“He [Kippis] might be a very clever man by nature for aught I know, but he laid so many books upon his head that his brains could not move.”

— Robert Hall

On Kippis; Gregory’s Life of Hall, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "He [Kippis] might be a very clever man by nature for aught I know, but he laid so many books upon his head that his bra…" by Robert Hall?

Robert Hall photo

Robert Hall15

British Baptist pastor 1764–1831

Related quotes

“He's very clever, but sometimes his brains go to his head.”

Margot Asquith (1864–1945) Anglo-Scottish socialite, author and wit

Quoted by her step-daughter Violet in The Listener, June 11, 1953.
Of F. E. Smith.

“A man’s at odds to know his mind cause his mind is aught he has to know it with.”

Cormac McCarthy (1933) American novelist, playwright, and screenwriter

Blood Meridian (1985)
Source: Blood Meridian, or the Evening Redness in the West

“Any man could, if he were so inclined, be the sculptor of his own brain.”

Santiago Ramón y Cajal (1852–1934) Spanish neuroscientist

Advice for a Young Investigator (1897), p. xv

“He’s good inside, very good, strong physically. The one thing that surprised me the most was his quickness. And his defensive ability. He moves his head a lot, feints a lot. He’s not an easy man to hit.”

Roberto Durán (1951) Panamanian boxer

Carlos Palomino, 16 June 1980, after his defeat by Duran http://coxscorner.tripod.com/duran.html <br class="br">About Durán

“Professor writes about the brain in a very approachable way, and from what he writes, the conviction that man is free is born. The message of his books influenced, among others, the emergence of several of my painting cycles. For me he is an authority, and I do not have many of them.”

Jerzy Vetulani (1936–2017) Polish scientist

Iwona Siwek-Front, painter, friend of Vetulani in an interview Artystka, to jak glebogryzarka http://www.bloge12.pl/artystka-to-jak-glebogryzarka/ (in Polish), Mazowiecki Instytut Kultury, 2014.

“His head was so beautiful. I tried to hold the top of his head down, maybe I could keep it in… but I knew he was dead.”

Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis (1929–1994) public figure, First Lady to 35th U.S. President John F. Kennedy

The "Camelot" interview (29 November 1963)

“There comes a time in a man's life when he hears the call of the sea. If the man has a brain in his head, he will hang up the phone immediately.”

Dave Barry (1947) American writer

“The duties of kingship among the anthropoids are not many or arduous. … But Tarzan tired of it, as he found that kingship meant the curtailment of his liberty. He longed for the little cabin and the sun-kissed sea — for the cool interior of the well-built house, and for the never-ending wonders of the many books.
As he had grown older, he found that he had grown away from his people. Their interests and his were far removed. They had not kept pace with him, nor could they understand aught of the many strange and wonderful dreams that passed through the active brain of their human king. So limited was their vocabulary that Tarzan could not even talk with them of the many new truths, and the great fields of thought that his reading had opened up before his longing eyes, or make known ambitions which stirred his soul.
Among the tribe he no longer had friends as of old. A little child may find companionship in many strange and simple creatures, but to a grown man there must be some semblance of equality in intellect as the basis for agreeable association.”

Edgar Rice Burroughs book Tarzan of the Apes

Source: Tarzan of the Apes (1912), Ch. 12 : Man's Reason

“Where a man speaks upon a subject of his own accord, he naturally tells the whole of what he knows; but where he is examined on interrogatories formally administered to him, his answers are naturally confined to the particulars to which he is so interrogated; and as the examining party generally knows beforehand the scope of the witness's evidence, he has an opportunity of so shaping his questions as that they may elicit everything in his favour with which the witness is acquainted, and keep back everything of a contrary tendency.”

Sir John Bayley, 1st Baronet (1763–1841) British judge

Berkeley Peerage Case (1811), 4 Camp. 405.

“I am still a little fellow. Mr. Tucker is big enough to swallow me, but if he did, he would be the strangest man in the world. He would have more brains in his stomach than he does in his head.”

Tommy Douglas (1904–1986) Scottish-born Canadian politician

To Liberal leader of the time Walter Tucker, quoted "Star Phoenix" July 14 1947.

Related topics