Smart Quotes

500+ Sourced quotes

And as the smart ship grew
In stature, grace, and hue,
In shadowy silent distance grew the Iceberg too. Alien they seemed to be;
No mortal eye could see
The intimate welding of their later history, Or sign that they were bent
By paths coincident
On being anon twin halves of one august event, Till the Spinner of the Years
Said "Now!" And each one hears,
And consummation comes, and jars two hemispheres.

Now that we are all so smart, we don't easily find resolutions.

Dejan Stojanovic

Was he smart? No, not exceptionally. Instead, he was a genius.

Walter Isaacson

[Interview: Responding to a question about whether it was smart to publish his 1969 article at the time he did] In retrospect, however, I would hope that I would not have changed a thing in that article, even if I had been able to imagine the supposed "storm" it caused. I will be ashamed the day I feel I should knuckle under to social-political pressures about issues and research I think are important for the advance of scientific knowledge.

[Republicans in Hess's youth] represented the only strong anti-imperialist political position. Anti-imperialist? Republicans? Uh-huh. But Republicans were not smart enough to call it that. They let it be labeled isolationism, as though they wanted the United States to sneak off the world stage, slam the doors, and bolt the windows. The underlying Republican argument, that we should trade with everyone but not interfere with or intervene in their internal politics, was lost behind that unattractive label.

Children […] had sat in those very box buildings under buzzing fluorescent lights listening to their science teachers prattle about the wonders of space travel and gene splicing and how we were all going to live to be a hundred and twenty five years old in "smart" computer-controlled houses where all we had to do was speak to bump up the heat or turn on giant home theater screens in a life of perpetual leisure and comfort. It made me sick to think about. Not because there's something necessarily wrong with leisure or comfort, but because that's where our aspirations ended. And in the face of what had actually happened to us, it seemed obscenely stupid.

James Howard Kunstler

I felt betrayed and absolutely livid, but my body wasn't smart enough to know it. It had liked the feel of his hands, wanted more of it, wanted it now. It was almost like there were two of me, one who heartily approved of the mage and one who would have dearly loved to see him dead.

There were three kinds of evangelical leaders: The dumb or idealistic ones who really believed. The out-and-out charlatans. And the smart ones who still believed – sort of – but knew that the evangelical world was sh*t, but who couldn't figure out any way to earn as good a living anywhere else.

Frank Schaeffer

Lively, too. Talky as a jaybird. With something smart to say on every subject: better than the radio.

With the indiscriminate nature of modern military technology (no such thing as a "smart bomb," it turns out) all wars are wars against civilians, and are therefore inherently immoral. This is true even when a war is considered "just," because it is fought against a tyrant, against an aggressor, to correct a stolen boundary.

Ender didn't like fighting. He didn't like Peter's kind, the strong against the weak, and he didn't like his own kind either, the smart against the stupid.

Orson Scott Card

When happiness points in one direction while wisdom, truth, integrity, and common sense point in another, that's when really smart people start doing really stupid things.

The Tick comes to mind. … that was just my favorite thing ever, and it was so smart and clever, and I loved it. I felt honored to get to step into the shoes of the Tick, and it just didn't get love…not from the network, you know. The network killed it. It's had a pretty fantastic after life on DVD, but it could have been a great series if they decided they wanted to spend any money at all back at the time. It became all about reality TV for them. They discovered they could spend very little money and get huge numbers.

Patrick Warburton

I'm the guy who keeps it all going. If I weren't here, you wouldn't be here either. I know it all, I'm a smart-aleck. Loan-sharking and fencing. Any time I can't see you, you've had it.

You have to appreciate the spiritual component of having an opportunity to do something as wondrous as writing. You should be practical and smart and you should have a good agent and you should work really, really hard. But you should also be filled with awe and gratitude about this amazing way to be in the world.

When your time came, it came, and that was that. You might say something smart on your way out, but you might just as easily say something stupid.

What helps it now, that Byron bore,
With haughty scorn which mocked the smart,
Through Europe to the Aetolian shore
The pageant of his bleeding heart?
That thousands counted every groan,
And Europe made his woe her own?

There are many harsh lessons to be learned from the gambling experience, but the harshest one of all is the difference between having Fun and being Smart.

Hunter S. Thompson

We went sailing one time, and he wore a Speedo, and any smart woman should know that means bisexual at least.

Chuck Palahniuk

I'd like to die listening to a piece of music. I imagine this as so easy, so natural, but naturally it's quite impossible. Notes stab too softly. The wounds they leave behind may smart, but they don't fester. Melancholy and pain trickle out instead of blood. When the notes cease, all is peaceful within me again.

Robert Walser (writer)

In life, people tend to wait for good things to come to them. And by waiting, they miss out. Usually, what you wish for doesn't fall in your lap; it falls somewhere nearby, and you have to recognize it, stand up, and put in the time and work it takes to get to it. This isn't because the universe is cruel. It's because the universe is smart. It has its own cat-string theory and knows we don't appreciate things that fall into our laps.

She grunted. Nothing unusual?
That's right.
Well, if you ask me, that's pretty unusual right there, if a body was smart enough to notice it.

Orson Scott Card

Oh, we are going to be so happy away from all the things that almost got us but couldn't quite because we were too smart for them!

Zelda Fitzgerald

Whatever you do in life, surround yourself with smart people who'll argue with you.

Worship power-you will feel weak and afraid, and you will need ever ore power over others to keep the fear at bay. Worship your intellect, being seen as smart-you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out.

David Foster Wallace