Ogden Nash Quotes

Here's a good rule of thumb; too clever is dumb.

Rule of thumb: if you think something is clever and sophisticated beware-it is probably self-indulgence.

He must be very ignorant for he answers every question he is asked.

It's the people who try to be clever who never are; the people who are clever never think of trying to be.

A mugwump is a person educated beyond his intellect.

I had arrived years ago in Paris and just wanted to be famous, fast. When you're pretentious like that, and you think you've planned everything perfectly, it's then that everything goes in the opposite way.

Education is a crutch with which the foolish attack the wise to prove that they are not idiots.

The desire to seem clever often keeps us from being so.

I've always been accused of being too clever for my own good.

Stupid — well, there are so many kinds of stupidity, and cleverness is one of the worst.

Sometimes, I'm too smart for my own good.

His pomposity is overshadowed only by his rank stupidity

cleverness is a disease.

Nothing is so contemptible as that affectation of wisdom, which some display, by universal incredulity.

A stupid person can make only certain, limited types of errors; the mistakes open to a clever fellow are far broader. But to the one who knows how smart he is compared to everyone else, the possibilities for true idiocy are boundless.

Among some people arrogance supplies the place of grandeur, inhumanity of decision, and roguery of intelligence.

The wise through excess of wisdom is made a fool.

They tried to be too clever---and that was their undoing.

Intellectuals never sound more foolish than when posing as the last civilised man.

As when on some secluded branch in forest far and wide sits perched an owl, who, full of self-conceit and self-created wisdom, explains, comments, condemns, ordains and order things not understood, yet full of importance still holds forth to stocks and stones around - so sits and scribbles Mike.

Solemnity is the shield of idiots

Many, affecting wit beyond their power, Have got to be a dear fool for an hour.

Ordinary fools are all right; you can talk to them, and try to help them out. But pompous fools-guys who are fools and are covering it all over and impressing people as to how wonderful they are with all this hocus pocus-THAT, I CANNOT STAND! An ordinary fool isn't a faker; an honest fool is all right. But a dishonest fool is terrible!

ECCENTRICITY, n. A method of distinction so cheap that fools employ it to accentuate their incapacity.

When intelligent people pride themselves on not understanding, it is quite natural they should succeed better than fools.