Cleverer Quotes & Sayings

I thought about him trying not to laugh at the 'Molahonkey Song' on a night when the snow drifted gold past the window. I thought about the warm skin and soft hair and hands of someone living, someone who was far cleverer and funnier than I would ever be and who still couldn't see a better future than to obliterate himself. And finally, my head pressed into the pillow, I cried, because my life suddenly seemed so much darker and more complicated than I could ever have imagined, and I wished I could go back, back to when my biggest worry was whether Frank and I had ordered in enough Chelsea buns. — Jojo Moyes

Men who have slandered the opposite sex have usually known women who were cleverer and more virtuous than they are. — Christine De Pizan

How would it be," she asked them coldly as they left the classroom [Prof Binns, History subject], "if I refused to lend you my notes this year?"
"We'd fail our O.W.L.s," said Ron. "If you want that on your conscience, Hermoine ... "
"Well, you'd deserve it," she snapped. "You don't even try to listen to him, do you?"
"We do try," said Ron. "We just haven't got your brains or your concentration
you're just cleverer than we are
is it nice to rub it in? — J.K. Rowling

A process which makes one rogue cleverer than another. — Oscar Wilde

By being so long in the lowest form [at Harrow] I gained an immense advantage over the cleverer boys ... I got into my bones the essential structure of the ordinary British sentence - which is a noble thing. Naturally I am biased in favor of boys learning English; I would make them all learn English: and then I would let the clever ones learn Latin as an honor, and Greek as a treat. — Winston Churchill

You've got a degree in philosophy; so you think you're cleverer than me. But I'm not just some drama queen. Cause it's where you're at, not where you've been. — Amy Winehouse

I daresay that's a better-looking man there. A cleverer man.' He ran one hand through his short dark hair, frowning at his reflection. 'Not sure if I trust that bastard, though. — Joe Abercrombie

All things being equal, why not be married to a rich man? (Somewhere, Hannah thinks, there must be a needlepoint pillow asking this very question in a cleverer way.) — Curtis Sittenfeld

One thing is certain, however. The metaphysical 'rule', which is held as an ironclad conviction by those whom I have debated the issue of creation, namely that "out of nothing nothing comes," has no foundation in science. Arguing that it is self-evident, unwavering, and unassailable is like arguing, as Darwin falsely did, when he made the suggestion that the origin of life was beyond the domain of science by building an analogy with the incorrect claim that matter cannot be created or destroyed. All it represents is an unwillingness to recognize the simple fact that nature may be cleverer than philosophers or theologians. — Lawrence M. Krauss

They were really getting quite fond of their strange pet and hoped that Aslan would allow them to keep it. The cleverer ones were quite sure by now that at least some of the noises which came out of his mouth had a meaning. They christened him Brandy because he made that noise so often. — C.S. Lewis

And the thorny crown of this sad conception was that she whom he really did prefer in a cursory way to the rest, she who knew herself to be more impassioned in nature, cleverer, more beautiful than they, was in the eyes of propriety far less worthy of him than the homelier ones whom he ignored. — Thomas Hardy

When I got to the street, I walked boldly. But I was always accompanied by an agonizing thought: the fear that honest people may be thieves who have chosen a cleverer and safer way of stealing. — Jean Genet

In order to succeed, it is not necessary to be much cleverer than other people. All you have to be is one day ahead of them. — Leo Szilard

Why can't I drink the potion instead?" asked Harry desperately.
"Because I am much older, much cleverer, and much less valuable," said Dumbledore. — J.K. Rowling

There must be something in oneself which is essential. Therefore I refrain from referring to a landscape or certain objects when speaking of a picture. The hand is cleverer than the mind. — Douglas Portway

There's no way out," he announced with satisfaction, "and no amount of wishful dreaming will produce one. The demon won't go back in its bottle, the face-off is for ever, the embrace gets tighter and the toys cleverer with every generation, and there's no such thing for either side as enough security. Not for the main players, not for the nasty little newcomers who each year run themselves up a suitcase bomb and join the club. We get tired of believing that, because we're human. We may even con ourselves into believing the threat has gone away. It never will. Never, never, never."
"So, who'll save us then, Walt?" Barley asked. "You and Nedsky?"
"Vanity, if anything will, which I doubt," Walter retorted. "No leader wants to go down in history as the ass who destroyed his country in an afternoon. And funk, I suppose. Most of our gallant politicians do have a narcissistic objection to suicide, thank God. — John Le Carre

...Dickey Perrott, you Jago whelp, look at them - look hard. Some day if you are clever - cleverer than anyone in the Jago right now - if you're only scoundrel enough, and brazen enough, and lucky enough - one of a thousand - maybe you'll be like them: bursting with high living, drunk when you like, red and pimply. There it is - that's your aim in life - there's your pattern. Learn to read and write, learn all you can, learn cunning, spare nobody and stop at nothing, and perhaps - It's the best the world has for you, for the Jago's got you, and that's the only way out, except gaol and the gallows. So do your devil most, or God help you, Dicky Perrot - though he wont: for the Jago's got you! — Arthur Morrison

Hindsight is notably cleverer than foresight. — Chester W. Nimitz

This is how it essentially is for Bunny Junior. He loves his dad. He thinks there is no dad better, cleverer, or more capable, and he stands there beside him with a sense of pride - he's my dad - and he also, of course, stands beside him because he has nowhere else to go. — Nick Cave

I think in some ways, you end up with more interesting storytelling with series, because if you've written yourself into a corner with something in book 1, you have to be cleverer to get out of it. — Sarah Pinborough

Deep down, Fudge knows Dumbledore's much cleverer than he is, a much more powerful wizard, and in the early days of his Ministry he was forever asking Dumbledore for help and advice," said Lupin. "But it seems that he's become fond of power now, and much more confident. He loves being Minister of Magic, and he's managed to convince himself that he's the clever one and — J.K. Rowling

It isn't fair she should have everything and I nothing. She isn't better or cleverer or much prettier than me ... only luckier. — L.M. Montgomery

MEETING THE EYE
You'll probably find
that it suits your book
to be a bit cleverer
than you look.
Observe that the easiest
method by far
is to look a bit stupider
than you are. — Piet Hein

No one has ever been modern. Modernity has never begun. There has never been a modern world. The use of the past perfect tense is important here, for it is a matter of a retrospective sentiment, of a rereading of our history. I am not saying that we are entering a new era; on the contrary we no longer have to continue the headlong flight of the post-post-postmodernists; we are no longer obliged to cling to the avant-garde of the avant-garde; we no longer seek to be even cleverer, even more critical, even deeper into the 'era of suspicion'. No, instead we discover that we have never begun to enter the modern era. Hence the hint of the ludicrous that always accompanies postmodern thinkers; they claim to come after a time that has not even started! — Anonymous

And have you never known the pleasure and triumph of a lucky guess? I pity you. I thought you cleverer; for depend upon it, a lucky guess is never merely luck. There is always some talent in it. — Jane Austen

This woman is beautiful and clever: but how much cleverer she would have become if she were not beautiful! — Friedrich Nietzsche

You can try, but you seem cleverer than Fudge, so I'd have thought you'd have learned from his mistakes. He tried intervening at Hogwarts. You might have noticed he's not Minister anymore, but Dumbledore's still headmaster. I'd leave Dumbledore alone, if I were you. — J.K. Rowling

I make mistakes like the next man. In fact, being
forgive me
rather cleverer than most men, my mistakes tend to be correspondingly huger. — J.K. Rowling

It is interesting how often unintelligent, even stupid, women manage their emotional lives more satisfactorily than do their cleverer sisters. — P.D. James

The Devil has seldom done a cleverer thing that hinting to the Church that part of their mission is to provide entertainment for the people, with a view to winning them. Providing amusement for the people is nowhere spoken of in the Scriptures as a function of the Church. The need is biblical doctrine, so understood and felt that is sets men afire. — Charles Spurgeon

He pushed himself to his feet. "Don't lie, Sansa. I am malformed, scarred, and small, but ... " she could see him groping " ... abed, when the candles are blown out, I am made no worse than other men. In the dark, I am the Knight of Flowers." He took a draught of wine. "I am generous. Loyal to those who are loyal to me. I've proven I'm no craven. And I am cleverer than most, surely wits count for something. I can even be kind. Kindness is not a habit with us Lannisters, I fear, but I know I have some somewhere. I could be ... I could be good to you. — George R R Martin

One of the characters in our story, Gavril Ardalionovitch Ivolgin, belonged to the other category; he belonged to the category of "much cleverer" people; though head to toe he was infected with the desire to be original. But this class of person, as we have observed above, is far less happy than the first. The difficulty is that the intelligent "ordinary" man, even if he does imagine himself at times (and perhaps all his life) a person of genius and originality, nevertheless retains within his heart a little worm of doubt, which sometimes leads the intelligent man in the end to absolute despair. If he does yield in this belief, he is still completely poisoned with inward-driven vanity. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

I have often had cause to feel that my hands are cleverer than my head. That is a crude way of characterizing the dialectics of experimentation. When it is going well, it is like a quiet conversation with Nature. One asks a question and gets an answer, then one asks the next question and gets the next answer. An experiment is a device to make Nature speak intelligibly. After that, one only has to listen. — George Wald

That's true," she cried - "very true. Little Emma, grow up a better woman than your aunt. Be infinitely cleverer and not half so conceited. — Jane Austen

Strange, ain't it, how folks seem to resent anyone being born a mite cleverer than they be. — L.M. Montgomery

America didn't bypass or escape civilization. It did something far more profound, far cleverer: it simply changed what civilization could be. — A.A. Gill

I have always been much cleverer in retrospect. — Jaida Jones

Before I was nine years old, I had been a socialist. When young, everyone is a socialist; later he becomes cleverer. — Janusz Korwin-Mikke

Woman is a misbegotten man and has a faulty and defective nature in comparison to his. Therefore she is unsure in herself. What she cannot get, she seeks to obtain through lying and diabolical deceptions. And so, to put it briefly, one must be on one's guard with every woman, as if she were a poisonous snake and the horned devil ... Thus in evil and perverse doings woman is cleverer, that is, slyer, than man. Her feelings drive woman toward every evil, just as reason impels man toward all good. — Albertus Magnus

What makes us so bitter against people who outwit us is that they think themselves cleverer than we are. — Francois De La Rochefoucauld

The cleverer I am at miniaturizing the world, the better I possess it. — Gaston Bachelard

Behind every clever man is an even cleverer woman. — Matshona Dhliwayo

Large people tend to have large heads. Men are no cleverer than we are, Miss Sunderly. Just taller. — Frances Hardinge

Do I grow cleverer with age, or does the world grow more stupid? — Theodore Dalrymple

And people who believe in God think God has put human beings on the earth because they think human beings are the best animal, but human beings are just an animal and they will evolve into another animal, and that animal will be cleverer and it will put human beings into a zoo, like we put chimpanzees and gorillas into a zoo. — Mark Haddon

Someone very clever - certainly someone much cleverer than whoever had trained that imp - must have made the clock for the Partrician's waiting room. It went tick-tock like any other clock. But somehow, and against all usual horological practice, the tick and the tock were irregular. Tick tock tick ... and then the merest fraction of a second longer before ... tock tick tock ... and then a tick a fraction of a second earlier than the mind's ear was now prepared for. The effect was enough, after ten minutes, to reduce the thinking processes of even the best-prepared to a sort of porridge. The Patrician must have paid the clockmaker quite highly. — Terry Pratchett

Abakumov was cleverer than Yakonov supposed. It was just that prolonged lack of exercise had rendered the minister's brain useless to him. — Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

One Macaca fuscata is cleverer than two Homines sapientes — David Mitchell

We tell market researchers that we don't mind paying more for green benefits but only a minority of zealots ever really will. A campaign that delivers more widespread green behaviour is going to need to be cleverer that that. — Chris Powell

"fire" does not matter, "earth" and "air" and "water" do not matter. "I" do not matter. No word matters. But man forgets reality and remembers words. The more words he remembers, the cleverer do his fellows esteem him. He looks upon the great transformations of the world, but he does not see them as they were seen when man looked upon reality for the first time. Their names come to his lips and he smiles as he tastes them, thinking he knows them in the naming. — Roger Zelazny

Back then I knew exactly what I wanted. Now that I've gotten it ... I don't know, it seems the cleverer you are, the more goals there are just outside one's reach. — Richard Finney

I always felt that you could see me, somehow. In a way no one else did. That with those fetching little spectacles, you could peer straight through me. And you made no secret of the fact that you despised what you saw, which marked you as far cleverer than most. I couldn't rid myself of this fascination with you. Your sharp gaze, your enticing mouth, your complete invulnerability to all my charms. If I treated you poorly - and I know I did, to my shame - it was because I always felt rather hopeless around you. — Tessa Dare

Older people, who just happen to have been around longer, may not be cleverer than the young, but they have seen more. — Penelope Keith

It has been remarked (by a lady infinitely cleverer than the present author) how kindly disposed the world in general feels to young people who either die or marry. Imagine then the interest that surrounded Miss Wintertowne! No young lady ever had such advantages before: for she died upon the Tuesday, was raised to life in the early hours of Wednesday morning, and was married upon the Thursday; which some people thought too much excitement for one week. — Susanna Clarke

Television is a constant stream of fact, opinions, lies, moral dilemmas, plots: an infinitely complex and sophisticated torrent of information. How could it not make you cleverer? The only people who ever thought television rotted the brain and made kids dumb were those with a vested interest in other ways of learning, or those who were intellectually insecure, usually about books. — A.A. Gill

I know that there are scores of people plotting to kill me, and this is not difficult to understand. After all, did we not seize power by plotting against our predecessors? However, I am far cleverer than they are. I know they are conspiring to kill me long before they actually start planning to do it. This enables me to get them before they have the faintest chance of striking at me. — Saddam Hussein

Species do not grow more perfect: the weaker dominate the strong, again and again- the reason being that they are the great majority, and they are also cleverer. Darwin forgot the mind (-that is English!): the weak possess more mind ... To acquire mind, one must need mind-one loses it when one no longer needs it. — Friedrich Nietzsche

Exoticism can give you an edge: it makes people assume you're cleverer than you are and gives you the upper hand. — Kristin Scott Thomas

Fire had come to know more about the insignificant habits and tastes of Lord Mydogg, Lord Gentian, Murgda, Gunner, all their households and all their guests than any person could care to know. She knew Gentian was ambitious but also slightly featherbrained at times and had a delicate stomach, ate no rich foods, and drank only water. She knew his son Gunner was cleverer than his father, a reputable soldier, a bit of an ascetic when it came to wine and women. Mydogg was the opposite, denied himself no pleasure, was lavish with his favorites and stingy with everyone else. Murgda was stingy with everyone including herself, and was said to be exceedingly fond of bread pudding. — Kristin Cashore

However low he may fall, a man can never deny himself the delight of feeling cleverer, more powerful or even better fed than his companions. — Maxim Gorky

Was the man cleverer than he looked or just crazier? The line separating the two seemed rather thin — Tarun Shanker

I am quite empty of feeling. I don't care the slightest bit in the world for anybody or anything except myself. But I do care for myself, and I'm going to survive in spite of them all, and I'm going to have my own success without caring the least in the world how I get it. Because I'm cleverer than they are, I'm cunninger than they are, even if I'm weak. I must build myself up proper protections, and entrench myself, and then I'm safe. I can sit inside my glass tower and feel nothing and be touched by nothing, and yet exert my power, my will, through the glass walls of my ego. — D.H. Lawrence

Here lies one who knew how to get around him men who were cleverer than himself — Andrew Carnegie

People who believe in God think God has put human beings on earth because they think human beings are the best animal, but human beings are just an animal and they will evolve into another animal, and that animal will be cleverer and it will put human beings into a zoo, like we put chimpanzees and gorillas into a zoo. Or human beings will all catch a disease and die out or they will make too much pollution and kill themselves, and then there will only be insects in the world and they will be the best animal. — Mark Haddon

I thought about the warm skin and soft hair and hands of someone living, someone who was far cleverer and funnier than I would ever be and who still couldn't see a better future than to obliterate himself. — Jojo Moyes

The reason we bitterly hate those who deceive us is because they think they are cleverer than we are. — Francois De La Rochefoucauld

Jude: Just as you are? Not thinner? Not cleverer? Not with slightly bigger breasts or slightly smaller nose?
Bridget: No.
Shazzer: Well, fuck me.
Tom: This is someone you hate right?
Bridget: Yes, yes, I hate him. — Helen Fielding

When you read this you may already have met Hermes. In case you haven't, I'll add that he is a dog. But don't worry. he is very good-tempered - and moreover, a good deal more intelligent than a lot of people. In any event he never tries to give the impression of being cleverer than he is. — Jostein Gaarder

A cat's paw. It's an old fable. The monkey wanted some chestnuts that were roasting in the hot coals inside the fireplace. So he convinced the cat to get them out for him, promising to share them. The cat reached his paw in and scooped out the chestnuts one by one. And as each chestnut was removed, the monkey gobbled it up. The cat was left with nothing but a burnt paw. He was used by a cleverer creature at great expense to himself." "Now — Heather Blackwood

God didn't produce a ready-made world. The Creator has done something cleverer than this, making a world able to make itself. — John Polkinghorne

I have considered myself cleverer than any of the people surrounding me, and sometimes, would you belive it, have been positively ashamed of it. At any rate, I have all my life, as it were, turned my eyes away and never could look people straight in the face. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

I cared about dogs because they were faithful and honest, and some dogs were cleverer and more interesting than some people. — Mark Haddon

Really?"
"No. I'm being ironic. Or is it sarcastic? I can never remember."
"Irony's cleverer, so you're probably being sarcastic. — Jonathan Stroud

I have a strong feeling that I shall be glad when I am dead and done for - scrapped at last to make room for somebody better, cleverer, more perfect than myself. — George Bernard Shaw

Evolution is cleverer than you are. — Francis Crick

MARGARETE. Yes, out of sight is out of mind. It's second nature with you, gallantry; But you have friends of every kind, Cleverer by far, oh much, than me. FAUST. Dear girl, believe me, what's called cleverness Is mostly shallowness and vanity. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

In a fragile environment, we need to be aware of ourselves as members of a uniquely powerful species living among other species who are quite as interesting as we are but vulnerable to us because we are cleverer in more destructive ways. — Andrew Motion

Moreover, the sciences are monuments devoted to the public good; each citizen owes to them a tribute proportional to his talents. While the great men, carried to the summit of the edifice, draw and put up the higher floors, the ordinary artists scattered in the lower floors, or hidden in the obscurity of the foundations, must only seek to improve what cleverer hands have created. — Charles-Augustin De Coulomb

Bill blinked tears from his eyes, then fastened his gaze on me. "Bitch," he snarled - why they never think of anything cleverer I'll never know. — Elizabeth Bear

Craigengelt, you are either an honest fellow in right good earnest, and I scarce know how to believe that; or you are cleverer than I took you for, and I scarce know how to believe that either. — Walter Scott

Lebedev: A time has come of sorrow and sadness for you. Man, my dear friend, is like a samovar. It doesn't always stand on a shelf in the chill but sometimes they put hot coals in it and it goes psh ... psh! This comparison is worthless but you won't think up a cleverer one. — Anton Chekhov

All that day it seemed to her as though she were acting in a theater with actors cleverer than she, and that her bad acting was spoiling the whole performance. She had come with the intention of staying two days, if all went well. But in the evening, during the game, she made up her mind that she would go home next day. — Leo Tolstoy

Will suspected Jem was in fact cleverer than he was himself - but he lacked Will's tendency to assume the absolute worst about people and proceed from there. — Cassandra Clare

All right, Pendel had lied to him, if lying was the word. He had told Osnard what he wanted to hear and gone to extraordinary lengths to obtain it for him, including making it up. Some people lied because lying gave them a kick, made them feel braver or cleverer than all the lowly conformists who went on their bellies and told the truth. Not Pendel. Pendel lied to conform. To say the right things at all times, even if the right things were in one place, and the truth was in another. — John Le Carre

The thing about working at Pixar is that everyone around you is smarter and funnier and cleverer than you and they all think the same about everyone else. It's a nice problem to have. — Andrew Stanton

The Fathers of the Republic, I believe, were far cleverer fellows than they are commonly represented to be, even in the schoolbooks. If it was not divine inspiration that moved them, then they must have drunk better liquor than is now obtainable on earth. For when they made religion a free-for-all, they prepared the way for making it ridiculous; and when they opened the doors of office to the mob, they disposed forever of the delusion that government is a solemn and noble thing, by wisdom out of altruism. — H.L. Mencken

The surest way to be deceived is to consider oneself cleverer than others. — Francois De La Rochefoucauld

It's with such nothings that clever people are thrown off most easily. The cleverer the man, the less he suspects that he can be thrown off with the simplest thing. It's precisely the simplest thing that will throw off the cleverest man. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Clara Oswald: This is just a dream, but very clever people can hear dreams. So please, just listen. I know you're afraid, but being afraid is all right, because didn't anybody ever tell you fear is a superpower? Fear can make you faster and cleverer and stronger.
And one day, you'll come back to this barn and on that day you're going to be very afraid indeed. But that's ok because if you're very wise and very strong, fear doesn't have to make you cruel or cowardly. Fear can make you kind.
It doesn't matter if there's nothing under the bed or in the dark, so long as you know it's ok to be afraid of it. You're always going to be afraid, even if you learn to hide it. Fear is like a companion, a constant companion, always there. But that's ok, because fear can bring us together.
Fear can bring you home.
I'm going to leave you with something just so you always remember: Fear makes companions of us all. -Listen, Doctor Who, episode 8.4 — Steven Moffat

By thinking you are cleverer and more talented than your buddies, many a career has been blotted. — Robert Genn

Real life is - quieter, more understated. No one is backlot and nothing has a soundtrack and no one has someone cleverer than them writing their lines. And so they just say nothing and get on with it. More's the pity, if you ask me, I quite like the idea of my own soundtrack. — Matthew Crow

We're as clever as we think we are, but we'll be a lot cleverer when we learn to use not just one brain but to pool huge numbers of brains. We're at a level technologically where we can share information and think collectively about our problems. We do it in science all the time - there's no reason why we can't do it in other endeavors. — Lewis Thomas

Don't you know that our belief in man's intellect is the greatest fallacy of them all?" "What?" I exclaimed. "Ask any journalist, schoolmaster, politician or public house keeper in the land and they will all tell you that men are much cleverer than women." "As if I doubted it," she said scornfully. "How could they help it? Haven't we bred them and fed and kept them in comfort since the beginning of time so that they may be clever even if they're nothing else? It's all our doing!" she cried. — Virginia Woolf

I was one of five very clever kids, the other kids were cleverer than I was and still are and are very achieving. The girls were always first at everything and I was always 101st! — Anthony Minghella

... your midthirties...is the age that women usually start to feel confident. Having finally left behind the...awfulness of your twenties...your thirties are the point where the good stuff kicks in...How odd, then, that as your face and body finally begin to display the signs (lines, softening, gray hairs) that you've entered the zone of kick-ass eminence and intolerance of dullards, there should be pressure for you to...totally remove them. Give the impression that, actually, you are still a bit gullible and incompetent, and totally open to being screwed over by someone a bit cleverer and older than you... Lines and grayness are nature's way of telling you not to fuck with someone--the equivalent of the yellow-and-black banding on a wasp...Lines are your weapons against the idiots. Lines are your 'KEEP AWAY FROM THE WISE INTOLERANT WOMAN' sign. — Caitlin Moran

I love hearing details of writers' craft, as cannibals eat the brains of clever men to get cleverer. — Antonia Fraser

The stupidest people suddenly become a little cleverer when we learn that they think well of us — Jude Morgan

If you want to succeed in the world, you don't have to be much cleverer than other people. You just have to be one day earlier. — Leo Szilard

But I am a just man, even to my enemy - and I will acknowledge, beforehand, that they are cleverer brains than I thought them. — Wilkie Collins

I've been an idiot."
"That's okay," I said. "You're still way cleverer than me". — J.L. Merrow