Cunning Quotes - Page 16

• Writing a poem is like having an affair, a one-night stand; a short story is a romance, a relationship; a novel is a marriage-one has to be cunning, devise compromises, and make sacrifices.

  Amos Oz

  Writing, Sacrifice, Night

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• Why is the tao so valuable? Because it is everywhere, and everyone can use it. This is why those who seek will find, And those who reform will be forgiven; Why the good will be rewarded, And the thief who is cunning will escape.

  Laozi

  Taoism, Reform, Thieves

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• On my tenth birthday a bicycle and an atlas coincided as gifts, and a few days later I decided to cycle to India...However, I was a cunning child so I kept my ambition to myself, thus avoiding the tolerant amusement it would have provoked among my elders.

  Dervla Murphy

  Children, Ambition, India

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• There is such a thing as too much beauty in a woman and it is often a burden as crippling as homeliness and far more dangerous. It takes much luck and integrity to survive the gift of perfect beauty, and its impermanence is its most cunning betrayal.

  Pat Conroy

  Betrayal, Integrity, Perfect

  Pat Conroy (2010). “The Prince of Tides: A Novel”, p.79, Open Road Media

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• If the devil were wise enough and would stand by in silence and let the gospel be preached, he would suffer less harm. For when there is no battle for the gospel it rusts and it finds no cause and no occasion to show its vigor and power. Therefore, nothing better can befall the gospel than that the world should fight it with force and cunning.

  Martin Luther

  Wise, Fighting, Silence

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• What constitutes the bulwark of our own liberty and independence? It is not our frowning battlements, our bristling sea coasts, our army and our navy... Our reliance is in the love of liberty which God has planted in us. Our defense is in the spirit which prizes liberty as the heritage of all men, in all lands everywhere. Destroy this spirit and you have planted the seeds of despotism at your own doors... You have lost the genius of your own independence and become the fit subjects of the first cunning tyrant who rises among you.

  Abraham Lincoln

  Army, Men, Doors

  "The Writings of Abraham Lincoln" by Abraham Lincoln, Vol. 5, (pp. 6-7), 2004.

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• Why bother with a cunning plan when a simple one will do?

  Terry Pratchett

  Simple, Bother, Plans

  "Thud!". Book by Terry Pratchett, 2005.

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• One must be cunning and wicked in this world.

  Leo Tolstoy

  Wicked, World, This World

  Leo Tolstoy (2011). “War and Peace: Translated by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky”, p.75, Vintage

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• Familiarize yourselves with the chains of bondage and you prepare your own limbs to wear them. Accustomed to trample on the rights of others, you have lost the genius of your own independence and become the fit subjects of the first cunning tyrant who rises among you.

  Abraham Lincoln

  Rights, Tyrants, Justice

  Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Carl Schurz, Joseph Choate, Francis F. Browne (2017). “LINCOLN – Complete 7 Volume Edition: Biographies, Speeches and Debates, Civil War Telegrams, Letters, Presidential Orders & Proclamations: Including the Introduction by Theodore Roosevelt & 3 Biographies: The Every-day Life of the President, Lincoln by Carl Shurz and Abraham Lincoln by Joseph H. Choate”, p.1246, Madison & Adams Press

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• Unrequited love," I'd say. He'd look at me sideways in that cunning way he did and say, "what about it?" and I'd reply, "it's not your color." Pithy. Just to show him that I'd noticed. Or maybe I'd show myself to her and say, "Guess I'm not the only one who uses humans around here." And then I'd summon some of Owain's hounds to chew off the bottom bits of her legs. Then she wouldn't fit just right into his arms. She'd be too short. It'd be like hugging a midget. Nuala- pg. 75

  Maggie Stiefvater

  Unrequited Love, Color, Hug

  Maggie Stiefvater (2010). “Ballad: A Gathering of Faerie”, p.82, North Star Editions, Inc.

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• He is many things - dangerous and devious, cunning and deadly, a good friend and an implacable enemy - but he comes from an age when a man's word was indeed precious.

  Michael Scott

  Good Friend, Men, Enemy

  Michael Scott (2012). “The First Codex”, p.172, Delacorte Books for Young Readers

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• He is the playfulness of creation, scandal and utter goodness, the generosity of the ocean and the ferocity of a thunderstorm; he is cunning as a snake and gentle as a whisper; the gladness of sunshine and the humility of a thirty-mile walk by foot on a dirt road.

  John Eldredge

  Jesus, Ocean, Humility

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• As naturally as the ruled always took the morality imposed upon them more seriously than did the rulers themselves, the deceived masses are today captivated by the myth of success even more than the successful are. Immovably, they insist on the very ideology which enslaves them. The misplaced love of the common people for the wrong which is done to them is a greater force than the cunning of the authorities.

  Theodor Adorno

  Successful, People, Done

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• To think is to take a cunning revenge in which we camouflage our baseness and conceal our lower instincts.

  Emile M. Cioran

  Revenge, Thinking, Camouflage

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• Hocus was an old cunning attorney. The words of consecration, "Hoc est corpus," were travestied into a nickname for jugglery, as "Hocus-pocus."

  John Richard Green

  People, Hocus Pocus, Nicknames

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• Somewhere in [China's] soul lurks the cunning of an old dog, and it is a cunning that is strangely impressive. What a strange old soul! What a great old soul!

  Lin Yutang

  Dog, Soul, Strange

  Yutang Lin (1935). “The Little Critic: Essays, Satire and Sketches on China (second Series: 1933-1935)”

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• We make no apology then for raising our voices loud to a world that is ripening in sin the lord has said,” Say nothing but repentance unto this generation; The adversary is subtle, cunning, he knows that he cannot induce good men and women immediately to do major evils so he moves slyly, whispering half truths until he has his intended victims following him finally he clamps his chains upon them and fetters them tight, and then he laughs at their discomfiture and their misery.

  Spencer W. Kimball

  Moving, Apology, Men

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• Happiness is the lucky pane of glass you carry in your head. It takes all your cunning just to hang on to it, and once it's smashed you have to move into a different sort of life.

  Carol Shields

  Moving, Glasses, Different

  "Unless". Book by Carol Shields, www.theguardian.com. April 30, 2002.

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• People kill what they fear. They burned, and drowned, and hanged those they saw as witches, the devil's servants: the wise women and the cunning men, the unfortunate, the lost and the strange

  Neil Gaiman

  Wise, Fear, Men

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• I want a History of Looking. For the Photograph is the advent of myself as other: a cunning dissociation of consciousness from identity. Even odder: it was before Photography that men had the most to say about the vision of the double. Heautoscopy was compared with an hallucinosis; for centuries this was a great mythic theme.

  Roland Barthes

  Photography, Men, Vision

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• We stole countries with the cunning use of flags. Just sail around the world and stick a flag in. "I claim India for Britain!" They're going "You can't claim us, we live here! Five hundred million of us!" "Do you have a flag …? "No..." "Well, if you don't have a flag, then you can't have a country. Those are the rules... that I just made up!

  Eddie Izzard

  Country, India, Flags

  "Dress to Kill", 1998.

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• "As I think I told you once before," said I, "it is you who have been, in your greed and cunning, against all the world. It may be profitable to you to reflect, in future, that there never were greed and cunning in the world yet, that did not do too much, and overreach themselves. It is as certain as death."

  Charles Dickens

  Thinking, Greed, Words Of Wisdom

  Charles Dickens (1850). “The Personal History of David Copperfield”, p.538

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• Do not be held a cheat, even though it is impossible to
  live today without being one. Let your greatest cunning lie in covering up what
  looks like cunning.

  Baltasar Gracian

  Lying, Live For Today, Covering

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• He wore a sprinkling of powder upon his head, as if to make himself look benevolent; but if that were his purpose, he would perhaps have done better to powder his countenance also, for there was something in its very wrinkles, and in his cold restless eye, which seemed to tell of cunning that would announce itself in spite of him.

  Charles Dickens

  Character, Eye, Wrinkles

  Charles Dickens (1854). “The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby ... With a Frontispiece from a Painting by T. Webster”, p.5

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• I don't dabble in politics too much. I'm really ignorant to the world of politics. I'm not that smart, I'm not that cunning, it's just too much smoke and mirrors for me. I just don't want to play that game.

  Michael K. Williams

  Smart, Play, Mirrors

  "Talking With Our Mouths Full: Michael Kenneth Williams". Interview with Mark Anthony Green, www.gq.com. October 4, 2011.

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