#lever

The great Chinese classics have always said that it's better not to fight; that the clever man achieves his ends without violence; that a battle delayed is better than a battle fought. ↗

— John Keegan

#always #battle #better #chinese #classics

Half the world is composed of idiots, the other half of people clever enough to take indecent advantage of them. ↗

— Walter Kerr

#clever #composed #enough #half #idiots

Whenever I've chosen a song because it's clever, it's always turned out to be a mistake. ↗

— Alison Krauss

#because #chosen #clever #i #mistake

Don't make friends who are comfortable to be with. Make friends who will force you to lever yourself up. ↗

— Thomas J. Watson

#force #friends #lever #make #up

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

— Carolyn Wells

#blunder #cleverness #moment #right #right moment

The really clever people now want to be lawyers or journalists. ↗

— A. N. Wilson

#clever people #journalists #lawyers #now #people

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

I once used henna to dye my hair brown for an audition, thinking I was being clever as it's all natural. ↗

— Sienna Miller

#being #brown #clever #dye #hair

I think people really appreciate clever commercials, as do I. I think they're very entertaining. You just have to wade through all the garbage. That's one of the reasons people watch the Super Bowl. A lot of them watch it to see the commercials and not the actual game. ↗

— Kevin Nealon

#appreciate #bowl #clever #commercials #entertaining

Clever people master life; the wise illuminate it and create fresh difficulties. ↗

— Emil Nolde

#clever people #create #difficulties #fresh #illuminate