#cleverness

Can you be sure that others have not come before you and destroyed the pristine state of the native myth? Can you be sure that the natives are not humoring you or pulling your leg? Bronislaw Malinowski thought he had discovered a people in the Trobriant Islands who had not worked out the connection between sexual intercourse and childbirth. When asked how children were conceived, they supplied him with an elaborate mythic structure prominently featuring celestial intervention. Amazed, Malinowski objected that was not how it was done at all, and supplied them instead with the version so popular in the West today – including a nine-month gestation period. “Impossible,” replied the Melanesians. “Do you not see that woman over there with her six-month-old child? Her husband has been on an extended voyage to another island for two years.” Is it more likely that the Melanesians were ignorant of the begetting of children or that they were gently chiding Malinowski? If some peculiar-looking stranger came into my town and asked ME where babies came from, I’d certainly be tempted to tell him about storks and cabbages. Prescientific people are people. Individually they are as clever as we are. ↗

— Carl Sagan

#cleverness #myths #people #primitive #humor

The thing is, comedy's gone in a weird direction. People are really into ironic comedy and fakeness and cleverness. ↗

— Louis C. K.

#comedy #direction #gone #into #ironic

I am sick to death of cleverness. Everybody is clever nowadays. ↗

— Oscar Wilde

#people #death

A stupid man's report of what a clever man says can never be accurate, because he unconsciously translates what he hears into something he can understand. ↗

— Bertrand Russell

#cleverness #intelligence #smart #stupidity #understanding

The great gift of conversation lies less in displaying it ourselves than in drawing it out of others. He who leaves your company pleased with himself and his own cleverness is perfectly well pleased with you. ↗

— Jean de la Bruyere

#company #conversation #displaying #drawing #gift

Patience and tenacity are worth more than twice their weight of cleverness. ↗

— Thomas Huxley

#more #patience #tenacity #than #their

The pun exists in a social and political void, caring nothing for the issues of its day, content merely to display itself in its small cleverness. ↗

— Arthur Smith

#cleverness #content #day #display #exists

I have never been to a court s gracious as the one Neha keeps. Dmitri played a knife through his fingers, one of the three he'd brought back from Neha's territory. "She truly believes in giving honor to a visitor." He threw to knife at Jason. "He threw it back as Venom added, "Thought she might have that guest neatly executed as the court sleeps. ↗

— Nalini Singh

#humor

We learned to be patient observers like the owl. We learned cleverness from the crow, and courage from the jay, who will attack an owl ten times its size to drive it off its territory. But above all of them ranked the chickadee because of its indomitable spirit. ↗

— Tom Brown, Jr.

#attack #be patient #because #cleverness #courage

Science is always discovering odd scraps of magical wisdom and making a tremendous fuss about its cleverness. ↗

— Aleister Crowley

#always #cleverness #discovering #fuss #magical