Smarts Quotes

A pretty woman is a Christmas tree,' my mother told me in the airport. This fella is hanging things on my branches as his gaze sweeps from my face all the way down my body to my hips and then back to my face. Ideas fly from his widened eyes and land on me like teeny, decorative burdens. He is giving me shyness, maybe, some book smarts, and a certain yielding sweetness in bed. The oil-slick eyes get me, and I find myself hanging a few ornaments myself, giving him deft hands and a sense of humor. ~ Joshilyn Jackson

My body was smarter than I was. I was with someone who would never hurt me, and so I finally relaxed. ~ Aspen Matis

I have not the smarts or patience for political office. ~ Henry Rollins

But we understand our liberty in a more positive sense as well, in the idea of opportunity and the subsidiary values that help realize opportunity - all those homespun virtues that Benjamin Franklin first popularized in Poor Richard's Almanack and that have continued to inspire our allegiance through successive generations. The values of self-reliance and self-improvement and risk-taking. The values of drive, discipline, temperance, and hard work. The values of thrift and personal responsibility.
These values are rooted in a basic optimism about life and a faith in free will - a confidence that through pluck and sweat and smarts, each of us can rise above the circumstances of our birth. But these values also express a broader confidence that so long as individual men and women are free to pursue their own interests, society as a whole will prosper. ~ Barack Obama

We live in an age of unprecedented opportunity: If you've got ambition and smarts, you can rise to the top of your chosen profession, regardless of where you started out. ~ Peter Drucker

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.

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

She's finding out she don't know much, and that's gonna make her feel lost for a spell. All her book smarts is worth a handful of nothing when it comes to real truths. ~ Leah Weiss

If you don't have common sense, ask someone who does ~ Sonya Withrow

Sam enjoyed knowledge. The accumulation and distribution of facts gave him a feeling of control, of utility, of the opposite of the powerlessness that comes with having a smallish, underdeveloped body that doesn't dependably respond to the mental commands of a largish, overstimulated brain. ~ Jonathan Safran Foer

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

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

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

I got where I am by a combination of guile, street smarts, and perfectly timed assassinations," VanderVoort says. "If you can't out think 'em, out maneuver 'em, or intimidate 'em then be sure to put a bullet between their eyebrows. ~ Jake Bible

Young girls today are very mistaken to be thinking that their sense of self-worth and their acknowledgment of their beauty depends on whether a man will give that to them or not. Such naïveté! And so what will happen when the man changes his mind about her? Tells her she's not beautiful enough? That she's not good enough? Cheats on her? Leaves her? Then what happens? She will lose all her self-worth, she will think she is not good enough, she is not beautiful enough, because all of those feelings depended on the man in the first place! And along with the loss of the man, it will all be lost as well! Mothers, teach your daughters better. It pains me to see such naive innocence right under my nose! Such naïveté does no good for any girl. It is better for a girl to be worldly-wise and have street-smarts! That's what a girl needs to have in life! Not wide-eyed delusional innocence! The sense of self-worth and acknowledgment of being beautiful must not come from a man, it must come from inside the woman herself, men will come and men will go and their coming and going must not take an effect on the woman's sense of worth and beauty. ~ C. JoyBell C.

Do not be a stupid, unless someone is paying you to be. ~ M.F. Moonzajer

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

The poor North has much to do with slavery. It staggers under its load and smarts under its lash. ~ Gerrit Smith

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

Once a hunter met a lion near the hungry critter's lair,
and the way that lion mauled him was decidedly unfair;
but the hunter never whimpered when the surgeons, with their thread,
sewed up forty-seven gashes in his mutilated head;
and he showed the scars in triumph, and they gave him pleasant fame,
and he always blessed the lion that had camped upon his frame.
Once that hunter, absent minded, sat upon a hill of ants,
and about a million bit him, and you should have seen him dance!
And he used up lots of language of a deep magenta tint,
and apostrophized the insects in a style unfit to print.
And it's thus with worldly troubles;
when the big ones come along, we serenely go to meet them, feeling valiant, bold and strong, but the weary little worries with their poisoned stings and smarts, put the lid upon our courage, make us gray, and break our hearts. ~ Walt Mason

Taking the long view, we need to teach our kids street smarts, like the importance of walking with a friend instead of alone, and how to discern bad strangers from the overwhelming majority of good ones. If we prevent our children from learning how to navigate the world beyond our front yard, it will only come back to haunt them later on when they feel frightened, bewildered, lost, or confused out on the streets. ~ Julie Lythcott-Haims

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

Fairy tales give it to us straight. They tell us something profound and essential - that the woods are real, and dark, and full of wolves. That we will, at times, find ourselves hopelessly lost in them. But these tales also tell us that we are all that we need, that we have all we need - guts, smarts, and maybe a pocketful of breadcrumbs - to find our way home. ~ Jennifer Donnelly

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

I study the little creature in front of me. What is it about these dwarfish little humans? They lack smarts, lack skills and they never seem to have much money. Yet they are powerful little monsters – adults dance to the tunes played by their chubby little fingers. Is it the disproportionately big head? Or the eyes too big for that head? Did I have this effect on my own mother? Was that why she believed in my goodness, despite all evidence to the contrary?
Suddenly the lower lip pokes out and the eyes grow even bigger. I feel a tug in the region where my heart should be… I want to give it things…
Ahhhhhh! Look away! Look away! Evil, ensnaring, hypnotic monster.
Just kidding, but it is kind of cute. I feed it a cracker. ~ Eliza Crewe

Lydia is constantly reminded that her education has no purchase here, that she has no access to the kind of information that has real currency on this journey. Among migrants, everyone knows more than she does. How do you find a coyote, make sure he's reputable, pay for your crossing, all without getting ripped off? ~ Jeanine Cummins

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

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

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

Rookie smarts isn't an age or an experience level; it is state of mind - one that is available to those willing to unlearn and relearn. It is also a choice. As ~ Liz Wiseman

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

Blue-collar workers" have jobs requiring just as much brainpower as "white-collar professionals." To run a family farm is to be a business owner in a complicated industry. But, unlike many jobs requiring smarts and creativity, working a farm summons the body's intelligence, too. ~ Sarah Smarsh

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

I seriously feel like the best days are ahead, and I like the idea of getting to do everything I did before but with more knowledge, experience, and street smarts. There's a certain love, appreciation, and gratitude that you have at 40 that you don't have when you're younger, and it makes every accomplishment feel so much better. ~ Jennifer Lopez

Then the nickel must have dropped when he realized I had pranked him as he groaned under his breath, "Bob!"
Doug's been trying to get back at me for years. But he can't, because I'm a lawyer. You don't get into and through law school like I did without gaining a few street smarts. ~ Bob Goff

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

Sometimes you came across women who had every-thing going for them ... looks, personality, smarts, and they had NO fucking idea what they were worth. How amazing and beautiful, they were, how they oozed sex and secrets. Then you had those women who knew they had what you wanted and used it. Repeatedly. Just to get what they wanted. It was an unbalanced universe. ~ Karina Halle

How could I admit that the All-American Girl's force field of stoicism and self-reliance and do-unto-others-and-keep-smiling wasn't working, wasn't keeping pain and shame and powerlessness away?

From a young age I had learned to get over - to cover my tracks emotionally, to hide or ignore my problems in the belief that they were mine alone to solve. So when exhilarating transgressions required getting over on authority figures, I knew how to do it. I was a great bluffer. And when common, everyday survival in prison required getting over, I could do that too. This is what was approvingly described by my fellow prisoners as 'street-smarts,' as in 'You wouldn't think it to look at her, but Piper's got street-smarts. ~ Piper Kerman

To me, Lorelai was equal parts Gal About Town and The Mom, plus a magical mix of smarts and humor that made her totally unique. ~ Lauren Graham

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

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

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

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

If, as Marshall McLuhan once taught us, the medium is the message, then Derfner's medium-this lovely, discursive amalgamation of wit and smarts-is indeed his message about how to stay happy, sane, and honest in whatever situation one finds oneself in. ~ Philip Gambone

I want a little girl with your smile and your smarts. I want Christmases and birthdays and a chocolate Lab who wears an American flag bandana that you name after a political philosopher or something. We can even include him in the family campaign photos. ~ Chanel Cleeton

In our relentless pursuit of the almighty A and the perfect GPA, something got lost - learning. Grades became the be-all and end-all, the goal itself, not an indicator of achieving the goal of learning. Grades have become the commodity, the badge of success and smarts, the ticket to college. ~ Cathy Vatterott

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

Out with it, Dunciad: let the secret pass -
That secret to each fool - that he's an ass.
The truth once told (and whereby should we lie?),
The queen of Midas slept, and so may I.
You think this cruel? Take it for a rule,
No creature smarts so little as a fool. ~ Alexander Pope

Scott gave my knee an affectionate squeeze. "You'll never hear me admit this again, so listen up. You look good, Grey. On a scale from one to ten, you're definitely in the top half."

"Gee, thanks."

"You're not the kind of girl I would have chased after when I was in Portland, but I'm not the same guy I was back then either. You're a little too good for me, and let's face it, a little too smart."

"You've got street smarts," I pointed out.

"Stop interrupting. You're going to make me lose my place."

"You've got this speech memorized?"

A smirk. "I've got a lot of time on my hands. As I was saying--hell. I forgot where I was."

"You were telling me I can rest assured that I'm better-looking than half the girls at my school."

"That was a figure of speech. If you want to get technical, you're better-looking than ninety percent. Give or take."

I laid a hand over my heart. "I'm speechless."

Scott got down on his knee and clasped my hand dramatically. "Yes, Nora. Yes, I'll go to the homecoming dance with you. ~ Becca Fitzpatrick

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

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

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

Intelligence is often worshiped, even when that intelligence allows unfathomable injustice and suffering to occur under its smart watch. ~ Bryant McGill

We know that the war against intelligence is always waged in the name of common sense. ~ Roland Barthes

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

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

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

•Girls can do anything boys can do.
•Street smarts are as important as book smarts.
•"Your mother is smarter than me and I am fine with it."
•Don't work too hard.
•You can have a chaotic childhood and still provide a stable home. ~ Amy Poehler

The rest of the story from Acts 1:8 explains that Christ-followers have a mission while here on earth. They are to be Christ's witnesses all over this planet. It's as if Christ said, "Think you're missing the book smarts, the street smarts, the looks, the talent, or the speaking ability to accomplish this mission? Don't be concerned with those things, because you have my mountain-moving, life-transforming, death-defying power on your side." ~ Bill Hybels

The measure of and self-congratulation for our own intelligence should have its basis in our moral behavior as well as our smarts. ~ April Gornik

Humans are just barely intelligent tool users; Darwinian evolutionary selection stopped when language and tool use converged, leaving the average hairy meme carrier sadly deficient in smarts. ~ Charles Stross

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

The truth is, it's impossible for any parent to know what his or her child will be like as an adult. But we can tell you that the sensory smart child of sensory smart parents is a person who is empowered to take responsibility for himself, for his body, and for his behavior. That's an outstanding quality any parent would be proud to see in a child. ~ Nancy Peske

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

When I was a kid, and it was time to go to college, I thought, 'College is for people who don't have the street smarts to make it on their own - get in a band, get in a van, and get rockin'. ~ Flea

I don't care that I don't know what you really look like, don't you get that? It's not the package that I'm interested in here. It's you. The girl who fought off three tellers with nothing but her smarts. And who stood up to the Basileus. ~ Chani Lynn Feener

Strong on desire but short on smarts, these ~ Arnold Schwarzenegger

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

But as it falleth, in the gentlest hearts Imperious love hath highest set his throne, And tyrannizeth in the bitter smarts Of them, that to him buxom are and prone. ~ Edmund Spenser

Some years ago I read a book that brought Einstein's theory of relativity down to an eighth grade level. This convinced me that any subject can be made easy. In other words, always beware of anyone who tells you a topic is above you or better left to experts. This person may, for some reason, be trying to shut you out. You CAN understand almost anything. ~ Richard J. Maybury

The Street Epistemologist is a philosopher and a fighter. She has savvy and street smarts that come from the school of hard knocks. She relentlessly helps others by tearing down falsehoods about whatever enshrined "truths" enslave us. ~ Peter Boghossian

Children are born with varying levels of talent and intelligence, but possessing natural smarts and skills is no guarantee of success. It takes more than that: it takes work on the part of parents and teachers to cultivate these qualities, to instill in children the drive and character necessary to translate their natural gifts into extraordinary results. ~ Rafe Esquith

This is a competitive business - there are a lot of women who want these jobs, but experience, education, and smarts go a long way. I'm still figuring it out - I learn new things every day. Once you stop learning, you should get out of the business. It's just really about being hungry for more. ~ Nicole Lapin

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

Real smarts begin when you quit quoting other people ... ... .. ~ Chuck Palahniuk

Carrie had never been the pretty one. Never fit in with the girls at school or understood their need to shop and primp and gossip. She'd been more interested in the things her brothers did. And she'd always been interested in helping others. Taking on those bigger and stronger than her and besting them through stamina and smarts. ~ Virna DePaul

There's an unexpected lull in the traffic about two-thirds of the way to Darmstadt, and I make the mistake of breathing a sigh of relief. The respite is short-lived. One moment I'm driving along a seemingly empty road, bouncing from side to side on the Smart's town-car suspension as the hairdryersized engine howls its guts out beneath my buttocks, and the next instant the dashboard in front of me lights up like a flashbulb. ~ Charles Stross

Our everyday "commonsense" knowledge as a human being is even greater; "street smarts" actually require substantially more of our neocortex than "book smarts." Including this brings our estimate to well over 100 million patterns, taking into account the redundancy factor of about 100. ~ Ray Kurzweil

You have to have conviction and completely question everything and anything you do. No matter how much you study, no matter how much you know, the side of your brain that has the smarts won't necessarily help you in making art. ~ Maya Lin

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

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've always loved science fiction. I think the smartest writers are science fiction writers dealing with major things." – Associated Press interview, 12-7-11 ~ Walter Mosley

You must learn how to "pull" deep smarts from others. ~ Anonymous