Cunning Quotes - Page 8

• The devil personifies not the nature that is around us but the nature that is within us- the infinitely ferocious and cunning prehuman creature that is still within us, sealed in the subconscious cellars of the psyche.

  Eric Hoffer

  Devil, Subconscious, Cellars

  Eric Hoffer (1982). “Between the Devil and the Dragon: The Best Essays and Aphorisms of Eric Hoffer”, HarperCollins Publishers

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• There exists, at the bottom of all abasement and misfortune, a last extreme which rebels and joins battle with the forces of law and respectability in a desperate struggle, waged partly by cunning and partly by violence, at once sick and ferocious, in which it attacks the prevailing social order with the pin-pricks of vice and the hammer-blows of crime.

  Victor Hugo

  Depression, Struggle, Blow

  Victor Hugo (1980). “Les misérables”, Viking Pr

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• The language I have learnt these forty years, My native English, now I must forgo; And now my tongue's use is to me no more Than an unstringed viol or a harp, Or like a cunning instrument cased up Or, being open, put into his hands That knows no touch to tune the harmony.

  William Shakespeare

  Hands, Years, Tunes

  William Shakespeare (2013). “Second Tetralogy In Plain and Simple English: Includes Richard II, Henry IV Parts 1 and 2, and Henry V”, p.38, BookCaps Study Guides

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• A lot of film directors are quite scared of actors. They are a bit of a nightmare sometimes, but I like them. It looks like cunning, but you try to get extra things from them all the time, by stealth, by making them feel confident, so they trust you and you can push a bit.

  Danny Boyle

  Trying, Directors, Looks

  "The sun is the star" by Patrick Barkham, www.theguardian.com. March 23, 2007.

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• The biographies of great artists make it abundantly clear that the creative urge is often so imperious that it battens on their humanity and yokes everything to the service of the work, even at the cost of health and ordinary human happiness. The unborn work in the psyche of the artist is a force of nature that achieves its end either with tyrannical might or with the subtle cunning of nature herself, quite regardless of the personal fate of the man who is its vehicle.

  Carl Jung

  Writing, Fate, Men

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• A Myrddraal has less cunning than a woman, and a Trolloc fights with more honor. And a goat has more sense.

  Robert Jordan

  Fighting, Honor, Goats

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• The sober devil can hide his cloven hoof; but when the devil drinks he loses his cunning and grows honest.

  Anthony Trollope

  Devil, Honest, Sober

  Anthony Trollope (2015). “The Palliser Novels: Complete Parliamentary Chronicles (All Six Novels in One Volume): Can You Forgive Her? + Phineas Finn + The Eustace Diamonds + Phineas Redux + The Prime Minister + The Duke’s Children”, p.1941, e-artnow

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• The enterprise of Adolf Hitler, with all its clatter and fireworks, and all its cunning and dynamic energy, is the enterprise of an evil spirit, which is apparently allowed its freedom for a time in order to test our faith in the Resurrection of Jesus Christ.

  Karl Barth

  Jesus, Order, Evil

  Karl Barth (1941). “This Christian cause: (A letter to Great Britain from Switzerland)”

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• They treat me like a fox, a cunning fellow (Schlaukopf) of the first rank. But the truth is that with a gentleman I am always a gentleman and a half, and when I have to do with a pirate, I try to be a pirate and a half.

  Otto von Bismarck

  Pirate, Gentleman, Trying

  "Disraeli, Gladstone, and the Eastern Question. A Study in Diplomacy and Party Politics". Book by Robert William Seton-Watson, 1935.

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• Whatever bears affinity to cunning is despicable.

  Jane Austen

  Bears, Affinity, Despicable

  Jane Austen (2014). “Pride and Prejudice”, p.36, Lulu.com

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• In explaining any puzzling Washington phenomenon, always choose stupidity over conspiracy, incompetence over cunning. Anything else gives them too much credit.

  Charles Krauthammer

  Giving, Stupidity, Credit

  "Pelosi's Armenian gambit". jewishworldreview.com. October 19, 2007.

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• Thought is so cunning, so clever, that it distorts everything for its own convenience.

  Jiddu Krishnamurti

  Clever, Convenience

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• Failure is a trickster with a keen sense of irony and cunning. It takes great delight in tripping one when success is almost within reach.

  Napoleon Hill

  Inspirational, Delight, Tripping

  Napoleon Hill, Wyatt North (2014). “Think and Grow Rich”, p.23, Wyatt North Publishing, LLC

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• Optimism has always seemed to me the cunning alibi of egoists, anxious to cover up their state of chronic self-satisfaction. They are optimists in order to avoid pitying other men and their misfortune. ~~ Yet pity is a vexed question.

  Georges Bernanos

  Men, Self, Order

  Georges Bernanos (1938). “A diary of my times”

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• Say what some poets will, Nature is not so much her own ever-sweet interpreter, as the mere supplier of that cunning alphabet, whereby selecting and combining as he pleases, each man reads his own peculiar lesson according to his own peculiar mind and mood.

  Herman Melville

  Sweet, Men, Mind

  Herman Melville (2016). “Pierre; or The Ambiguities”, p.433, Herman Melville

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• The discipline of suffering, of great suffering- do you not know that only this discipline has created all enhancements of man so far? That tension of the soul in unhappiness which cultivates its strength, its shudders face to face with great ruin, its inventiveness and courage in enduring, preserving, interpreting, and exploiting suffering, and whatever has been granted to it of profundity, secret, mask, spirit, cunning, greatness- was it not granted to it through suffering, through the discipline of great suffering?

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Greatness, Men, Discipline

  Friedrich Nietzsche (2009). “Basic Writings of Nietzsche”, p.344, Modern Library

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• Calvin's theocentric irrationalism eventually revealed itself as the cunning to technocratic reason which had to shape its human material. Misery and the poor laws did not suffice to drive men into the workshops of the early capitalistic era. The new spirit helped to supplement external pressures with a concern for wife and child to which the moral autonomy of the introverted subject in reality was tantamount.

  Max Horkheimer

  Children, Reality, Men

  "The Essential Frankfurt School Reader" by Max Horkheimer, (p. 34), 1982.

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• These old knights are more cunning than you think, or they would never have lived to see their first grey hair.

  George R. R. Martin

  Thinking, Knights, Hair

  George R. R. Martin (2012). “George R. R. Martin's A Game of Thrones 5-Book Boxed Set (Song of Ice and Fire Series): A Game of Thrones, A Clash of Kings, A Storm of Swords, A Feast for Crows, and and A Dance with Dragons”, p.1110, Bantam

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• No, it's not that they're bad. It's that they're obliged to pretend they're good. They've been brought up to deceive and be cunning, to protect themselves from our society. I don't want to be like that.

  Carlos Fuentes

  Want, Our Society, Deceiving

  Carlos Fuentes (2012). “Happy Families”, p.76, A&C Black

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• An animal may be ferocious and cunning enough, but it takes a real man to tell a lie.

  H. G. Wells

  Real, Lying, Animal

  H. G. Wells (2015). “The Island of Doctor Moreau: Top 100 Classic Novels”, p.92, 谷月社

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• But doubt is wily and cunning and never, as it is sometimes said to be, loud or defiant. It is unassuming and sly, not bold or assertive - and the more unassuming, the more dangerous.

  Soren Kierkegaard

  Doubt, Sometimes, Loud

  Soren Kierkegaard, George Pattison (2010). “Spiritual Writings: A New Translation and Selection”, p.13, Harper Collins

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• I’ve watched you barely escape death several times, and each instance killed me a little inside. They may be dormant now, but we have enemies both cunning and cruel. Knowing you possess the power to defeat most of them doesn’t threaten me, luv. It relieves me to my very core.

  Jeaniene Frost

  Knowing, Enemy, May

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• You have the effrontery to be squeamish, it thought at him. But we were dragons. We were supposed to be cruel, cunning, heartless and terrible. But this much I can tell you, you ape – the great face pressed even closer, so that Wonse was staring into the pitiless depths of his eyes – we never burned and tortured and ripped one another apart and called it morality.

  Terry Pratchett

  Eye, Dragons, Heartless

  "Guards! Guards!". Book by Terry Pratchett, 1989.

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• Everyone thinks I'm showing off when I talk, ridiculous when I'm silent, insolent when I answer, cunning when I have a good idea, lazy when I'm tired, selfish when I eat one bite more than I should.

  Anne Frank

  Selfish, Tired, Thinking

  Anne Frank (2011). “The Diary of a Young Girl: The Definitive Edition”, p.54, Bantam

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• He tasted each one of them. The raw power and majesty of Wrath. The vast strength of Rhage. The burning, protective loyalty of Phury. The cold savagery of Zsadist. The sharp cunning of Vishous.

  J.R. Ward

  Loyalty, Wrath, Zsadist

  J.R. Ward (2007). “Lover Revealed: A Novel of the Black Dagger Brotherhood”, p.444, Penguin

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