Smart Quotations

Life will always be to a large extent what we ourselves make it.

The thing about hip-hop today is it's smart, it's insightful. The way they can communicate a complex message in a very short space is remarkable.

School bored me. Being educated and being intelligent are two different things. I thought I was smart enough. And I wanted to be an entertainer. I stopped going to school as a way of saying I was mature, a way of saying I was going to choose who I was going to become.

Soon, I'm going to meet somebody around my own age, and she's going to be smart and beautiful, and I'm going to date her daughter.

Whether or not Twitter makes you stupid, it certainly makes some smart people sound stupid.

If your emotional abilities aren't in hand, if you don't have self-awareness, if you are not able to manage your distressing emotions, if you can't have empathy and have effective relationships, then no matter how smart you are, you are not going to get very far.

If you put enough smart people together in one space, good things happen.

By definition, gay is smart. I see plenty of macho heterosexual idiots, but nine times out of 10 you can have a great conversation if you find a gay guy.

I'm no online whiz, but I'm not a Luddite, either. I love that we have these laptops and tablets and smart phones; they're awesome and convenient and all that. It's more about maintaining balance. Technology should always be a predicate of the true subject: our individual humanity, our examined lives.

A smart man makes a mistake, learns from it, and never makes that mistake again. But a wise man finds a smart man and learns from him how to avoid the mistake altogether.

After all those years as a woman hearing 'not thin enough, not pretty enough, not smart enough, not this enough, not that enough,' almost overnight I woke up one morning and thought, 'I'm enough.'

Every opportunity that comes your way, you can't take lightly. You have to take it very, very seriously, because the opportunities are limited. If you want to keep working, you can't be such an elitist, to say no, that's not good enough, not big enough, not smart enough, whatever.

Being in politics is like being a football coach. You have to be smart enough to understand the game, and dumb enough to think it's important.

I think the American people are very smart in understanding our country is very trustworthy with nuclear weapons. We've had them from the beginning. But they have also been critical for keeping the world more at peace than it would have been if it hadn't been for the American nuclear umbrella.

I think maybe my mom thought that Katharine Hepburn would be a good role model of, like, a strong, smart, independent woman. Maybe she steered me in that direction. You know, because she was really so ahead of her time.

Working hard and working smart sometimes can be two different things.

Surround yourself with smart, dedicated people - to build something isn't a one-man show. It's more important to have smart people who really believe in what you're doing than really experienced people who may not share your dream.

I don't want my books to exclude anyone, but if they have to, then I would rather they excluded the people who feel they are too smart for them!

If you can manipulate news, a judge can manipulate the law. A smart lawyer can keep a killer out of jail, a smart accountant can keep a thief from paying taxes, a smart reporter could ruin your reputation- unfairly.

In terms of getting people to experiment more and take more risk, there are at least three things that immediately come to my mind. Number one, of course, is role-modeling it yourself. Number two is when people take intelligent, smart risks and yet it doesn't work out, not shooting them. And number three, being honest with yourself. If the culture you have is radically different from an experiment and take-risk culture, then you have a big change you going to have to make—and no little gimmicks are going to do it for you.

When you go into court you are putting your fate into the hands of twelve people who weren't smart enough to get out of jury duty.

If you maintain a healthy diet, or at least are smart about your food choices, you'll still see the pounds come off.

Blonde is dumb comedy, red hair is smart, sexy comedy.

I really want women to throw their shoulders back and stand up straight and use their big girl voices and not feel like they're compromising their femininity to be strong and smart.

In America right now, we use words like 'smart' to talk about bombs. American rhetoric is grounded in ideas of capital-G Good, capital-E Evil, and it's very clear who is on which side. But in a book you can do just the opposite. You can use all lower-case words.

Just really, really believe in what you're trying to do. Don't let people alter that. Let people advise you and lead you down paths to make smart business decisions. But trust your instinct and trust that overwhelming drive that made you put all your dreams and everything on the line.

When I played with the Knicks, I was just as important or just as smart as any other of the guards I played with. I still had to call out plays, notice schemes, know the systems, do everything they had to do.

To be a good actor, you have to be very smart. But to be a great actor, you also have to have a streak of, 'I'm an idiot, a complete lunatic.'

Crows are incredibly smart. They can be taught five things on the drop.

When you're a liar, a person of low moral fortitude, really any explanation you need to be true can be true. Especially if you're smart enough. You can figure out a way to justify anything.

I think one problem we've had is that people who are smart and creative and innovative as engineers went into financial engineering.

For example, for me, my brother helped me get a manager, which I don't take for granted. It's tough getting a manager, let alone one that actually cares about you and is smart. But from there, no one's going to cast me just because I'm James Franco's little brother.

You still should enjoy the beach and going outside. Having a good time at the beach can still include being smart about protecting your skin because getting burned is no fun at all.

I love the Warner Brothers lot. There is so much history there. They've done such a smart thing. They have signs outside of each stage which tell you what movies and TV shows were shot inside. So cool... you can almost feel the ghosts of actors past.

The small businessman is smart; he realizes there's no free lunch. On the other hand, he knows where to go to get a good inexpensive sandwich.

I'm not under too much of an illusion of how smart or un-smart I am because filmmaking ultimately is about teamwork.

She knew what all smart women knew: Laughter made you live better and longer.

The work environment is very important in determining how enjoyable work is. It is very important to work with smart guys who have a superior level of intellectual bandwidth and still have softer skills as well.

Teens like a lot of the same things adults do: smart people doing amazing things against awful odds.

I love smart and curious people. I value intelligence in my friends and relationships.

None of us is as smart as all of us.

People are complex. You can be smart and still look hot. You can be a punk rocker yet have a refined vocabulary. It's all about this mashup that makes us who we are and I think that's a beautiful thing.

I come from a really lovely, really smart family where the only stress was money and employment.

Kids are smart. Knowledge is power. Let them figure things out. Don't turn into that grown-up who they won't come to.

For the past few years, I've been more selective than I have any right to be, but I think that's finally starting to work in my favor. I think I get way too much credit for making what people consider to be smart choices, but it's only because I made a decision to stop worrying about making money.

Men are strong, women are smart, but no matter how smart, their bellies are always there to betray women and that's their downfall.

Why do I write? It's not that I want people to think I am smart, or even that I am a good writer. I write because I want to end my loneliness.

I don't need someone with a hot body. He can be fat or overweight and have a belly. It's very much about style and substance and humor, interest, curiosity and really being smart.

Do not be fooled into believing that because a man is rich he is necessarily smart. There is ample proof to the contrary.

I don't think people are fools, and I think they deserve a good attitude and smart entertainment.

The reality is that I surround myself with very smart, very strong people - including my ex-wives.

I wanted to play a mother again. I thought it would be interesting to play the mother of an older child. And it was also the kind of part I've been looking for my whole career, actually, in film. You know, just to play a femme fatale who's very smart, and wicked.

I think people are sexy when they have a sense of humor, when they are smart, when they have some sense of style, when they are kind, when they express their own opinions, when they are creative, when they have character.

A guy wants a classy girl who is smart and has goals - someone that he wouldn't be afraid to bring home to his parents.

Alan Moore does have a sheen of class. He's a smart guy, and I'm sure there was a metaphoric level, I'm not denying that, but let's face it. the main reason he was doing a super-hero comic was because he was working for a super-hero comic book company.

I'm not very big on politics. I'm a comedian and not that smart. I don't have the mind capacity for it.

Smart phones and social media expand our universe. We can connect with others or collect information easier and faster than ever.

Don't dumb it down. The audience is smart and gets what you are doing.

But figuring out Saddam Hussein was one our greatest mysteries. He marched to his own drummer and frequently as this unfolded he made decisions which were sometimes inexplicable to us and sometimes didn't look very smart.

I'd love to say I made the smart decision of picking projects that became hits, but with 'The Good Wife,' I read the script and something inside me said, 'I love this, I want to do this.

It was a very cool thing to be a smart girl, as opposed to some other, different kind. And I think that made a great deal of difference to me growing up and in my life afterward.

Our Fly Smart philosophy is about investing only on those points of differentiation that pay for themselves, that earn a revenue premium commensurate with what it costs us to provide that product or service.

A teacher is never too smart to learn from his pupils. But while runners differ, basic principles never change. So it's a matter of fitting your current practices to fit the event and the individual. See, what's good for you might not be worth a darn for the next guy.

I have to have three or four books going simultaneously. If I'm not impressed in the first 20 pages, I don't bother reading the rest, especially with novels. I'm not a book-club style reader. I'm not looking for life lessons or wanting people to think I'm smart because I'm reading a certain book.

If I could play any role in any musical, it would be Desiree in 'A Little Night Music' - Oh my, it is perfection. The character gets to be funny, beautiful, sexy and smart all at the same time and have two men fighting over her. The show is Stephen Sondheim at his absolute best... need I say more?

We should all feel confident in our intelligence. By the way, intelligence to me isn't just being book-smart or having a college degree; it's trusting your gut instincts, being intuitive, thinking outside the box, and sometimes just realizing that things need to change and being smart enough to change it.

Mentors provide professional networks, outlets for frustration, college and career counseling, general life advice, and most importantly, an extra voice telling a student they are smart enough and capable enough to cross the stage at graduation and land their first paycheck from a career pathway job.

My interest in society - at times so pronounced that the word 'snob' comes a little to mind - derives from the fact that I like an immense number of things which society, money, and position bring in their train: painting, tapestries, rare books, smart dresses, dances, gardens, country houses, correct cuisine, and pretty women.

I feel like I've been very smart in the way that I carry myself and treat myself. I feel like my mom was a big part of that just because she's always let us make our own decisions, and we've known very much about the mistakes and the dangers already of whatever this Hollywood life may be.

Performers like Tommy Cooper, who are always getting things wrong, are much more endearing than comedians who are sassy and smart.

I think one of the reasons that we like conspiracy theories is I think that we like to feel like there is a group of people who are so smart and powerful that they can pull the wool over an entire country or in fact even an entire world's eyes. That certainly makes us feel like somehow we're protected, even if it's not in our best interest.

With the Internet and social media being a huge part of today's culture, I think it's super important to promote staying smart online.

A smart man only believes half of what he hears, a wise man knows which half.

There is nothing like the way people feel after they've seen 'The Intouchables.' They feel amazing. The word of mouth on this film is incredible. It's intelligent-feeling good. You're not insulted by the low-browness or stupidity of some of the humor. It's so smart and terrific.

I think Hillary Clinton could do whatever she puts her mind to. I really do. She's incredibly dedicated to public service, she is smart as a whip, and she's effective.

I love John Madden because he makes me feel smart.

Marilyn was a great actress, not a dumb blond bombshell. She was very smart, very astute and a good businesswoman.

Pigs are not that dirty. And they're smart, strange little creatures. They just need love.

If you look at the economics of Nokia, roughly half of the company, half of the business, half of how we think about the business is focused on those emerging markets and on those lower-priced devices. But, of course, people who are aspirational and buying those lower-priced devices today are looking at smart phones tomorrow, and so forth.

Smart people are a dime a dozen. What matters is the ability to think different... to think out of the box.

Audiences are always better pleased with a smart retort, some joke or epigram, than with any amount of reasoning.

In today's world, we all live with the burden of feeling that anything is possible if we're only clever enough, smart enough, work hard enough.

The American people are smart. They've gotten sick of the predictable hyperpartisan talking points and canned anger.

We are the greatest computers in this world, but now we've created the smart phone which is smarter than us now, but we're still making dumb decisions. We have given our creations more power than we have, and that to me is dumb.

I don't want to give advice to people about their religious beliefs, but I do think that it's not smart to bet against the power of science to figure out the natural world. It used to be, a thousand years ago, that if you wanted to explain why the moon moved through the sky, you needed to invoke God.

I actually don't invest in anything that is social, mobile, deals or ad networks simply because those are areas where there are so many players and so many other smart people in the space, I feel like I don't have a competitive advantage. So I tend to go after things that are e-commerce, like healthcare.

Television has brought back murder into the home - where it belongs.

I think up until the point when we started in the business, which was in the early 70s, most of the humor was political. The smart humor was political satire.

In grade school I was smart, but I didn't have any friends. In high school, I quit being smart and started having friends.

The villain is usually the most interesting part. But it has to be a smart thing. Just dumb cliche villains with a Russian accent and big muscles and a mean face, I don't know. My Russian accent isn't that great, and the muscles aren't that big and the mean face is not enough. You know what I mean? It gets very boring. Tedious stuff.

I should have been smart enough to stay happy. But my ambition ruled my life.

Being aware of your fear is smart. Overcoming it is the mark of a successful person.

Most beautiful dumb girls think they are smart and get away with it, because other people, on the whole, aren't much smarter.

Most start-up companies fail and it is smart public policy to help entrepreneurs increase their odds of succeeding. But, the biggest loss to our economy is not all the start-ups that didn't make it: It's the ones that might have been created but weren't.

If you want to achieve things in life, you've just got to do them, and if you're talented and smart, you'll succeed.

The movies that work are the ones in which somebody very smart figured out how to take all the thematic material, all the character material, all the filigree, all the beautiful writing, and put it into a story.

Number three, we're going to play very smart and we're not going to beat ourselves. If the other team is better than us and they just out execute us and play better then we can live with that, but we're going to play smart and give ourselves every opportunity to win the game.

Living in the past is a Jethro Tull album, not a smart poker strategy.

One of the challenges in networking is everybody thinks it's making cold calls to strangers. Actually, it's the people who already have strong trust relationships with you, who know you're dedicated, smart, a team player, who can help you.

I think it's because it's so different and it takes risks. Plus, it's really smart humor. It gives the audience credit in terms of not needing to tell them when to laugh. I love that about the show. There's no laugh track.