it may be said of him, that, in proportion as the workman improves, the man is degraded. Alexis de Tocqueville — George F. Will

Women intrinsically understand human dynamics, and that makes them unstoppable. Unfortunately, the average man is less adroit at fostering such rivalries, which is why most men remain average; males are better at hating things that can't hate them back (e.g., lawnmowers, cats, the Denver Broncos, et cetera). They don't see the big picture. — Chuck Klosterman

Simplicity is oftenest an adroit pretence. — Anne-Therese De Marguenat De Courcelles

If ever he had harboured a conscience in his tough narrow breast he had by now dug out and flung away the awkward thing - flung it so far away that were he ever to need it again he could never find it. High-shouldered to a degree little short of malformation, slender and adroit of limb and frame, his eyes close-set and the colour of dried blood, he is climbing the spiral staircase of the soul of Gormenghast, bound for some pinnacle of the itching fancy - some wild, invulnerable eyrie best known to himself; where he can watch the world spread out below him, and shake exultantly his clotted wings — Mervyn Peake

If the oncoming mutation to interstellar immortality is screwed up by the politicians, it will be because those of us who see the opportunities in modern science are not adroit enough to outmaneuver the forces of inertia, stupidity and greed. Well, if we're not intelligent enough to overcome such obstacles, then we don't deserve to carry off the mutation at this stage of evolution. — Robert Anton Wilson

In the market, the fittest are those most able to serve the consumers; in government, the fittest are those most adept at wielding coercion and/or those most adroit at making demagogic appeals to the voting public. — Murray Rothbard

Clarke, define resplendent. I think it's shining, sir. Pithy, Clarke, but adequate. McCourt, give us a sentence with pithy. Clarke is pithy but adequate, sir. Adroit, McCourt. You have a mind for the priesthood, my boy, or politics. Think of that. — Frank McCourt

I think the whole issue of a debt ceiling makes no sense to me whatsoever. Anybody who is remotely adroit at arithmetic doesn't need a debt ceiling to tell you where you are. — Alan Greenspan

Other, more technically adroit people would soon generate closer approximations of reality. What mattered was (a) it was a rational, testable hypothesis; and (b) James made it so clear and interesting that it provoked a lot of intelligent people to join the conversation. "The — Michael Lewis

He was a curious mixture of things to me on that first occasion: he had the general physique of a bull, the tenacity of a vulture, the agility of a leopard, the tenderness of a lamb, and the coyness of a dove. He had a curious overgrown head which fasdnated me and which, for some reason, I took to be singularly Athenian. His hands were rather small for his body, and overly delicate. He was a vital, powerful man, capable of brutal gestures and rough words, yet somehow conveying a sense of warmth which was soft and feminine. There was also a great element of the tragic in him which his adroit mimicry only enhanced. He was extremely sympathetic and at the same time ruthless as a boor. He seemed to be talking about himself all the time, but never egotistically. He talked about himself because he himself was the most interesting person he knew. I liked that quality very much - I have a little of it myself. — Henry Miller

There is no flattery so adroit or effectual as that of implicit assent. — William Hazlitt

Adroit observers will find that some who affect to dislike flattery, may yet be flattered indirectly, by a well seasoned abuse and ridicule of their rivals. — Charles Caleb Colton

In Japan, a number of time-honored everyday activities (such as making tea, arranging flowers, and writing) have traditionally been deeply examined by their proponents. Students study how to make tea, perform martial arts, or write with a brush in the most skillful way possible to express themselves with maximum efficiency and minimum strain. Through this efficient, adroit, and creative performance, they arrive at art. But if they continue to delve even more deeply into their art, they discover principles that are truly universal, principles relating to life itself. Then, the art of brush writing becomes shodo - the "Way of the brush" - while the art of arranging flowers is elevated to the status of kado - the "Way of flowers." Through these Ways or Do forms, the Japanese have sought to realize the Way of living itself. They have approached the universal through the particular. — H.E. Davey

At that point [Father Sogol] gave me a roguish and forceful look demanding my complicity in this adroit falsehood. For naturally everyone was still in the dark. But by this simple ruse each person had the impression of belonging to a minority, of being among "one or two not yet informed," felt himself surrounded by a convinced majority, and was eager to be quickly convinced himself. This simple method of Sogol's for "getting the audience into the palm of his hand," as he phrased it, was a simple application of the mathematical method that consists in "considering the problem as solved." And he also used the chemical analogy of a "chain reaction." But if this use was employed in the service of truth, could one still call it falsehood? In any case everyone pricked up his ears. — Rene Daumal

If the Government gets into business on any large scale, we soon find that the beneficiaries attempt to play a large part in the control. While in theory it is to serve the public, in practice it will be very largely serving private interests. It comes to be regarded as a species of government favor and those who are the most adroit get the larger part of it. — Calvin Coolidge

In a foolish and loud manner he had argued politics; he had been rude in his disagreeing, and only the adroit tact of his host had sufficed to save the evening. How much I have to learn, Childan thought. They're so graceful and polite. And I - the white barbarian. It is true. — Philip K. Dick

Genius is a word that is very loosely used nowadays. It is ascribed to persons to whom a more sober judgement would be satisfied to allow talent. Genius and talent are very different things. Many people have talent; it is not rare: genius is. Talent is adroit and dexterous; it can be cultivated; genius is innate, and too often strangely allied to grave defects. But what is genius? — W. Somerset Maugham

Thinking to be tactful and adroit, the woman stood — Yasunari Kawabata

For instead of being "the ardent pursuer of science" that some imagined, Jefferson was the captive of ambition, and ambition, Adams told John Quincy, was "the subtlest beast of the intellectual and moral field . . . [and] wonderfully adroit in concealing itself from its owner. — David McCullough

Is it not a strange blindness on our part to teach publicly the techniques of warfare and to reward with medals those who prove to be the most adroit killers? — Marquis De Sade

There are no events so disastrous that adroit men do not draw some advantage from them, nor any so fortunate that the imprudent cannot turn to their own prejudice. — Francois De La Rochefoucauld

To knot a sentence up properly, it has to be thought out carefully, and revised. New phrases have to be put in; sudden changes of subject must be introducted; verbs must be shifted to unsuspected localities; short words must be excised with ruthless hand; archaisms must be sprinkled like sugar-plums upon the concoction; the fatal human tendency to say things straightforwardly must be detected and defeated by adroit reversals; and, if a glimmer of meaning yet remain under close scrutiny, it must be removed by replacing all the principal verbs by paraphrases in some dead language. — Aleister Crowley

Any so-called fetters do not bind youngsters because they have the power and the tactics to break them in their own adroit ways! — Balroop Singh

Some golfers blast their ball from traps, With one adroit explosion, But others, out in ten perhaps, Depend upon erosion. — Richard Armour

I have never seen the swing from "Hosanna!" to "Crucify!" more graphically evoked than in the virtually insane way the crowd goes berserk when the toreador makes an adroit turn, and they immediately follow this with insane howling and whistling when some mishap occurs. The momentary character of this mass mood goes so far that they applaud for the bull and against the toreador if, for example, the latter proves to be cowardly and
quite understandably
his courage fails him for a moment. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Great events ever depend but upon a single hair. The adroit man profits by everything, neglects nothing which can increase his chances; the less adroit, by sometimes disregarding a single chance, fails in everything. — Napoleon Bonaparte

Capturing the terms of the debate through the adroit use of language has allowed the GOP to bamboozle millions of people about their own material interests. — Mike Lofgren

Admit it: you live in a straitjacket called society that's chillingly adroit at forcing you to behave. You do what's expected, right? You rarely, if ever, cross that line. You play your part because you're a liar and an actor just like all those people around you are liars and actors. That's why alcohol is such a revealing drug: it removes the straitjacket. Drunks don't act. No one controls them. Suddenly they're showing who they are, what's really inside. Why do you think they make us feel so uncomfortable as we stare at them with our Oscar-worthy poise? — Dave Franklin

So it was that when a fiery wisp of a girl presented herself before an adroit, much older man of the world, credit for the seduction fell to her. — Stacy Schiff

The NeXT purchase is too little too late. The Apple of the past was an innovative company that used software and hardware technology together to redefine the way people experienced computing. That Apple is already dead. Very adroit moves might be able to save the brand name. A company with the letters A-P-P-L-E in its name might survive, but it won't be the Apple of yore. — Nathan Myhrvold

How skillful to tax the middle class to pay for the relief of the poor, building resentment on top of humiliation! How adroit to bus poor black youngsters into poor white neighborhoods, in a violent exchange of impoverished schools, while the schools of the rich remain untouched and the wealth of the nation, doled out carefully where children need free milk, is drained for billion-dollar aircraft carriers. How ingenious to meet the demands of blacks and women for equality by giving them small special benefits, and setting them in competition with everyone else for jobs made scares by an irrational, wasteful system. How wise to turn the fear and anger of the majority toward a class of criminals bred - by economic inequity - faster than they can be put away, deflecting attention from the huge thefts of national resources carried out within the law by men in executive offices. — Howard Zinn

You have to be adroit and also patient to make others agree to your terms. — Mohith Agadi

Adroit geo-strategists take new realities into account as they try to imagine how global politics will unfold. In the foreign policy business, however, inertia is a powerful force and 'adroit' a little-known concept. — Stephen Kinzer

In any case, the time has come when I must start a new book. This is not a trivial matter. Characters parade before me; some I like and admire, others I find not useful. The ones I use become very real, and many stay with me always: Cugel, Madouc, Navarth the Mad Poet, Howard Alan Treesong and Wayness Tamm, for instance. Beside characters to be interviewed, there are a dozen concepts to be pieced together, a locale selected, perhaps a whole new way of life to be studied and evaluated; and every story has, or should have, a mood: the connective tissue which holds the story together. In this regard some writers are adroit, others don't have a clue. — Jack Vance

Conservatism stands on man's confessed limitations; reform on his indisputable infinitude; conservatism on circumstance; liberalism on power; one goes to make an adroit member of the social frame; the other to postpone all things to the man himself. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

And suddenly, as he noted the fine shades of manner by which she harmonized herself with her surroundings, it flashed on him that, to need such adroit handling, the situation must indeed be desperate. — Edith Wharton

The law is an adroit mixture of customs that are beneficial to society, and could be followed even if no law existed, and others that are of advantage to a ruling minority, but harmful to the masses of men, and can be enforced on them only by terror. — Peter Kropotkin

Over the past sixty years a rather impressive assembly of respectable taxonomists and evolutionary biologists have tried to unseat the biological species concept for a wide variety of reasons. Most of them failed, probably because Ernst Mayr is alive, adroit, and articulate at ninety-six years young as I write these words, and most critics are no match for him. — Stephen J. O'Brien

Every poet knows the pun is Pierian, that it springs from the same soil as the Muse?a matching and shifting of vowels and consonants, an adroit assonance sometimes derided as jackassonance. — Louis Untermeyer

When an Israelite and a Gentile have a lawsuit before thee, if thou canst, acquit the former according to the laws of Israel, and tell the latter such is our law; if thou canst get him off in accordance with Gentile law, do so, and say to the plaintiff such is your law; but if he cannot be acquitted according to either law, then bring forward adroit pretexts and secure his acquittal. These are the words of Rabbi Ishmael. — Maurice H. Harris