Clever Wisdom Quotes & Sayings

Brothers, if God brings us to the point of seeing that everything in God's work depends upon His blessing, it will bring about a basic change in our labor for God. We would not consider how many people, how much money, or how much bread we have. We would say we do not have enough, but the blessing is sufficient. The blessing meets the need that we cannot meet. Although we cannot measure up to the size of the need, the blessing is greater than our lack. When we see this, the work will have a basic change. In every other matter we must look at the blessing more than we consider the situation. Methods, considerations, human wisdom, and clever words are all useless. In God's work we should believe in and expect His blessing. — Watchman Nee

Not doing any magic at all was the chief task of wizards - not :not doing magic" because they couldn't do magic, but not doing magic when they could do and didn't. Any ignorant fool can fail to turn someone else into a frog. You have to be clever to refrain from doing it when you knew how easy it was. There were places in the world commemorating those times when wizards hadn't been quite as clever as that, and on many of them the grass would never grow again. — Terry Pratchett

The most holy cannibalism you can perform is to eat the flesh and blood of sagacity, and by sharing it with other wisdom thirsty cannibals. — Michael Bassey Johnson

The failure mode of clever is "asshole. — John Scalzi

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. — Tom Shippey

Once the troublesome mind "begins to compose speeches and dream up arguments, especially if these are clever, it will soon imagine it is doing important work." But if you can surpass those thoughts, Teresa explained, and ascend toward God, "it is a glorious bewilderment, a heavenly madness, in which true wisdom is acquired. — Elizabeth Gilbert

Your talk's so clever it makes my head spin,' Milva snorted. 'And all your wisdom comes down to what's under a woman's skirt. Woeful philosophers. — Andrzej Sapkowski

Fear wears so many clever disguises it is virtually impossible to always recognize it. Fear disguises itself as the need to be somewhere else, doing something else, not knowing how to do something or not needing to do something. — Iyanla Vanzant

For there is no virtue, the honour and credit for which procures a man more odium than that of justice; and this, because more than any other, it acquires a man power and authority among the common people. For they only honour the valiant and admire the wise, while in addition they also love just men, and put entire trust and confidence in them. They fear the bold man, and mistrust the clever man, and moreover think them rather beholding to their natural complexion, than to any goodness of their will, for these excellences; they look upon valour as a certain natural strength of the mind, and wisdom as a constitutional acuteness; whereas a man has it in his power to be just, if he have but the will to be so, and therefore injustice is thought the most dishonourable, because it is least excusable. — Plutarch

Instead of seeking wisdom, liberals desire to be seen as clever by being counterintuitive, crazy, and outre. — Ann Coulter

In dark days, your best shelter is your clever thoughts! — Mehmet Murat Ildan

It is not enough to show how clever we are by showing how obscure everything is". — J.L. Austin

I wasn't allowed to be clever when I was young and blonde, but now I am 50 and an old blonde, I am allowed to have gravitas. With wrinkles comes wisdom. — Mariella Frostrup

A clever mind is not a heart. Knowledge doesn't really care, wisdom does. — Benjamin Hoff

There is something the child sees that he does not see; something the child hears that he does not hear; and this something is the most important thing of all. Because he does not understand it, his understanding is more childish than the child's and more simple than simplicity itself; in spite of the many clever wrinkles on his parchment face, and the masterly play of his fingers in unravelling the knots. — Friedrich Nietzsche

Better to be able to love than to be loveable. — Amanda Mosher

In any relationship, the woman has control, the clever ones don't let the men know. — Groucho Marx

The disease having been caused by allowing cleverness to displace wisdom, no amount of clever research is likely to produce a cure. — E.F. Schumacher

Those who have abandoned themselves to God always lead mysterious lives and receive from him exceptional and miraculous gifts by means of the most ordinary, natural and chance experiences in which there appears to be nothing unusual. The simplest sermon, the most banal conversations, the least erudite books become a source of knowledges and wisdom to these souls by virtue of God's purpose. This is why they carefully pick up the crumbs which clever minds tread underfoot, for to them everything is precious and a source of enrichment. — Jean-Pierre De Caussade

I think wisdom is over-rated. Wisdom is just cleverness, with all the guts kicked out of it. I'd rather be clever than wise, any day. Most of the wise people I know give me a headache, but I never met a clever man or woman I didn't like. — Gregory David Roberts

I don't know. That was typical Sajaki; like all the genuinely clever people Sylveste had met he knew better than to feign understanding where none existed. — Alastair Reynolds

Wild animals bite the hand that feeds them. Clever people consume the entire body. — Stefan Emunds

Progress in evil was quick and easy; Apollyon was not a chap who hid himself and he gave every assistance in his power. The growth in goodness was so slow, at times so flat, so dull, and like the White Queen one had to run so fast to stay where one was, let alone progress; and there were few men who dared to say they had found God. It was easy to be a clever sinner, for the race to an earthly visible goal was short to run, so impossibly hard to be a wise saint, with the goal set at so vast a distance from this world and clouded with such uncertainty. — Elizabeth Goudge

Half of seeming clever is keeping your mouth shut at the right times. — Patrick Rothfuss

I used to see dolphins as cute,
Smart and funny sea animals.
I know now that they're astute,
Divine beings, clever mammals. — Ana Claudia Antunes

Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself. — Rumi

It is one thing to be clever and another to be wise. — George R R Martin

A clever man without wisdom is like a beautiful flower without fragrance. — Leonardo Da Vinci

That's not wise, Lin. I think wisdom is very over-rated. Wisdom is just cleverness, with all the guts kicked out of it. I'd rather be clever than wise, any day. Most of the wise people I know give me a headache, but I never met a clever man or woman I didn't like. If I was giving wise advice - which I'm not - I'd say don't get drunk, don't spend all your money, and don't fall in love with a pretty village girl. That would be wise. That's the difference between clever and wise. I prefer to be clever, and that's why I told you to surrender, when you get to the village, no matter what you find when you get there. Okay. I'm going. Come and see me when you get back. I look forward to it. I really do. — Gregory David Roberts

People give ear to an upstart astrologer who strove to show that the earth revolves, not the heavens or the firmament, the sun and the moon. Whoever wishes to appear clever must devise some new system, which of all systems is of course the very best. This fool wishes to reverse the entire science of astronomy; but the sacred scripture tells us that Joshua commanded the sun to stand still, not the earth. — Martin Luther

When did you get so clever?"
"When I realized I wasn't as clever as I thought. — John Connolly

And if clever rabbit doesn't quite have what it takes, abrasive Eeyore certainly doesn't either. Why not? Because of what we could call the Eeyore Attitude. You might say the while rabbit's little routine is that of knowledge for the sake of being clever, and while Owl's is that of knowledge for the sake of appearing wise, Eeyore's is knowledge for the sake of complaining about something. As anyone who doesn't have it can see, the Eeyore attitude gets in the way of things like wisdom and happiness, and pretty much prevents any sort of real accomplishment in life. — Benjamin Hoff

Rather than seek to be squired and dated by their rivals why should it not be possible for women to find relaxation and pleasure in the company of their 'inferiors'? They would need to shed their desperate need to admire a man, and accept the gentler role of loving him. A learned woman cannot castrate a truck-driver like she can her intellectual rival, because he has no exaggerated respect for her bookish capacities. The alternative to conventional education is not stupidity, and many a clever girl needs the corrective of a humbler soul's genuine wisdom. — Germaine Greer

The desire to be thought clever often prevents a man from becoming so. — Francois De La Rochefoucauld

Brother Maical's wisdom lies in knowing he is not clever and letting himself be led. The foolishness of mankind is that we do not do the same. — Mark Lawrence

For a world full of universities, brilliant people and clever corporations it sure is a pit of hell and sorrow for billions. What's missing? — Bryant McGill

She had always observed that she got on better with clever women than silly ones like herself; the silly ones could never understand her wisdom; whereas the clever ones - the really clever ones - always understood her silliness. — Henry James

This town, this country, this world, is full to the brim with clever people, and just look at it. Never been in such awful shape. Clever people don't give a damn about anybody but themselves. Too busy being clever. The world doesn't need anymore clever people. It needs people with wisdom. — Jon Steele

Her simplicity fathomed what clever people falsified. — Virginia Woolf

Back therefore we find ourselves returning. Back to the wisdom of the plough; back to the wisdom of those who follow the sea. It is all a matter of the wheel coming full-circle. For the sophisticated system of mental reactions to which we finally give our adherence is only the intellectualised reproduction of what more happily constituted natures, without knowing what they possess, possess. Thus between true philosophers and the true simple people there is a magnetic understanding; whereas, the clever ones whose bastard culture only divorces them from the wisdom of the earth remain pilloried and paralysed on the prongs of their own conceit. — John Cowper Powys