Smart Quotes

500+ Sourced quotes

They should call the good man an ass! They should call the bad ass a man! Ironically … to speak thus of you, so smart, friend of the old and the young, of the stream and the butterfly, of the sun and the dog, of the flower and the moon, patient and thoughtful, melancholic and lovable, the Marcus Aurelius of the fields…

Juan Ramón Jiménez

You have always been smart. You have always looked for the worst in people, and have been quick to notice when people are up to no good... But in the case of your children, you are blind.

Federico García Lorca

The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum....

If you're up against a smart opponent, make him think himself to death.

I'll be long gone before some smart person ever figures out what happened inside this Oval Office.

It's just … everything. There are too many people. And I don't fit in. I don't know how to be. Nothing that I'm good at is the sort of thing that matters there. Being smart doesn't matter—and being good with words. And when those things do matter, it's only because people want something from me. Not because they want me.

Apple's big weakness is its control-freak nature and insistence that there is only one way to make a smart phone. No matter how many carriers sign on to carry the iPhone, in the long run, Apple has again set itself up to be a niche player in smartphones, just as it is in PCs.

On one occasion when Smart found him engrossed with his fundamental theory, he asked Eddington how many people he thought would understand what he was writing—after a pause came the reply, 'Perhaps seven.'

Arthur Eddington

Life is a lie. But people don't know that, see. Only smart people like me know that.

I think anybody who doesn't think I'm smart enough to handle the job is underestimating.

General C. is a dreffle smart man;
He's been on all sides that give places or pelf;
But consistency still was a part of his plan,—
He's been true to one party, an' that is himself.

James Russell Lowell

Great stories agree with our worldview. The best stories don't teach people anything new. Instead the best stories agree with what the audience already believes and makes the members of the audience feel smart and secure when reminded how right they were in the thirst place.

Mom is always saying I'm a smart kid, but that I just don't apply myself.

Jeff Kinney (author)

You've been weeping, I see - that's our grand resource, you know. But doesn't it make your eyes smart? and do you always find it to answer?

I think it's possible to be too quick-witted, too smart to be an actor. You have to turn off a lot of your brain, in a way. When you see a fellow actor just missing it, it's hard to keep your mouth shut, but you have to. Or see a director so stupid he couldn't direct vomit into a paper bag. And he's in charge, and it's really hard to keep your mouth shut.

William H. Macy

- Report...

A cow and calf are cut in half
And placed in separate cases
To call it art, however smart
Casts doubt on art's whole basis.

I figured that I wasn't as smart or talented as the other kids around, so I just had to work twice as hard. Surprisingly, results showed quickly. I was hooked!

Like other potentates with a long habit of arbitrary authority, she covered her perplexity with a smart show of decision.

Dorothy Canfield Fisher

My vision for this book and the others in the series is to let people know what kind of commanders we have. You don't pick generals off park benches. … They are experts at what they do and lot of thinking goes into it. And I want to get across to people the intellectual dimension of command, to let people know that it's hard to be a general. And the people we have with general stars on their shoulders are pretty smart and pretty good guys.

I never met anyone who didn't have a very smart child. What happens to these children, you wonder, when they reach adulthood?

I like the Coen brothers. Their films are smart and disturbing. I am very impressed by what George Clooney is doing now. He is very political. I like the fact that he did Oceans Eleven and Oceans Twelve, made all that money and then leveraged the money and his success into interesting projects. Johnny Depp has also set up a production company and is showing an interest in risky projects that will not be easy.
I am sorry that it is hard for the average person, and even for an above-average person, to see a film that is not a Hollywood production. You see those films only in the festivals. There are few people there. That is worrying. People don't think. My goal in work is to make them think. The media do the opposite.

Cute" is one of those words people use when they know you're smart enough to realize "you've got so much personality" means "you're ugly.

Elizabeth Scott (author)

It is a stupid observation, but the Labour Party are not an smart lot, are they? I mean, if all those people were born in the same town, you would blame bad parenting, wouldn't you all?

War is not popular. It may seem popular in the short run, when there appears to be an immediate victory and everyone is gloating but war is not popular. War is not popular. People get killed, and body bags end up coming back. War is very unpopular, and it is not the politically smart thing to do.

Women writers of all people should know better than to pigeonhole women, put them in little groups, the smart one, the sweet one.