Source: Dying Earth (1950-1984), The Eyes of the Overworld (1966), Chapter 3, "The Mountains of Magnatz"
Letter to Groucho Marx, published in The Groucho Letters
“Cleverness is serviceable for everything, sufficient for nothing.”
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.
“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.
“The obstinancy of cleverness and reason is nothing to the obstinancy of folly and inanity.”
Source: Little Foxes (1865), Ch. 4.
Book One, Part II “The Warrior”, Chapter 2 (p. 49)
Vazkor, Son of Vazkor (1978)
Thoughts on the Education of Daughters (1787), "Matrimony", p. 100
Context: Nothing, I am sure, calls forth the faculties so much as the being obliged to struggle with the world; and this is not a woman's province in a married state. Her sphere of action is not large, and if she is not taught to look into her own heart, how trivial are her occupations and pursuits! What little arts engross and narrow her mind!
“There is nothing to prove and nothing to protect. I am who I am and it's enough.”
Speech http://www.let.rug.nl/usa/documents/1951-/speech-by-george-c-wallace-the-civil-rights-movement-fraud-sham-and-hoax-1964-.php (4 July 1964)
1960s
Voice: Young Man
1840s, Repetition (1843)
Context: One sticks one’s finger into the soil to tell by the smell in what land one is: I stick my finger in existence — it smells of nothing. Where am I? Who am I? How came I here? What is this thing called the world? What does this world mean? Who is it that has lured me into the world? Why was I not consulted, why not made acquainted with its manners and customs instead of throwing me into the ranks, as if I had been bought by a kidnapper, a dealer in souls? How did I obtain an interest in this big enterprise they call reality? Why should I have an interest in it? Is it not a voluntary concern? And if I am to be compelled to take part in it, where is the director? I should like to make a remark to him. Is there no director? Whither shall I turn with my complaint?
