Clever men are good, but they are not the best.

Cleverness is a fine quality and it is not the top one. Quick people are useful, entertaining and often right, and the ones you actually want beside you over years have something else: steadiness, judgement, the willingness to do the dull part. Brightness without those tends to produce a great deal of motion and not much you can rely on.

When you next choose someone, for a job, a partnership or anything long, weight the second set more heavily than the first impression. Ask what they finished, not what they said. And apply the same test to yourself, since it is easier to be quick than to be dependable.