Clever Ideas Quotes & Sayings

My journey through the Congo had its ow unique category. It did not quite do it justice to call it adventure travel, and it certainly wasn't pleasure travel. My Congo journey deserved its own category: ordeal travel. At every turn I faced challenges, difficulties and threats when in the Congo. The challenge was to assess and choose the option best suited to making progress. But there were moments when there were no alternatives, or shortcuts or clever ideas. At these times, ordeal travel became really no ordeal at all. — Tim Butcher

Umm," Jack said,reminding me that he was still standing beside me, "any ideas, Evie? I seem to be fresh out of baseball bats." Uber-vamp directed a chilling glare in Jack's direction. I inwardly cursed the idiot boy for bringing it up and putting himself in danger,too.
"I'm guessing you didn't bring your communicator."
"In hindsight,not a clever move on my part. — Kiersten White

Christianity is not a matter of persuading people of particular ideas, but of inviting them to share in the greatness of Christ. So pray that I may never fall into the trap of impressing people with clever speech, but instead I may learn to speak with humility, desiring only to impress people with Christ himself. — Ignatius Of Antioch

I write because writing is power. Writing is creation. When you write, you are as a god, a deity wielding his pen like some Harry Potter staff, making whatever you want to happen, happen. By sheer force of will and some clever word placement, I can arrange all of these little symbols together to invoke emotions and ideas at a whim out of whosoever allows me to cast my spell. It does not take a man and a woman to create. It just takes a writer. — Jonathan Culver

But I don't sit down at dinner and have clever ideas. — Mark Rylance

Intellectuals resist faith longer because they can: where ordinary people are helpless before the light, intellectuals are clever enough to spin webs of darkness around their minds and hide in them. That's why only Ph.D.s believe any of the 100 most absurd ideas in the world such as Absolute Relativism, or the Objective Truth of Subjectivism, of the Meaningfulness of Meaninglessness and the Meaninglessness of Meaning, which is the best definition of Deconstructionism I know. — Peter Kreeft

The students in your youth ministry don't need your clever ideas and great programming skills. They need a living model - a man or woman of God who is passionate about his or her faith. — Doug Fields

From the port of ideas, not only the most clever ones put out to sea and conquer the world but also the most stupid ones do this! — Mehmet Murat Ildan

This land is a monopoly of erroneous ideas. — Adriano Celentano

I expect most of you have read stories about the Doctor in other books, and I expect some of you think he is quite clever, even though he breaks a lot of rules, don't you? Well, you are right! In a crisis, he is just the kind of person you need around, he can come up with ideas almost no one else could. The only problem is, when you're not having crisis, he is just the kind of person to cause one. — Ian Potter

For all his clever ideas, Maven has nothing to say to this. He just stares, his breath coming in tiny, scared puffs. I know the look on his face; I wear it every time I'm forced to say good-bye to someone.
"It's too bad we didn't stay longer," I murmur, looking out at the river. "I would have liked to die close to home."
Another breeze sends a curtain of my hair across my face but Maven brushes it away and pulls me close with startling ferocity.
Oh.
His kiss is not at all like his brother's. Maven is more desperate, surprising himself as much as me. He knows I'm sinking fast, a stone dropping through the river. And he wants to drown with me.
"I will fix this," he murmurs against my lips. I have never seen his eyes so bright and sharp. "I won't let them hurt you. You have my word. — Victoria Aveyard

First, we break bread and drink wine together, telling the story of Jesus and his death, because Jesus knew that this set of actions would explain the meaning of his death in a way that nothing else
no theories, no clever ideas
could ever do. — N. T. Wright

To straddle the middle ground and win elections, we have to be in charge of the political agenda. This can only be done by not being beaten in the argument with our critics. They complain that I come down too hard on their arguments. But wrong ideas have to be challenged before they influence public opinion and make for problems. Those who try to be clever at the expense of the government should not complain if my replies are as sharp as their criticisms. — Lee Kuan Yew

where data are sparse, competing ideas abound that are clever and wishful. — Neil DeGrasse Tyson

Words from the past: It's a clever idea, Mr. Bell, but don't wire us, we'll wire you. — Robert Breault

No, I'm not clever. I've always cared more for people than for ideas. — Virginia Woolf

Modern man uses ideas and persuasion to achieve his goals; primitive man uses guns and brute force to achieve his goals! Moral and clever people choose the first method; immoral and stupid people choose the second method! — Mehmet Murat Ildan

To clever plans,' said Kell, toasting his brother. 'And dashing princes.'
'To masked magicians,' said Rhy, swiping the wine.
'To mad ideas.'
'To the Essen Tasch.'
'Wouldn't it be amazing,' murmured Rhy later, when the bottle was empty, 'if we got away with it? — V.E Schwab

I have learned that particularly clever ideas do not always stand up under close scrutiny. — Elizabeth Peters

One must search diligently to find laudatory comments on education (other than those pious platitudes which are fodder for commencement speeches). It appears that most persons who have achieved fame and success in the world of ideas are cynical about formal education. These people are a select few, who often achieved success in spite of their education, or even without it. As has been said, the clever largely educate themselves, those less able aren't sufficiently clever or imaginative to benefit much from education. — Edward Gibbon

Competition is a great thing and critically important in any industry. I respect the companies that build their brand through innovation/great product, packaging, sharp marketing and clever ideas. — John Robinson

Simple is clever. Complicated just means you haven't been clever enough to reduce 'it' to its essence. — Phil Dourado

You are so terribly nimble, so clever. I distrust your cleverness. You make a wonderful pattern, everything is in its place, it looks convincingly clear, too clear. And meanwhile, where are you? Not on the clear surface of your ideas, but you have already sunk deeper, into darker regions, so that one only thinks one has been given all your thoughts, one only imagines you have emptied yourself in that clarity. But there are layers and layers
you're bottomless, unfathomable. Your clearness is deceptive. You are the thinker who arouses most confusion in me, most doubt, most disturbance. — Anais Nin

They don't want clever men; clever men have ideas, and ideas cause trouble; they want men who have charm and tact and who can be counted on never to make a blunder. — W. Somerset Maugham

The dilemma is this. In the modern world knowledge has been growing so fast and so enormously, in almost every field, that the probabilities are immensely against anybody, no matter how innately clever, being able to make a contribution in any one field unless he devotes all his time to it for years. If he tries to be the Rounded Universal Man, like Leonardo da Vinci, or to take all knowledge for his province, like Francis Bacon, he is most likely to become a mere dilettante and dabbler. But if he becomes too specialized, he is apt to become narrow and lopsided, ignorant on every subject but his own, and perhaps dull and sterile even on that because he lacks perspective and vision and has missed the cross-fertilization of ideas that can come from knowing something of other subjects. — Henry Hazlitt

They damned the books I read and the things I thought by calling them immoral; later the fashion changed, and they damned things by calling them 'clever. — F Scott Fitzgerald

In the end, the thing that really stays with you is not that you were clever enough to connect a sketch to another sketch, but what really sticks with you is when you just have an incredible moment happen, or execute a really funny idea. — Bob Odenkirk

The necessity for struggle is one of the clever devices through which nature forces individuals to expand, develop, progress, and become strong through resistance ... We are forced to recognize that this great universal necessity for struggle must have a definite and useful purpose. That purpose is to force the individual to sharpen his wits, arouse his enthusiasm, build up his spirit of faith, gain definiteness of purpose, develop his power of will, and inspire his faculty of imagination to give him new uses for old ideas and concepts ... — Napoleon Hill

At one time my only wish was to be a police official. It seemed to me to be an occupation for my sleepless intriguing mind. I had the idea that there, among criminals, were people to fight: clever, vigorous, crafty fellows. Later I realized that it was good that I did not become one, for most police cases involve misery and wretchedness-not crimes and scandals. — Soren Kierkegaard

Having lots of ideas doesn't mean you're clever, any more than having lots of soldiers means you're a good general. — Nicolas Chamfort

When you meditate you have to try to quiet and calm the mind. There should be no thought within the mind. Right now you feel that if you can cherish twenty ideas at a time, then you are the wisest man on earth. The more thoughts that enter into our minds, the more clever we feel we are. But in the spiritual life it is not like that. If consciously we can make the mind calm and quiet, we feel that a new creation dawns inside us. — Sri Chinmoy

while fiction books are about setting, characters and emotion that appeal to the heart (which can be achieved with pictures and colors) non-fiction books are about ideas that appeal to the head. So for some non-fiction, you need a clever, non-obvious juxtaposition of things that represents your topic. — Derek Murphy

God was a clever idea ... The human race came up with a winner there. — J.G. Ballard

It turned out that Evgeny Evgenievich indeed had a clever plan how to convert me to math. As soon as I came to his office, he asked me, "So, I hear you like quantum physics. Have you heard about Gell-Mann's eightfold way and the quark model?" "Yes, I've read about this in several popular books." "But do you know what was the basis for this model? How did he come up with these ideas?" "Well ... " "Have you heard about the group SU(3)?" "SU what?" "How can you possibly understand the quark model if you don't know what the group SU(3) is? — Edward Frenkel

Cesar is not a philosophical man. His life has been one long flight from reflection. At least he is clever enough not to expose the poverty of his general ideas; he never permits the conversation to move toward philosophical principles. Men of his type so dread all deliberation that they glory in the practice of the instantaneous decision. They think they are saving themselves from irresolution; in reality they are sparing themselves the contemplation of all the consequences of their acts. Moreover, in this way they can rejoice in the illusion of never having made a mistake; for act follows so swiftly on act that it is impossible to reconstruct the past and say that an alternative decision would have been better. They can pretend that every act was forced on them under emergency and that every decision was mothered by necessity — Thornton Wilder

I have certainly noticed that groups of clever and intelligent people are capable of really stupid ideas. — Terry Pratchett

To get fruits from the tree branches, shake them with hands; to get fruits from men, shake them with clever ideas! — Mehmet Murat Ildan

Be Clever, Think Clever and Do Clever — Robin James

It seems to take me about five years to get a record together, which is not a clever idea. — Ian Hunter

I don't try to be clever at all. The idea that I could see what no one else can is an illusion. — Daniel Kahneman