#cleverness

Limits have to be set on how far one can simply use the... cleverness that we have to make changes. ↗

— Leon Kass

#cleverness #far #how #how far #limits

A blunder at the right moment is better than cleverness at the wrong time. ↗

— Carolyn Wells

#blunder #cleverness #moment #right #right moment

Clever people will recognize and tolerate nothing but cleverness. ↗

— Henri Frederic Amiel

#clever people #cleverness #nothing #people #recognize

Cleverness is serviceable for everything, sufficient for nothing. ↗

— Henri Frederic Amiel

#everything #nothing #serviceable #sufficient

Can you be sure that others have not come before you and destroyed the pristine state of the native myth? Can you be sure that the natives are not humoring you or pulling your leg? Bronislaw Malinowski thought he had discovered a people in the Trobriant Islands who had not worked out the connection between sexual intercourse and childbirth. When asked how children were conceived, they supplied him with an elaborate mythic structure prominently featuring celestial intervention. Amazed, Malinowski objected that was not how it was done at all, and supplied them instead with the version so popular in the West today – including a nine-month gestation period. “Impossible,” replied the Melanesians. “Do you not see that woman over there with her six-month-old child? Her husband has been on an extended voyage to another island for two years.” Is it more likely that the Melanesians were ignorant of the begetting of children or that they were gently chiding Malinowski? If some peculiar-looking stranger came into my town and asked ME where babies came from, I’d certainly be tempted to tell him about storks and cabbages. Prescientific people are people. Individually they are as clever as we are. ↗

— Carl Sagan

#cleverness #myths #people #primitive #humor

An age which is incapable of poetry is incapable of any kind of literature except the cleverness of a decadence. ↗

— Raymond Chandler

#any #cleverness #decadence #except #incapable

The thing is, comedy's gone in a weird direction. People are really into ironic comedy and fakeness and cleverness. ↗

— Louis C. K.

#comedy #direction #gone #into #ironic

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

— Rumi

#cleverness #self #wisdom #world #change

I am sick to death of cleverness. Everybody is clever nowadays. ↗

— Oscar Wilde

#people #death

I am sick to death of cleverness. Everybody is clever nowadays. You can’t go anywhere without meeting clever people. The thing has become an absolute public nuisance. I wish to goodness we had a few fools left. ↗

— Oscar Wilde

#fools #nuisance #death