Elizabeth Gilbert quote: “To show a longing for anything that one cannot have, for instance, is not a clever position.”

“Never be clever for the sake of being clever
For the sake of showing off.”

Glenn Gould (1932–1982) Canadian pianist

"So You Want To Write A Fugue", work's text

“He that knows anything, knows this, in the first place, that he need not seek long for instances of his ignorance."”

John Locke book An Essay Concerning Human Understanding

Source: An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1689), Book IV, Ch. 3, sec. 22

“The cravings of the human cannot be fulfilled, nor satisfied at one instance.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

“We have been clever, and on occasion we have been foolish. For smart monkeys, we can, when the mood takes us, be exceedingly stupid. But it was cleverness that brought us to this point, and it is only cleverness that will serve us from now on.
We have no time for anything else.”

Alastair Reynolds book Blue Remembered Earth

Source: Blue Remembered Earth (2012), Epilogue (p. 562; closing words)

“Rabbit's clever," said Pooh thoughtfully.
"Yes," said Piglet, "Rabbit's clever."
"And he has Brain."
"Yes," said Piglet, "Rabbit has Brain."
There was a long silence.
"I suppose," said Pooh, "that that's why he never understands anything.”

A.A. Milne book Winnie-the-Pooh

Source: Winnie-the-Pooh

“Rabbit's clever," said Pooh thoughtfully.
"Yes," said Piglet, "Rabbit's clever."
"And he has Brain."
"Yes," said Piglet, "Rabbit has Brain."
There was a long silence.
"I suppose," said Pooh, "that that's why he never understands anything.”

Benjamin Hoff book The Tao of Pooh

Source: The Tao of Pooh

“Clever men will recognize and tolerate nothing but cleverness; every authority rouses their ridicule, every superstition amuses them, every convention moves them to contradiction. Only force finds favor in their eyes, and they have no toleration for anything that is not purely natural and spontaneous. And yet ten clever men are not worth one man of talent, nor ten men of talent worth one man of genius.”

Henri-Frédéric Amiel (1821–1881) Swiss philosopher and poet

16 February 1868
Journal Intime (1882), Journal entries
Context: Clever men will recognize and tolerate nothing but cleverness; every authority rouses their ridicule, every superstition amuses them, every convention moves them to contradiction. Only force finds favor in their eyes, and they have no toleration for anything that is not purely natural and spontaneous. And yet ten clever men are not worth one man of talent, nor ten men of talent worth one man of genius. And in the individual, feeling is more than cleverness, reason is worth as much as feeling, and conscience has it over reason. If, then, the clever man is not mockable, he may at least be neither loved, nor considered, nor esteemed. He may make himself feared, it is true, and force others to respect his independence; but this negative advantage, which is the result of a negative superiority, brings no happiness with it. Cleverness is serviceable for everything, sufficient for nothing.

“If you’re that clever you can argue yourself into anything.”

Julian Barnes book The Sense of an Ending

Source: The Sense of an Ending

“You’ll never fashion anything clever by drinking water!”

Cratinus (-500–-422 BC) Old Athenian Comic poet

Pytine ("The Wineflask")

“Von dem Bach is so clever he can do anything, get around anything.”

Erich von dem Bach (1899–1972) German politician and SS functionary

Adolf Hitler, as quoted in The Simon and Schuster Encyclopedia of World War II (1978) by Thomas D. Parrish and Samuel Lyman Atwood Marshall, p. 45

“To show a longing for anything that one cannot have, for instance, is not a clever position.”

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