Savant Quotes & Sayings

No one would choose to be jerked randomly off task again and again until you have half a dozen things you're trying to get done, all at the same time. — Marilyn Vos Savant

Interpreting the Bible without training is a bit like finding a specific address in a foreign city with neither map nor knowledge of the language. You might stumble upon the right answer, but in the meantime you've put yourself at the mercy of every ignoramus in town, with no way of telling the savant from the fool. — Laurie R. King

Your modest savant smiles as he says to his admirers: What have I done? Nothing. Man does not invent a force, he directs it. — Honore De Balzac

There are days when I feel I can do anything and days when I feel I can do nothing. But fortunately for those around me, neither sort occurs very often. — Marilyn Vos Savant

Play more than one game at a time. This is a painless way to learn how to do many things at once. — Marilyn Vos Savant

Know what to do if you feel faint or dizzy, especially if you might fall and hit your head. — Marilyn Vos Savant

Working in an office with an array of electronic devices is like trying to get something done at home with half a dozen small children around. The calls for attention are constant. — Marilyn Vos Savant

A good leader needs to stand behind his or her followers as often as he or she needs to stand in front of them. — Marilyn Vos Savant

The length of your education is less important than its breadth, and the length of your life is less important than its depth. — Marilyn Vos Savant

I would not encourage children or teens to multitask because we don't know where those efforts may lead. — Marilyn Vos Savant

Have you ever noticed that when you must struggle to hear something, you close your eyes? — Marilyn Vos Savant

I believe that one can indeed work on two or more tasks at once, but in ways yet to be understood. — Marilyn Vos Savant

One of the few articles of clothing that a man won't try to remove from a woman is an apron. — Marilyn Vos Savant

While you're writing, you can't concentrate nearly as well on what the speaker is saying. — Marilyn Vos Savant

When you're in a good mood, bring up the past. When you're in a bad mood, stick to the present. And when you're not feeling emotional at all, it's time to talk about the future. — Marilyn Vos Savant

Be able to hiccup silently, or at least without alerting neighbors to your situation. The first hiccup is an exception. — Marilyn Vos Savant

There was something savage and elemental and feral in him. The fact that he was a savant only added to the intrigue.
I always go for the dangerous boys, Leesha thought. — Cinda Williams Chima

I am one of those guys who could do the most emotional scene and crack a joke instantly. I'm lucky. I'm just like an idiot savant. I have one enormously enjoyable, pleasurable - for me - talent, which is being able to act. — James Woods

Know how weather, especially humidity, can affect the movement of doors and windows. — Marilyn Vos Savant

I've made an odd discovery. Every time I talk to a savant, I feel quite sure that happiness is no longer a possibility. Yet when I talk with my gardener, I'm convinced of the opposite. — Bertrand Russell

A 45-year old looks a lot like a 25-year old who's been out all night. And feels just as good about having survived the experience. — Marilyn Vos Savant

Be able to back up a car for a considerable distance in a straight line and back out of a driveway. — Marilyn Vos Savant

The mind will say this forever. But I mostly fish rivers these dayas. In so doing, movement becomes stasis, flux is the constant, and everything flows around, through, and beyond me, escaping ungrasped, unnamed, and unscathed. The river's clean escape does not prevent belief in its reality. On the contrary, there is nothing I love more than the feel of a wholeness sliding toward, around, and past me while I stand like an idiot savant in its midst, focusing on tiny, idiot-savantic bits of what is so beautiful to me, and so close, yet so wondrously ungraspable. — David James Duncan

What an epithet can be derived from that - "Frivolous philologist!" For thirty years I have been waiting for a chance to use it, but every time I get into an argument with a savant, he turns out to be of some other persuasion - a psychologist, perhaps, or a podiatrist. The neck my knife would fit has never presented itself. — A.J. Liebling

Common sense comes from experience, and kids need to fail as well as succeed in order to learn it. It's difficult to develop common sense when you spend a lot of time in your room where nothing much happens. — Marilyn Vos Savant

Capital punishment is the source of many an argument, both good and bad. — Marilyn Vos Savant

An act of justice closes the book on a misdeed; an act of vengeance writes one of its own — Marilyn Vos Savant

I'm not sure I'm the only savant with high IQ or with an above average IQ. Again, it may just be that we don't know very many of the others. — Daniel Tammet

You can't be wise without being intelligent, but you certainly can be intelligent without being wise. — Marilyn Vos Savant

Experts say you can't concentrate on more than one task at a time. — Marilyn Vos Savant

Understand why casinos and racetracks stay in business - the gambler always loses over the long term. — Marilyn Vos Savant

Success may be the ability to be happy with whatever we're stuck with. — Marilyn Vos Savant

I used to be treated like an idiot, now I'm treated like an idiot savant. — Martin Cruz Smith

A friend is someone who stays by your side all through the troubles he's caused you. — Marilyn Vos Savant

I?d rather be rejected than used because they both amount to the same thing in the end, but being used takes a lot longer. — Marilyn Vos Savant

Everybody loves an accent. It you've been unlucky in love, consider pulling up stakes and moving to another country. Then you'll be the one with a neat foreign accent. — Marilyn Vos Savant

From ancient times and into the Middle Ages, man had dreamed of taking to the sky, of soaring into the blue like the birds. One savant in Spain in the year 875 is known to have covered himself with feathers in the attempt. Others devised wings of their own design and jumped from rooftops and towers - some to their deaths - in Constantinople, Nuremberg, Perugia. — David McCullough

Geometry is beautifully logical, and it teaches you how to think and prove that things are so, step by step by step. Proofs are excellent lessons in reasoning. Without logic and reasoning, you are dependent on jumping to conclusions or - worse - having empty opinions. — Marilyn Vos Savant

Be able to go shopping for a bathing suit and not become depressed afterward. — Marilyn Vos Savant

Many people feel they must multi-task because everybody else is multitasking, but this is partly because they are all interrupting each other so much. — Marilyn Vos Savant

Know how to behave at a buffet. Take a clean plate for a second helping. — Marilyn Vos Savant

Ultimately, our future is like a mirror. Whenever we face it, it always reflects what we left behind. — Marilyn Vos Savant

Holy shit, I think I brought home some cannibal savant or something. Rain Man with a taste for people. Great? — Jake Bible

At first, I only laughed at myself. Then I noticed that life itself is amusing. I've been in a generally good mood ever since. — Marilyn Vos Savant

By the time they passed Malindi in the early-afternoon hours, Munroe could feel the syntax, the grammar, the resonance of patterns of the country's lingua franca beginning to form, could feel the tension relaxing now that the key to the aural lock had been handed over, and soon enough, over time and of its own accord, her ability to speak would grow and she would rapidly become more and more fluent.

This same poisonous gift - this savant like ability to visualize the way the words configured into shapes - had defined her life and turned her into what she was now. Without language, there would have been no gunrunning, without gunrunning no nights in the jungle fighting off the worst of human predators, without the nights, no instinct of self-preservation and the speed and the need to kill that had marked her every moment, waking and sleeping, since. — Taylor Stevens

Know which officials are voted into office and which are appointed, and by whom. — Marilyn Vos Savant

Know the difference between principles based on right or wrong vs. principles based on personal gain, and consider the basis of your own principles. — Marilyn Vos Savant

[Adulthood:] It's when you stop doing the stuff you have to make excuses for and when you stop making excuses for the stuff you have to do. — Marilyn Vos Savant

Be able to draw an illustration as least well enough to get your point across to another person. — Marilyn Vos Savant

Know how to effectively voice a complaint or make a claim at a retail store. — Marilyn Vos Savant

Be able to suffer wearing a necktie or slightly high heels for an entire evening without complaint or early removal. — Marilyn Vos Savant

Don't worry, Ian. I totally protected your anonymity. I told her you were my brother."
"Great," he pouted."Now she's going to ask me about you. And I told you
I'm friendly and pleasant and then I move on."
"You can do that. She'll find you perfectly understandable."
"Oh? And why's that?"
"Well, she wondered about you. Said you ask for some heavy reading sometimes, but that you didn't make much conversation."
"Oh, really?"
"Yes," Marcie explained. "I said you were brilliant, but not a very social animal. I said she shouldn't expect a lot of chitchat from you, but you were perfectly nice and there was no reason to be shy around you
you're safer than you look."
"Is that so? And how did you convince her of that?"
"Easy. I said you were an idiot savant
brilliant in literature and many other things, but socially you weren't on your game."
"Oh, Jesus Christ!"
-Ian and Marcie — Robyn Carr

Society needs people who can manage projects in addition to handling individual tasks. — Marilyn Vos Savant

Have enough sense to know, ahead of time, when your skills will not extend to wallpapering. — Marilyn Vos Savant

I suspect that some apparently homosexual people are really heterosexuals who deeply phobic about the opposite sex or have other emotional problems. — Marilyn Vos Savant

A good idea will keep you awake during the morning, but a great idea will keep you awake during the night. — Marilyn Vos Savant

Scientists and creationists are always at odds, of course. — Marilyn Vos Savant

You're who you think you are, even if you never admit it to yourself or to anyone else. You may be in the worst position to judge, but you're in the best position to know. — Marilyn Vos Savant

Know how to drive safely when it's raining or when it's snowing. The two conditions are different. — Marilyn Vos Savant

Jim Sheridan, the MP who wants to ban sketchwriters from the Commons for being rude about politicians, is a blithering idiot. Sorry, scrub that - clearly a very thoughtful person with whom I might conceivably disagree on some marginal issues. A blithering savant, perhaps. — Simon Hoggart

The lower our self-esteem, the more we're attracted to our opposite, and the higher our self-esteem, the more we are attracted to another like ourselves. — Marilyn Vos Savant

Be able to sneeze without sounding ridiculous. That means neither stifling yourself or spraying your immediate vicinity. — Marilyn Vos Savant

People who work crossword puzzles know that if they stop making progress, they should put the puzzle down for a while. — Marilyn Vos Savant

Be able to tell whether garments that look good on the hanger actually look good on you. — Marilyn Vos Savant

Evolution has long been the target of illogical arguments that use presumption. — Marilyn Vos Savant

Multi-tasking arises out of distraction itself. — Marilyn Vos Savant

Be sure to expose yourself to criticism: A fine polish requires an abrasive. — Marilyn Vos Savant

When our spelling is perfect, it's invisible. But when it's flawed, it prompts strong negative associations. — Marilyn Vos Savant

Be able to analyze statistics, which can be used to support or undercut almost any argument. — Marilyn Vos Savant

Yes. The original argument is defective. Substitute the word 'male' for 'gay,' and you'll see the flaw: 'Male people cannot be normal. If everyone were male starting tomorrow, the human race would die out, so being male cannot be nature's intended way.' Or you could substitute the word 'female.' In either case, the argument makes no sense: Being male or female is perfectly normal. — Marilyn Vos Savant

Be able to blow out a dinner candle without sending wax flying across the table. — Marilyn Vos Savant

Take a child & teach him physics his first 7 grades of education, I submit he'd excel to a savant-like level. Imagine adult focus for 7 yrs. — Ace Antonio Hall

Be able to cite three good qualities of every relative or acquaintance that you dislike. — Marilyn Vos Savant

A fool is someone whose pencil wears out before its eraser does. — Marilyn Vos Savant

What is the essence of America? Finding and maintaining that perfect, delicate balance between freedom 'to' and freedom 'from.' — Marilyn Vos Savant

Be in the habit of getting up bright and early on the weekends. Why waste such precious time in bed? — Marilyn Vos Savant

Someday you'll be as great as I am. — Fran Peek

Feeling is what you get for thinking the way you do. — Marilyn Vos Savant

Be able to keep a secret or promise when you know in your heart that it is the right thing to do. — Marilyn Vos Savant

Be able to defend your arguments in a rational way. Otherwise, all you have is an opinion. — Marilyn Vos Savant

Try square dancing-at least long enough to no longer feel silly and begin to have fun. — Marilyn Vos Savant

Though I thoroughly enjoyed playing crime branch officer Gautam Savant, it drained a lot out of me, too. It shook my faith in myself, as I explored my hidden side and wondered if I was just acting or using the character as an excuse to vent my mean side. — Randeep Hooda

Be able to live alone, even if you don't want to and think you will never find it necessary. — Marilyn Vos Savant

Know how your representatives stand on major national or state issues. — Marilyn Vos Savant

If you're wondering if you're dreaming, you're dreaming. — Marilyn Vos Savant

The freedom to be an individual is the essence of America. — Marilyn Vos Savant

Be in the habit of experimenting with your clothing so that you don't get stuck for life with a self-image developed over the course of high school. — Marilyn Vos Savant

Being defeated is often a temporary condition. Giving up is what makes it permanent. — Marilyn Vos Savant

CHRIS PRATT (ANDY DWYER): Chris had the best audition I had ever seen. No one knew his work and he came in and crushed. He is a comedy savant and a natural actor in a way I have never really seen. Each take is different and hilarious and completely unexpected. His character was only supposed to be on the show for six episodes, which seems ridiculous now. — Amy Poehler

I believe that love
not imitation
is the sincerest form of flattery. Your imitator thinks that you can be duplicated; your lover knows you can't. — Marilyn Vos Savant

Be able to set a table so that you feel like you're dining, not just sitting and eating. — Marilyn Vos Savant

Science in England is not a profession: its cultivators are scarcely recognised even as a class. Our language itself contains no single term by which their occupation can be expressed. We borrow a foreign word [Savant] from another country whose high ambition it is to advance science, and whose deeper policy, in accord with more generous feelings, gives to the intellectual labourer reward and honour, in return for services which crown the nation with imperishable renown, and ultimately enrich the human race. — Charles Babbage

Jay-Z is like a rap-savant, he doesn't have to write the rhymes down, he can create complex raps in his head. I mean he does memorize it, he just doesn't write it down on paper. He doesn't freestyle onto the track, it's all thought out. — Ice-T

The chess player who develops the ability to play two dozen boards at a time will benefit from learning to compress his or her analysis into less time. — Marilyn Vos Savant

Teens think listening to music helps them concentrate. It doesn't. It relieves them of the boredom that concentration on homework induces. — Marilyn Vos Savant

Revenge feels right only to those directly involved. Justice feels right even to outsiders. — Marilyn Vos Savant

Be able to recognize when you're reading or hearing material biased to your own side. — Marilyn Vos Savant

Savant, doesn't it strike you as somewhat ... hypocritical that we fight to keep humans free from the domination of machines, while at the same time some of our own League Worlds use slaves? — Brian Herbert

Be able to decline a date so gracefully that the person isn't embarrassed that he or she asked. — Marilyn Vos Savant

Be able to recognize many of the major constellations and know the stories behind them. — Marilyn Vos Savant