Instead it might sometimes seem so, because mere cleverness can sometimes recite words which might make them sound wise, like an actor or a drunk person reciting poetry.

Pitcairne was a good classical scholar, and wrote Latin verses, occasionally with something more than mere imitative cleverness and skill.

How much of the disguise was magical, and how much of it achieved by mere mundane cleverness, was not immediately apparent, at least to me.

And in the final novella in "Good Women" she transcends the constraints of mere cleverness.

What results is a species of kitchen surrealism that adds up to more than mere formal cleverness; its effect on us is vertiginous.

It ends up producing a good, solid exhibition, one with arid patches, moments of mere cleverness but also flashes of inspiration.

Mr. Ayckbourn is aware that some will dismiss his style as mere cleverness.

I detest folly; I detest still more (if I must be frank, dear Arthur) mere cleverness.

This resonant emotional dimension keeps his work from slipping into mere cleverness.

She has more than mere cleverness.