We Have a Right To Be Happy Today https://web.archive.org/web/20130106111821/http://www.willdurant.com/youth.htm, commencement address at the Webb School of Claremont, California (7 June 1958)
“do you think it is
better to be clever than to be good?”
“Good for what?” asked the Doctor. “You are good for
nothing unless you are clever.”
Source: Washington Square
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Henry James 154
American novelist, short story author, and literary critic 1843–1916Related quotes
“Clever men are good, but they are not the best.”
Goethe.
1820s, Critical and Miscellaneous Essays (1827–1855)
Variant: Clever men are good, but they are not the best.
“Good thoughts are no better than good dreams, unless they be executed.”
“There is nothing so clever as people you agree with.”
Quoted by Helle Thorning-Schmidt on the occasion of Margrethe II's Ruby Jubilee. Speech http://kongehuset.dk/Menu/nyheder/statsministerens-tale-ved-gallataflet (15 January 2012)
Misc.
“No one is bound to be clever, but every one is under an obligation to be good.”
Il n'y a personne qui soit tenu d'être habile; mais il n'y en a point qui ne soit obligé d'être bon.
Aristippe, ou De la cour (1658), Discours VII.
Translation reported in Harbottle's Dictionary of quotations French and Italian (1904), p. 66.