They Think They Are Smart Quotes & Sayings

I remember when Jewish kids were home doing their homework. What happened? What the hell happened to our smart Jewish kids? If, God forbid, their parents are no longer oppressed for a while, they run where they think they can find oppression. Can't live without it. Once Jews ran away from oppression; now they run away from no-oppression. Once they ran away from being poor; now they run away from being rich. It's crazy. They have parents they can't hate anymore because their parents are so good to them, so they hate America instead. — Philip Roth

Sometimes smart people can be a special kind of stupid. The kind where they know so many facts and are so good at saying "no one would ever do that" that they somehow manage to convince themselves the world is going to care about what they think. — Mira Grant

I love to speak to five people at the same time and make them pay attention to me while not allowing them to say a word. I answer them before they have a chance to speak. They then change their thoughts and I do it again. They feel both frustrated and hooked to the conversation. I feel both entertained and amused at their disbelief on what is occurring before their eyes. They cannot see that I'm communicating in three ways at the same time, while they're focused in one. And they think I'm smart because I talk too fast, while the truth is that they are not intelligent because they cannot see the obvious in front of their eyes. — Robin Sacredfire

Why does that kid think so highly of himself?"
"Kids that think they're so smart.They're everywhere! Destroy is self-esteem!"
"Yes ... I really do think highly of myself.People like me should get a taste of the ups and downs of life! Sorry I'm so envious.I will reflect upon this. Please don't be angry.
"Ah..um.."
"There, I said it now. Are you satisfied?"
...
"Bye bye!"
Beat him ... Beat him until he reaches heaven ... !!!
-random people and Hiro-chan
— Natsuki Takaya

I think it's difficult for young people to acknowledge being smart, to knowledge being a reader. I see kids who are embarrassed to read books. They're embarrassed to have people see them doing it. — Walter Dean Myers

The smart way to build a literary career is you create an identifiable product, then reliably produce that product so people know what they are going to get. That's the smart way to build a career, but not the fun way. Maybe you can think about being less successful and happier. That's an option, too. — Karen Joy Fowler

I think one of the reasons that we like conspiracy theories is I think that we like to feel like there is a group of people who are so smart and powerful that they can pull the wool over an entire country or in fact even an entire world's eyes. That certainly makes us feel like somehow we're protected, even if it's not in our best interest. — Jason Ritter

Idiots are of two kinds: those who try to be smart and those who think they are smart. — Raheel Farooq

Young women are not putting themselves in danger. The people around them are doing the real damage. Who? you might wonder. The abstinence teacher who tells her students that they'll go to jail if they have premarital sex. The well-founded organization that tells girls on college campuses that they should be looking for a husband, not taking women's studies classes. The judge who rules against a rape survivor because she didn't meet whatever standard for a victim he had in mind. The legislator who pushes a bill to limit young women's access to abortion because he doesn't think they're smart enough to make their own decisions. These are the people who are making the world a worse place, and a more dangerous one, at that, for girls and young women. We're just doing our best to live in it. — Jessica Valenti

I don't think people are fools, and I think they deserve a good attitude and smart entertainment. — Tatyana Tolstaya

Relativism poses as humble by saying: "We are not smart enough to know what the truth is - or if there is any universal truth." It sounds humble. But look carefully at what is happening. It's like a servant saying: I am not smart enough to know which person here is my master - or if I even have a master. The result is that I don't have a master and I can be my own master. That is in reality what happens to relativists: In claiming to be too lowly to know the truth, they exalt themselves as supreme arbiter of what they can think and do. This is not humility. This is the essence of pride. — John Piper

People love fast. When you're fast people think you're smart, think your products are of higher quality, think your management is of higher quality, think that you're worth more and they're willing to pay more money for it. So, I'm really big into speed. — Brian Tracy

Remember that, Crowe. Monsters walk on two legs, and they're crafty. They're real good at fooling even the smartest of men. Don't forget that. Because sometimes, you don't realize monsters are stalking you until it's too late. It's far better to be smart, to be safe, and to watch for monsters in everyone you know."
"Even Logan and Rafe?" he whispered, suddenly wondering if somehow his cousin were monsters.
He couldn't hurt his little cousins. He'd promised Dad he'd always watch out for them, and for his baby sister. What was he supposed to do if one of them was a monster?
His father gave him on of those small, man-to-man smiles Crowe always tried to get.
"Well, maybe not Logan and Rafe," his father amended. "It's hard to imagine a Callahan as a monster, don't you think?"
Crowe nodded quickly. "They're just dumb kids sometimes," he sighed. "But I make sure to tell them when they're dumb so they'll get smart. — Lora Leigh

There are very few new things in this world, very few. That's why people that are young, if they're smart, try to profit from the experience of an older guy so they won't have to go through all the pain and suffering. But a certain amount of pain and suffer is good, because it makes a person think they've learned. — Cus D'Amato

Odds are you know some narcissists. Odds are they're smart, confident and articulate. They make you laugh, they make you think; the first time you met, they probably charmed the pants off of you - perhaps even literally. The odds are also that that spell didn't last. — Jeffrey Kluger

I think ... girls have a hard time being interesting. It's actually easier to be famous, or notorious, than it is to be interesting. In our world, girls climb very well until they hit puberty-sexual maturity-and then they begin to fall out of the tree. They start role-playing instead of thinking, flirting instead of learning. They start admiring how smart the boys are-or how athletic or how handsome-instead of concentrating on their own intelligence. — Sheri S. Tepper

I was used to being invisible. People rarely saw me, and if they did, they never looked close. I wasn't shiny and charming like my brother, stunning and graceful like my mother, or smart and dynamic like my friends. That's the thing, though. You always think you want to be noticed. Until you are. — Sarah Dessen

No other organism on Earth does that. Yes, yes, I understand that dolphins are very smart, but I don't think they build libraries or even contemplate such a project. — Bill Nye

I have many friends who are married - not many who are happily married, but many married friends. The few happy ones are like my parents: They're baffled by my singleness. A smart, pretty, nice girl like me, a girl with so many interests and enthusiasms, a cool job, a loving family. And let's say it: money. They knit their eyebrows and pretend to think of men they can set me up with, but we all know there's no one left, no one good left, and I know that they secretly think there's something wrong with me, something hidden away that makes me unsatisfiable, unsatisfying. — Gillian Flynn

It's always so cool to think you are looking at today is something other people have been looking at for centuries. It's the closest I've come to touching immortality, by reading the words of dead people. — Sarah Strohmeyer

Some of the same self-certified smart people, who preached about mushroom clouds and weapons of mass destruction, are once again trying to stampede us into war. They seem to think only with their guns. To those who want to shoot first and ask questions later in Iraq, I join in a firm 'No!' We've been there and done that, and America is still paying for their past failure. — Lloyd Doggett

I used to think I knew everything. I was a "smart person" who "got things done," and because of that, the higher I climbed, the more I could look down and scoff at what seemed silly or simple, even religion.
But I realized something as I drove home that night: that I am neither better nor smarter, only luckier. And I should be ashamed of thinking I knew everything, because you can know the whole world and still feel lost in it. So many people are in pain-no matter how smart or accomplished-they cry, they yearn, they hurt.But instead of looking down on things, they look up, which is where I should have been looking, too. Because when the world quiets to the sound of your own breathing, we all want the same things:comfort, love, and a peaceful heart. — Mitch Albom

I think the Clintons are brilliant. I've never met a person as intelligent as Bill, and I think Hillary is right up there with him. They're too smart for Washington. — Chevy Chase

I deal with people like him a hundred times a day. They look at me and naturally assume I'm not as smart as they are. God help us. But think about it, it's a tremendous tactical advantage, not to mention personally liberating, to haveothers think I'm a dummy. — Francisco X Stork

Almost every time I speak to teenagers, particularly young female students who want to talk to me about feminism, I find myself staggered by how much they have read, how creatively they think and how curiously bullshit-resistant they are. Because of the subjects I write about, I am often contacted by young people and I see it as a part of my job to reply to all of them - and doing so has confirmed a suspicions I've had for some time. I think that the generation about to hit adulthood is going to be rather brilliant.
Young people getting older is not, in itself, a fascinating new cultural trend. Nonetheless the encroaching adulthood and the people who grew up in a world where expanding technological access collided with the collapse of the neoliberal economic consensus is worth paying attention to. Because these kids are smart, cynical and resilient, and I don't mind saying that they scare me a little. — Laurie Penny

If he can't get to the clock, any idea how we deal with this lot?"
"With great care," Donegan suggested.
"How about we run off shout and they follow?" Said Gracious. "Then, just when they think they've caught us they fall into our trap."
"OK," said Tanith. "And that trap would be?"
"A big hole we'd dug earlier and covered with branches.'
Tanith frowned. "I thought you were meant to be smart."
Gracious frowned back at her. "Who told you that?"
"Gracious is book smart," said Donegan. "He leaves the real world thinking to people like you and me and small dogs that he meets."
"The innocent are often the wisest. — Derek Landy

Granny says people who think slowly always accuse quick thinkers of concentration problems. Idiots can't understand that non-idiots are done with a thought and already moving on to the next before they themselves have. That's why idiots are always so scared and aggressive. Because nothing scares idiots more than a smart girl. — Fredrik Backman

I have a great affection for people who are intellectually engaged with the world, and who don't treat everything superficially. And I think, when people talk about nerdiness, what they're really talking about is smart people who who are trying to think hard about the world. And I don't think that's an insult, I think that's a great thing. — John Green

Most people who meet my wife quickly conclude that she is remarkable. They are right about this. She is smart, funny and thoroughly charming. Often, after hearing her speak at some function or working with her on a project, people will approach me and say something to the effect of, you know, I think the world of you, Barack, but your wife, wow! — Barack Obama

I think the business community is smart enough to realise that just having a trade union is not enough. They are smart enough to know they need to be part of a union that has political and financial power. — Marjorie Scardino

The author respectfully dedicates this book to everyone who is almost as smart as they think they are. — Matthew Woodring Stover

I think people are sexy when they have a sense of humor, when they are smart, when they have some sense of style, when they are kind, when they express their own opinions, when they are creative, when they have character. — Suzanne Vega

Many sentences popped out of Amos's mouth that Redelmeier knew he would forever remember: A part of good science is to see what everyone else can see but think what no one else has ever said. The difference between being very smart and very foolish is often very small. So many problems occur when people fail to be obedient when they are supposed to be obedient, and fail to be creative when they are supposed to be creative. The secret to doing good research is always to be a little underemployed. You waste years by not being able to waste hours. It is sometimes easier to make the world a better place than to prove you have made the world a better place. Redelmeier — Michael Lewis

If you look at the whole world now it's just computer games, graphic novels, film, TV spinoffs, spinoffs of spinoffs like Deadpool spinning off of Wolverine. So I think that any kind of smart producer looks at all of those bases. Once it comes down to the integrity of it audiences are very smart, they smell that they're just kind of being played. — Sam Worthington

I did the right thing, right? (Dante)
No. The panther woman didn't want you to leave her and now you made her go away. That was just stupid if you ask the Simi. Not that anyone ever does, 'cause if they did, then they would be smart. Some people are smart. But many, like you, are too stupid to ask me what I think. See? (Simi) — Sherrilyn Kenyon

Adults trying to protect children from reality, right? And adults always trying to fill children with fantasy - the tooth fairy, Santa, make-believe games, etc. But kids are really smart, I think they know from an early age about death, this void and hole they are immediately traveling toward. — Shane Warren Jones

The rest of the story from Acts 1:8 explains that Christ-followers have a mission while here on earth. They are to be Christ's witnesses all over this planet. It's as if Christ said, "Think you're missing the book smarts, the street smarts, the looks, the talent, or the speaking ability to accomplish this mission? Don't be concerned with those things, because you have my mountain-moving, life-transforming, death-defying power on your side." — Bill Hybels

I think the American people are very smart in understanding our country is very trustworthy with nuclear weapons. We've had them from the beginning. But they have also been critical for keeping the world more at peace than it would have been if it hadn't been for the American nuclear umbrella. — Haley Barbour

Forty percent of the thirteen hundred members of Yale's graduating class of 1986 applied to one investment bank, First Boston, alone. There was, I think, a sense of safety in the numbers. The larger the number of people involved, the easier it was for them to delude themselves that what they were doing must be smart. The first thing you learn on the trading floor is that when large numbers of people are after the same commodity, be it a stock, a bond, or a job, the commodity quickly becomes overvalued. Unfortunately, at the time, I had never seen a trading floor. The — Michael Lewis

I think so. There are so many tales, so strange and beautiful and perfect. They are not what are real, but better. I thought I had something that was magic once, but I lost it, and now I don't think it was at all." She touched her chest where the handkerchief had been and frowned. "I wish there was magic. If all the tales were true, then maybe they could tell me what I'm doing, and what I am to do now."
"Ah, now, don't cry over lost years and forgetfulness. The tales tell what they can. The rest is for us to learn. The question is, are we smart enough to figure for ourselves? Now, that's what I'd like to know. — Shannon Hale

I always value people's opinions. I think a lot of people are really smart people, and when people say something, they do it for a reason. — Harald Zwart

What I have noticed which I'm not nuts about that the trend that a lot of shows are hiring the American Idol type of talent without real training and real technique and I think that audiences are smart and sometimes seeing that things are not as high caliber as they were before. — Hugh Panaro

You teach the reader that he's way smarter than he thought he was. I think one of the insidious lessons about TV is the meta-lesson that you're dumb. This is all you can do. This is easy, and you're the sort of person who really just wants to sit in a chair and have it easy. When in fact there are parts of us, in a way, that are a lot more ambitious than that. And what we need ... is seriously engaged art that can teach again that we're smart. And that's the stuff that TV and movies - although they're great at certain things - cannot give us. But that have to create the motivations for us to want to do the extra work, to get those other kinds of art ... Which is tricky, because you want to seduce the reader, but you don't want to pander or manipulate them. I mean, a good book teaches the reader how to read it. — David Foster Wallace

The world is a big place. There are lots of smart people in it. Entrepreneurs are kidding themselves if they think they have any kind of monopoly on knowledge. And, sure as I'm a Macintosh user, on the same day that an entrepreneur tells this lie, the venture capitalist will have met with another company that's doing the same thing. — Guy Kawasaki

They think that they're smart and that the rest of us are dumb. — Joseph Heller

I don't think Wall Street people in general are smart. I think that's one of the biggest myths in American lore. They're tough, aggressive, greedy, quick thinking but I don't think they're particularly smart at all. — Ben Stein

Military guys are rarely as smart as they think they are, and they've never gotten over the fact that civilians run the military. — Maureen Dowd

I think there is this thing where people are impressed - it gives you a leg up in the sense that people won't treat you like a run-of-the-mill actress. They'll assign "smart" to your word bank, your adjective bank. — Rashida Jones

Worrying about clothes, though, is easy to understand. When it comes to clothes, people are very competitive, especially if they're movie stars. I think every smart woman devises a look for herself. Margaret Sullivan had a look: romantic, young, pretty, smart. Katharine Hepburn made a look for herself as this wonderful old salty character. Marilyn Monroe had a look; it was like, "Fuck me with sadness"... — Carol Matthau

We are spiritual children of God the Father. We preach it. We sing it. But do we really understand it? Sometimes it's easy to tell others they are loved, but not so easy to believe it of ourselves - not because we don't think God loves His children, but because we may feel undeserving of His love. The adversary loves to remind us who we are not. Not pretty. Not smart. Not strong. But God would not have sacrificed His Son to save us if we aren't worth saving. — Toni Sorenson

If there are still honest-smart men and women within those old and noble traditions, they should think carefully, observe and diagnose the illness. They should face the contradiction. Discuss the conflation. And then do as Warren Buffett and Bill Gates and many others have done. Choose the miracle of creative competition over an idolatry of cash.
They should stand up.. — David Brin

One of the biggest problems with people who think that they are smart is that they believe that the number of times they admit that they are wrong is inversely proportional to their
intellectual level. — Daniel Willey

American stuntmen are smart - they think about safety. When they do a jump in a car, they calculate everything: the speed, the distance ... But in Hong Kong, we don't know how to count. Everything we do is a guess. If you've got the guts, you do it. All of my stuntmen have gotten hurt. — Jackie Chan

They regarded each other for a moment. He lay down once more, and after a moment she followed and jumped a little when she found out that he had slid his arm beneath her shoulders. There was a self-conscious moment of mutual discomfort before she turned onto her side abs curled towards him. Tightening his arm around her, he spoke into the top of her head.
'You know what I can't understand? You have all these people telling you all the time how great you are, smart, funny and talented and all that, I mean endlessly, I've been telling you for years. So why don't you believe it? Why do you think people say that stuff, Em? Do you think it's a conspiracy, people secretly ganging up to be nice to you? — David Nicholls

I don't mean to sound sexist, but as far as women have come over the last 40 years, you don't really see a lot of women hunters. They're still in the minority in the military, and there's not a lot of female construction workers. I hope that's not taken the wrong way. I think women are as smart, resourceful, and capable in most things as any man could be ... but they are generally physically weaker. That's science. — Robert Kirkman

He was tall and slim and had dark hair and young women found him fascinating.

This sort of thing happens often enough, even with boys as mortal as dirt. There's always one who learned how to brood early and often, and always girls who think they can heal him.

Eventually the girls learn better. Either the hurts are petty little things and they get tired of whining or the hurt's so deep and wide that they drown in it. The smart ones heave themselves back to shore and the slower ones wake up married with a husband who lies around and suffers in their direction. It's part of a dance as old as the jackalopes themselves. — Ursula Vernon

Cormag caught his hand and pulled him back until they were facing each other. "I think you're amazing," he said, blurting the words out.
Lachlan smiled, completely shocked and thrilled by how captivating he found him.
He had never thought this could happen to him, that he would be attracted to another boy.
He thought he knew himself so well.
"I think you're smart, sexy, funny as hell. You have hidden depths, Lachlan. You only need the right person to coax you out of your protective shell," he claimed.
"Are you the right person?" Lachlan wondered, as he took a half step forward.
Cormag took a deep breath and brushed at a strand of hair that was sticking out at a funny angle from behind the top of his ear. He tugged at his short hair every time he talked about his recent break up. He was such a dork. — Elaine White

In my experience, most people have a narrow view of intelligence, tending to think of it mainly in terms of academic ability. This is why so many people who are smart in other ways end up thinking that they're not smart at all. There are myths surrounding creativity as well. — Ken Robinson

Nero, you are an example to all the children on this shuttle. Because most of them are so foolish, they think it is better to keep their stupidest thoughts to themselves. You, however, understand the profound truth that you must reveal your stupidity openly. To hold your stupidity inside you is to embrace it, to cling to it, to protect it. But when you expose your stupidity, you give yourself the chance to have it caught, corrected, and replaced with wisdom. Be brave, all of you, like Nero Boulanger, and when you have a thought of such surpassing ignorance that you think it's actually smart, make sure to make some noise, to let your mental limitations squeak out some whimpering fart of a thought, so that you have a chance to learn. — Orson Scott Card

What is wrong with encouraging students to put "how well they're doing" ahead of "what they're doing." An impressive and growing body of research suggests that this emphasis (1) undermines students' interest in learning, (2) makes failure seem overwhelming, (3) leads students to avoid challenging themselves, (4) reduces the quality of learning, and (5) invites students to think about how smart they are instead of how hard they tried. — Alfie Kohn

You can't convince yourself! You either believe or you don't believe." (28)

"She say you ask weird questions, but I say you're student, you supposed to ask! Her job to answer! I say you're lazy, if student ask, you answer!"
"Yeah! She told me my real great-grandparents are these white people named Adan and Eve!"
"Bullshit! But hey, Ciao Wen, be smart. Why you argue with her about that? You know they believe this stuff, just let them believe."
"But she told me I was going to Hell if I didn't believe and told me to ask God into my heart!"
""Ha, ha, yeah, she told me, too, think she do something soo good to help you. Whatever. You know it's lies, let those idiots believe. Just focus on real school. Don't be stupid and fight them, you'll lose." (30) — Eddie Huang

It is the misanthrope who alone has clarity.By standing outside the huddles of man,he sees a lot,and what he often sees is the evidence that people are not as smart as dogs think they are.And he wants to see it time and again.In the fog of ambiguities and mysteries,he desperately searches for truths because truth usually shows humanity in a poor light — Manu Joseph

God is not looking for heroic figures, wonderful people who captivate others with their charisma. It must have been quite baffling to the educated world when Jesus pronounced, "Blessed are the poor in spirit." Blessed are the simple and those with limited education who do not want to understand everything with their intellect. Blessed are they who do not always think they have to put themselves forward to show how smart they are. Blessed are they who do not theorize about heavenly things. Blessed are they who keep to the way that is shown them, whatever life brings. — Christoph Friedrich Blumhardt

Often, we think that things are the way they are because of intelligent design - because somebody super-smart, or some group of academics, came up with the best system ever to do XYZ. Actually, things are often the way they are because of an accident of history. — Leila Janah

Take wrong turns. Talk to strangers. Open unmarked doors. And if you see a group of people in a field, go find out what they are doing. Do things without always knowing how they'll turn out. You're curious and smart and bored, and all you see is the choice between working hard and slacking off. There are so many adventures that you miss because you're waiting to think of a plan. To find them, look for tiny interesting choices. And remember that you are always making up the future as you go. — Randall Munroe

When I was a kid, my parents smartly raised us to keep quiet, be respectful to older people, and generally not question adults all that much. I think that's because they were assuming that 99 percent of the time, we'd be interacting with worthy, smart adults ... They didn't ever tell me 'Sometimes you will meet idiots who are technically adults and authority figures. You don't have to do what they say. — Mindy Kaling

The 50/50 rule means that when people meet you for the first time, before you ever speak, there is a 50/50 chance that they think you are smart and a 50/50 chance that they'll think you are stupid. These perceptions are, at least in part, created and destroyed by how you express yourself verbally, how you use your voice. — Carla Harris

I think I just pick really smart and motivated people to work with - people who are probably going to do great things anyway - and I just teach them what I know, maybe teach them how to think a little clearer than they did before, and then off they go. — Tucker Max

It's hard to guess how smart the machines are, but a good rule of thumb is that they're always smarter than you think. — Daniel H. Wilson

A lot of people who don't write for kids think it's easy, because they think kids aren't as smart as they are, or that you have to dumb down what you would normally write for kids. But I think you have to work harder when you write for kids, to make sure every word is right, that it's there for the right reason. — Brian Selznick

Most beautiful dumb girls think they are smart and get away with it, because other people, on the whole, aren't much smarter. — Louise Brooks

It's always interesting to see what the real enthusiasts think, but they're rarely representative of the tastes of the wider audience, so I tend to write for myself, for an imagined smart 14-year-old, and for a couple of friends who are still big comics fans. — Grant Morrison

Satirical writers and speakers are not half so clever as they think themselves, nor as they are thought to be. They do winnow the corn, it is true, but it is to feed upon the chaff. I am sorry to add that they who are always speaking ill of others are also very apt to be doing ill to them. It requires some talent and some generosity to find out talent and generosity in others, though nothing but self-conceit and malice are needed to discover or to imagine faults. It is much easier for an ill-natured man than for a good-natured man to be smart and witty. — James Sharp

I think that the people who cling to the resentment and try to place blame on other people end up being unhappy for the rest of their lives. And the smart ones, the ones who focus on themselves and how to make their lives better and richer, and learn to forgive and forget things they had no control over, are the people who end up living happy, productive lives. They are fulfilled. — Pilossoph Jackie

Personally, I like to think my brother is having a college experience like they do in the movies. I don't mean the big fraternity party kind of movie. More like the movie where the guy meets a smart girl who wears a lot of sweaters and drinks cocoa. They talk about books and issues and kiss in the rain. I think something like that would be very good for him, especially if the girl were unconventionally beautiful. They are the best kind of girls, I think. I personally find 'super models' strange. I don't know why this is. — Stephen Chbosky

Politicians are interesting people, most of them are smart and hard-working-I mean, they keep schedules no one else would think of keeping. Some of them live down to the caricature, but most of them are good people and they are charming. — Tucker Carlson

When I see a kid in a movie theater texting, I think it's a failure of the movie. It's not a triumph of the Apple iPhone. It's a failure of Warner Bros. and Sony, and all that, because they haven't kept their attention and challenged them. They're smart little kids that are bored, and I wanted to challenge them. — Joseph M. Kahn

I think people are smart enough to sort it out. They know when they're watching one of these food fight shows where journalists sit around and yell and scream at each other, versus serious issue reporting. — Bob Woodward

I think generally the heads of terrorist groups are very, very smart people. They're also great manipulators. I would presume that cult leaders are identical. These sort of individuals are very strong, they have very strong charisma. — Loretta Napoleoni

Whatever happened to books? Suddenly everybody's talking about these 100-hour movies called 'Breaking Bad'. People are talking about TV the same way they used to talk about novels back in the 1980s. I like to think I hang out with some pretty smart people, but all they talk about is 'Breaking Bad.' — Douglas Coupland

Miss Taylor says kids that are colored can't go to my school cause they're not smart enough." I come round the counter then. Lift her chin up and smooth back her funny-looking hair. "You think I'm dumb?" "No," she whispers hard, like she means it so much. She look sorry she said it. "What that tell you about Miss Taylor, then?" She blink, like she listening good. "Means Miss Taylor ain't right all the time," I say. She hug me around my neck, say, "You're righter than Miss Taylor." I tear up then. My cup is spilling over. Those is new words to me. — Kathyrn Stockett

Stay Stupid The three dumbest guys I can think of: Charles Lindbergh, Steve Jobs, Winston Churchill. Why? Because any smart person who understood how impossibly arduous were the tasks they had set themselves would have pulled the plug before he even began. Ignorance and arrogance are the artist and entrepreneur's indispensable allies. She must be clueless enough to have no idea how difficult her enterprise is going to be - and cocky enough to believe she can pull it off anyway. How do we achieve this state of mind? By staying stupid. By not allowing ourselves to think. A child has no trouble believing the unbelievable, nor does the genius or the madman. It's only you and I, with our big brains and our tiny hearts, who doubt and overthink and hesitate. Don't think. Act. — Steven Pressfield

It is a most curious experience for a man of seventy-two to be confronted with the greenhorn enthusiasms of his youth. Young people think they are so smart. Alas the doctrines they spout with such fervor turn out to be mostly parroted from their elders. — John Dos Passos

So the fact tht anyone would ever suggest that Arab women are dominated and demeaned is really quite ludicrous. In this part of the world, She's just Not That Into Him. We're the ones who make a pantomime of the wedding, and play at happily ever after ... The men might think they have the upper hand, they may believe they've nabbed themselves a prime piece of arm candy, but we've got his 'potential as a provider' wrapped around our little fingers. Oh yes, we're the smart ones. — Amy Mowafi

People today have forgotten they're really just a part of nature. Yet, they destroy the nature on which our lives depend. They always think they can make something better. Especially scientists. They may be smart, but most don't understand the heart of nature. They only invent things that, in the end, make people unhappy. Yet they're so proud of their inventions. What's worse, most people are, too. They view them as if they were miracles. They worship them. They don't know it, but they're losing nature. They don't see that they're going to perish. The most important things for human beings are clean air and clean water. — Akira Kurosawa

Beware of anyone who tells you a topic is above you or better left to experts. Many people are twice as smart as they think they are but they've been intimidated into believing some topics are above them. You can understand almost anything if it is explained well. "

~ "World War I - The Rest of the Story and How it Affects You Today — Richard J. Maybury

In the stock market (as in much of life), the beginning of wisdom is admitting your ignorance. One of the many things you cannot know about stocks is exactly when they will up or go down. Over the long term, stocks generally rise at a nice pace. History shows they double in value every seven years or so. But in the short term, stocks are just plain wild. Over periods of days, weeks and months, no one has any idea what they will do. Still, nearly all investors think they are smart enough to divine such short-term movements. This hubris frequently gets them into trouble. — James K. Glassman

There is no plan ... You need to make smart choices, But you can make career decisions for two different types of reasons.
You can do something for instrumental reasons
because you think it's going to lead to something else, regardless of whether you enjoy it or it's worthwhile ... or you can do something for fundamental reasons
because you think it's inherently valuable, regardless of what it may or may not lead to.
The dirty little secret is that insturmental reasons usually don't work. Things are too complicated, too unpredictable. You never know what' going to happen. So you end up stuck. The most successful people
not all of the time, but most of the time
make decisions for fundamental reasons.
They take a job or join a company because it will let them do interesting work in a cool place
even if they don't know exactly where it will lead. They're not fools. They're enlightened pragmatists. — Daniel H. Pink

The greatest fools in the universe are men who think they are smarter than women. — Matshona Dhliwayo

Let me tell you about gods," said Wiggin. "No matter how smart or strong you are, there's always somebody smarter or stronger, and when you run into somebody who's stronger and smarter than anybody, you think, This is a god. This is perfection. But I can promise you that there's somebody else somewhere else who'll make your god look like a maggot by comparison. And somebody smarter or stronger or better in some way. So let me tell you what I think about gods. I think a real god is not going to be so scared or angry that he tries to keep other people down. For Congress to genetically alter people to make them smarter and more creative, that could have been a godlike, generous gift. But they were scared, so they hobbled the people of Path. They wanted to stay in control. A real god doesn't care about control. A real god already has control of everything that needs controlling. Real gods would want to teach you how to be just like them. — Orson Scott Card

A lot of people ask me where music is going today. I think it's going in short phrases. If you listen, anybody with an ear can hear that. Music is always changing. It changes because of the times and the technology that's available, the material that things are made of, like plastic cars instead of steel. So when you hear an accident today it sounds different, not all the metal colliding like it was in the forties and fifties. Musicians pick up sounds and incorporate that into their playing, so the music that they make will be different. — Miles Davis

I don't think women should look like costumes. I don't think they should look like fashion victims. I think these (clothes) are for women that want to look sexy. They want to look smart. — Ralph Lauren

I learned early that business is business and politics is politics. The proof is how few important businessmen have made good politicians. They may think that they are very smart about everything because they made millions of dollars by digging a hole in the ground and finding oil, but the talent and luck needed to become rich are not the same talent and luck needed to succeed on Parliament Hill. — Jean Chretien

I think the record-buying public know what they like, and when people are trying to pander to them, I think they know it. They want the genuine article, so if we try to sort of "dumb down" for the mass public, I think they're too smart for that, and would recognize us as fakes. It seems like the bands that do crossover do so really on their own terms, and they just find that their terms just kind of make a big dove-tail with the masses. — Ira Kaplan

You've heard the teachings, oh son of a Brahman, and good for you that you've thought about it thus deeply. You've found a gap in it, an error. You should think about this further. But be warned, oh seeker of knowledge, of the thicket of opinions and of arguing about words. There is nothing to opinions, they may be beautiful or ugly, smart or foolish, everyone can support them or discard them. But the teachings, you've heard from me, are no opinion, and their goal is not to explain the world to those who seek knowledge. They have a different goal; their goal is salvation from suffering. This is what Gotama teaches, nothing else. — Hermann Hesse

He thinks you're pretty." Genevieve yawned. "Guys always think you're pretty."
"Well people think you look like me," I
responded.
"They're only being nice." Her voice was hurt as she curled closer to me.
"They aren't being nice. You're beautiful, smart, and you know who you are. You're never afraid of saying what you believe in. I never want you to forget that, Genevieve," I spoke tenderly as I watched her eyes start to sag. "I love you, Genevieve. — Ottilie Weber

Writings by philosophers and psychologists on the differences between intelligence and wisdom might also encourage you to become a better listener. Intelligent people say lots of smart things and produce the right answers to questions more often than less intelligent people, but they are not necessarily good listeners. In contrast, wise people are better listeners and are better at formulating questions than people who aren't so wise.6 So, if you and your firm want to get smarter, the wise thing to do is to shut up, listen, and learn to ask smart questions - not to keep showing off how much you know and how fast you can think. — Robert I. Sutton

Reality is subjective, and there's an unenlightened tendency in this culture to regard something as 'important' only if 'tis sober and severe. Sure and still you're right about your Cheerful Dum, only they're not so much happy as lobotomized. But your Gloomy Smart are just as ridiculous. When you're unhappy, you get to pay a lot of attention to yourself. And you get to take yourself oh so very seriously. Your truly happy people, which is to say, your people who truly like themselves, they don't think about themselves very much. Your unhappy person resents it when you try to cheer him up, because that means he has to stop dwellin' on himself and start payin' attention to the universe. Unhappiness is the ultimate form o' self-indulgence. — Tom Robbins

I think the more mediocre you are the better you do because people need to think you're their friend, they don't want to be threatened by you, you've got to be warm, you've got to be not too smart, not too pretty, not too anything. — Kelly Brook

David Foster Wallace: I think one of the insidious lessons about TV is the meta-lesson that you're dumb. This is all you can do. This is easy, and you're the sort of person who really just wants to sit in a chair and have it easy. When in fact there are parts of us, in a way, that are a lot more ambitious than that. And what we need, I think - and I'm not saying I'm the person to do it. But I think what we need is seriously engaged art, that can teach again that we're smart. And that there's stuff that TV and movies - although they're great at certain things - cannot give us. — David Lipsky