Quotes About Smarts

“Because he knows you have to laugh at the things that hurt you just to keep yourself in balance, just to keep the world from running you plumb crazy. He knows there's a painful side; he knows my thumb smarts and his girlfriend has a bruised breast and the doctor is losing his glasses, but he won't let the pain blot out the humor no more'n he'll let the humor blot out the pain.”

— Ken Kesey

“Value yourself for what the media doesn't - your intelligence, your street smarts, your ability to play a kick-ass game of pool, whatever. So long as it's not just valuing yourself for your ability to look hot in a bikini and be available to men, it's an improvement.”

— Jessica Valenti

“Don't be scared," Willa Mae said.
I looked at her. "Aren't you scared?"
Willa Mae looked at me and said, "Shoot. Only thing I'm afraid of is that I'm going to do something I'll regret."
"Being scared is just one more thing to turn into what you want it to be," Willa Mae said. "The thing with fear is, it's like anger. You've got to change it into something else. Make it your weapon. Some can just turn it into smarts. The best of 'em can turn fear and anger into love." She looked out toward our neighborhood. "I'm not there yet.”

— Margaret McMullan

“But at the heart of it all we must take our noses out of textbooks and delve into the Book to gain God's perspective of raising and educating a child. We must become more concerned with their souls than their brains. A child's smarts can help them go places in life, but the character reflected from their soul is what will determine whether or not they do anything significant once they get there.”

— Lysa TerKeurst

“Ugh, I snort in disgust. No doubt that girl's some goddy rich trot living the sweet life farther inland, in one of LA's upper-class sectors. Who cares what she scored on her Trial? The whole test is rigged in favor of the wealthy kids, anyway, and she's probably just someone with average smarts who bought her high score.”

— Marie Lu

“Somehow, despite her politics and smarts, she had become a wife, and wives, as we all know, are invisible. The midnight elves of marriage. The house in the country, the apartment in the city, the taxes, the dog, all were her concern: he had no idea what she did with her time. It would have been compounded with children; thank goodness for childlessness, then.”

— Lauren Groff

“That was when she knew, with existential bitterness, that her husband had understood nothing of her. Somehow, despite her politics and smarts, she had become a wife, and wives, as we all know, are invisible. The midnight elves of marriage.”

— Lauren Groff

“There's a popular concept of 'intelligence' as book smarts, like calculus or chess, as opposed to, say, social skills. So people say that 'it takes more than intelligence to succeed in human society.' But social skills reside in the brain, not the kidneys.”

— Eliezer Yudkowsky

“Can I jump over two or three guys like I used to? No. Am I as fast as I used to be? No, but I still have the fundamentals and smarts. That's what enables me to still be a dominant player. As a kid growing up, I never skipped steps. I always worked on fundamentals because I know athleticism is fleeting.”

— Kobe Bryant

“Unless and until Barack Obama addresses the full depth of Americans' anger with his full arsenal of policy smarts and political gifts, his presidency and, worse, our economy will be paralyzed.”

— Frank Rich

“I was a Sedgewick without the smarts. It infused its way into me and I feel like it formed my character in a big way because of what I was exposed to.”

— Rob Morrow

“Daniel: You're beautiful, Ashlyn. I don't just mean your looks. I mean your smarts, your tears, your brokenness. I think that's beautiful.”

— Brittainy C. Cherry

“You're beautiful, Ashlyn. I don't mean juts your looks. I mean your smarts, your tears, your brokkenness. I think that's beautiful.”

— Brittainy C. Cherry

“Special Forces guys were usually small. They were usually lean, fast, and whippy. Built for endurance and stamina and full of smarts and cunning. Like foxes, not like bears.”

— Lee Child

“I was a pretty nerdy kid. I was pretty nerdy. I'm still kind of nerdy. I have all of the worst qualities of being a nerd - all of the affect and none of the smarts. I'm a useless nerd! That's pretty bad.”

— Claire Danes

“As a society we certainly equate speed with smarts. Think fast. Are you quick-witted? A quick study? A whiz kid? Even Merriam-Webster bluntly informs us that slowness is "the quality of lacking intelligence or quickness of mind." But we also recognize something counter-intuitive about accepting full-stop that people who react faster are smarter. That's why, even though athletic training improves reaction time, we wouldn't scout for the next Einstein at a basketball game. Intelligence probably has a lot to do with making fast connections, but it surely has just as much to do with making the right connections.”

— Anonymous.

“In a fire, you have to be thoughtful; you have to have a certain kind of intuitive smarts that the veterans have. I'm not there yet, despite the Stanford degree.”

— Caroline Paul

“I know I felt like I was ready to be an adult long before the rest of the world agreed. I'd already realized that a lot of grown-ups didn't know any more than I did, and some of them were even dumber than I was, and even the ones who were smarter weren't using their smarts for things I necessarily considered worthwhile.”

— Tim Pratt

“I look for fun and smarts - a witty, strong sexy woman.”

— Josh Dallas

“What are the chances that this first and only smart species in the history of life on Earth has enough smarts to completely figure out how the universe works? Chimpanzees are an evolutionary hair's-width from us yet we can agree that no amount of tutelage will ever leave a chimp fluent in trigonometry. Now imagine a species on Earth, or anywhere else, as smart compared with humans as humans are compared with chimpanzees. How much of the universe might they figure out?”

— Neil DeGrasse Tyson

“The poor North has much to do with slavery. It staggers under its load and smarts under its lash.”

— Gerrit Smith

“I have not the smarts or patience for political office.”

— Henry Rollins

“Normally, Richard was the kind of guy I disliked, someone born and raised plush: looks, charm, smarts, probably money. These men were never very interesting to me; they had no edges, and they were usually cowards. They instinctively fled any situation that might cause them embarrassment or awkwardness. But Richard didn't bore me. Maybe because his grin was a little crooked. Or because he made his living dealing in ugly things.”

— Gillian Flynn

“You must learn how to "pull" deep smarts from others.”

— Anonymous.

“I'm street smart. You can't con me. But that's just from living in New York. Now if a guy came from Mississippi somewhere, Ohio somewhere, to New York City for the first time, he don't have the street smarts. You can take him.”

— J. B. Smoove

“There will be an end point to how good TV pictures can get. The boob tube has hugely benefited from the rapid advance of digital electronics. Consequently, the strategy for hardware has changed. In the old days, sets had to be as simple as Elmer Fudd to keep them inexpensive. All the technical 'smarts' were at the transmitter end.”

— Seth Shostak

“I feel we live in the kind of culture now where you have to be very smart to navigate the right way, and I just don't have those smarts. I think with age and time it will change, but I can't obsess about it.”

— Sienna Miller

“You can be obsessed with makeup and hair products and, you know, your appearance and still be absolutely making smart life decisions and work on your smarts, develop your smarts by studying something like math. Then you'll make much better decisions on the brands of clothing that you buy or whatever it is that you want.”

— Danica McKellar

“Real smarts begin when you quit quoting other people ... ... ..”

— Chuck Palahniuk

“I love everything about Tyler Durden, his courage and his smarts. His nerve. Tyler is funny and charming and forceful and independent, and men look up to him and expect him to change their world. Tyler is capable and free, and I am not.”

— Chuck Palahniuk

“We need a president with tremendous intelligence, smarts, cunning, strength and stamina.”

— Donald Trump

“I submit that tennis is the most beautiful sport there is and also the most demanding. It requires body control, hand-eye coordination, quickness, flat-out speed, endurance, and that weird mix of caution and abandon we call courage. It also requires smarts. Just one single shot in one exchange in one point of a high-level match is a nightmare of mechanical variables.”

— David Foster Wallace

“I think something must happen to you when you get into eight grade. Like the Doug Swieteck's Brother Gene switches on and you become a jerk.
Which may have been Hamlet, Prince of Denmark's problem, who, besides having a name that makes him sound like a breakfast special at Sunnyside Morning Restaurant
something between a ham slice and a three-egg omelet
didn't have the smarts to figure out that when someone takes the trouble to come back from beyond the grave to tell you that he's been murdered, it's probably behooveful to pay attention
which is the adjectival form.”

— Gary D. Schmidt

“I find many women are intimidated by "career women"! Bottom line: snap judgments about what you think others' perceptions might be about you, personally or professionally, can be more dangerous or damaging to you than those who are uncomfortable with your stature or your smarts. If you are smart and focused on your career, remind yourself that no one can ever take away your drive and your passion.”

— Jenna Lee

“Poems infatuated with their own smarts and detached from any emotional grounding can leave the reader feeling lonely, empty and ashamed for having expected more. Like icy adolescents, such poetry is more interested in commiserating than acknowledging that feelings - the sentiments that make us susceptible to sentimentality - actually exist.”

— Tracy K. Smith

“Beware as you get the octopus on board. Suddenly he relaxes his grasp, and shhots out a jet of ink, which smarts considerably.”

— Wilfred Grenfell

“I've had smarter people around me all my life, but I haven't run into one yet that can outwork me. And if they can't outwork you, then smarts aren't going to do them much good.”

— Woody Hayes

“Empire of Deception is a sure thing
a book guaranteed to entertain and make you rich (in knowledge, that is). Dean Jobb has found a fascinating yet little-known jazz-age tale and told it with style and smarts. Get in on the action.”

— Jonathan Eig

“Why do you need street smarts? Shrewdness? Toughness? It's to protect something soft that is going to be in danger if it's exposed at the wrong time and place. It's to protect a soul. But to protect your soul, you have to have one to start with.”

— Peter Schjeldahl

“Odds are you're going to like this lively spin on the true story of six MIT mathletes who broke the Vegas Bank. It's a kick to watch Kevin Spacey and a gifted young cast use smarts to deal audiences a winning hand.”

— Peter Travers

“Real estate is at the core of almost every business, and it's certainly at the core of most people's wealth. In order to build your wealth and improve your business smarts, you need to know about real estate.”

— Donald Trump

“Ultimately, if you're not doing what you love, you're not going to be fulfilled. Sure, to make money, you have to be tough, you have to have some smarts and a little luck would help, but the bottom line is: You have to love what you do.”

— Donald Trump

“Don't look too far in the future, don't worry about how you're going to have enough time or enough money or enough smarts; the "how?" is up to God. Just put your whole focus on this moment, doing this baby step at this moment; and then once you finish that one, God and the angels will give you the next assignment and so on and so forth.”

— Doreen Virtue

“I have the street smarts and survival skills of, like, a poodle.”

— Jennifer Lawrence

“Beware of biting jests; the more truth they carry with them, the greater wounds they give, the greater smarts they cause, and the greater scars they leave behind them.”

— Johann Kaspar Lavater

“You have to realize that most of these guys get in there and fight on heart. I fight with smarts. There is no fighter that is smarter than me. Most of these fighters are ABC, 1-2-3. I am like 4-5-6 levels above them; that's why I'm able to beat them.”

— Floyd Mayweather, Jr.

“What it 't to us, if taxes rise or fall,
Thanks to our fortune, we pay none at all.
Let muckworms who in dirty acres deal,
Lament those hardships which we cannot feel,
His grace who smarts, may bellow if he please,
But must I bellow too, who sit at ease?
By custom safe, the poets' numbers flow,
Free as the light and air some years ago.
No statesman e'er will find it worth his pains
To tax our labours, and excise our brains.
Burthens like these with earthly buildings bear,
No tributes laid on castles in the air.”

— Charles Churchill

“I surround myself with women who inspire me to be more ambitious, and who constantly astonish me with their magnetism, style, and smarts.”

— Heidi Julavits

“Lo, when two dogs are fighting in the streets, With a third dog one of the two dogs meets; With angry teeth he bites him to the bone, And this dog smarts for what that dog has done.”

— Henry Fielding

“Johannes Cabal would kill me for saying this, but he's my favorite Zeppelin-hopping detective. The fellow has got all the charm of Bond and the smarts of Holmes
without the pesky morality.”

— Daniel H. Wilson