cleverness

He who knows others is clever; He who knows himself has discernment.

Wit is often a mask. If you tear it you will find either genius irritated or cleverness juggling.

Though you may have known clever men who were indolent, you never knew a great man who was so; and when I hear a young man spoken of as giving promise of great genius, the first question I ask about him always is, Does he work?

Clever men are good, but they are not the best.

A clever man commits no minor blunders.

Major Strasser: You give him (Rick Blaine) credit for too much cleverness. My impression was that he's just another blundering American. Captain Renault: We musn't underestimate American blundering. I was with them when they blundered into Berlin in 1918.

Patience and tenacity of purpose are worth more than twice their weight in cleverness.

Writing is good, thinking is better. Cleverness is good, patience is better.

There was once a man, Harry, called the Steppenwolf. He went on two legs, wore clothes and was a human being, but nevertheless he was in reality a wolf of the Steppes. He had learned a good deal of all that people of a good intelligence can, and was a fairly clever fellow. What he had not learned, however, was this: to find contentment in himself and his own life.

Every civilization rests on a set of promises. . . . If the promises are broken too often, the civilization dies, no matter how rich it may be, or how mechanically clever. Hope and faith depend on the promises; if hope and faith go, everything goes.