Values Quotes – Euripides on Cleverness
Today’s quote is from Euripides, the famous Greek poet of classic Athens who wrote many tragic plays throughout 4th century BC.
Euripides made the following statement:
“The bold are helpless without cleverness.”
Based on the many bold characters he wrote into his 90+ plays, Euripides understood the value of cleverness.
As a differentiating value, cleverness means inventiveness; ingenuity; or creative imagination. Together, that’s quite a combination.
Unfortunately, cleverness is often thought of in a negative light. How often have you heard someone say about a computer hacker doing bad things “he’s very clever, but if he would just apply his creative skills to something positive, imagine the good he could do!”
Being clever doesn’t mean you have to be nasty or take advantage of someone. True cleverness requires ingenuity to create solutions to problems no one else thought of.
Just do a Google search for clever inventions and you’ll see lots of wonderful creativity that addresses specific niche needs. Like, slippers that also let you dust the floor. A flower pot design to fit over the edge of an apartment balcony. Or a little hook to allow you to pull out the white filling in an Oreo cookie. That’s clever!
But when the full power of cleverness is embraced, we get something amazing.
Consider the invention of the flash drive. The fact I can put a couple of movies on this 16 GB thumb drive is extremely clever. It almost feels like magic.
That’s what Euripides was referring to when you take a bold idea and add cleverness!
Today’s value was selected from the “Creativity-Uniqueness” category, based on the e-book Developing Your Differentiating Values.
