Cunning Quotes

• Knowledge which is divorced from justice, may be called cunning rather than wisdom.

  Marcus Tullius Cicero

  Wisdom, Knowledge, Justice

  86 Copy quote

• In order to get the power and retain it, it is necessary to love power; but love of power is not connected with goodness, but with qualities which are the opposite of goodness, such as pride, cunning, cruelty.

  Leo Tolstoy

  Pride, Order, Opposites

  "The Complete Works of Leo Tolstoy".

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• The weak in courage is strong in cunning.

  William Blake

  Strong, Weak, Fetters

  William Blake, William Butler Yeats (1905). “Collected Poems”, p.171, Psychology Press

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• Bondage is the life of personality, and for bondage the personal self will fight with tireless resourcefulness and the most stubborn cunning.

  Aldous Huxley

  Character, Fighting, Self

  Aldous Huxley (1993). “After Many a Summer Dies the Swan: A Novel”, p.111, Ivan R. Dee

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• Cunning is a short blanket--if you pull it over your face, you expose your feet.

  Austin O'Malley

  Feet, Over You, Faces

  9 Copy quote

• Cunning is the art of concealing our own defects, and discovering other people's weaknesses.

  William Hazlitt

  Art, Knowledge, People

  William Hazlitt (1837). “Characteristics: in the manner of Rochefoucault's Maxims [by W. Hazlitt].”, p.42

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• Crocodiles are easy. They try to kill and eat you. People are harder. Sometimes they pretend to be your friend first.

  Steve Irwin

  Funny, Betrayal, I Hate You

  "My Steve". Book by Terri Irwin, 2012.

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• Man has made many machines, complex and cunning, but which of them indeed rivals the workings of his heart?

  Pablo Casals

  Inspirational, Heart, Men

  18 Copy quote

• Nothing doth more hurt in a state than that cunning men pass for wise.

  Francis Bacon

  Wise, Peace, Hurt

  'Essays' (1625) 'Of Cunning'

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• Cunning leads to knavery. It is but a step from one to the other, and that very slippery. Only lying makes the difference; add that to cunning, and it is knavery.

  Ovid

  Lying, Differences, Knavery

  11 Copy quote

• Every man wishes to be wise, and they who cannot be wise are almost always cunning.

  Samuel Johnson

  Wise, Men, Wish

  James Boswell, Samuel Johnson (1786). “Boswell's Life of Johnson: including Boswell's Journal of a tour of the Hebrides, and Johnson's diary of A journey into North Wales”, p.247

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• Silence, exile, cunning and so on... it's my nature to keep quiet about most things. Even the ideas in my work.

  Don DeLillo

  Ideas, Silence, Literature

  Don DeLillo, Thomas DePietro (2005). “Conversations with Don DeLillo”, p.4, Univ. Press of Mississippi

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• We have dreamt of every woman there is, and dreamt too of the miracle that would bring us the pleasure of being a woman, for women have all the qualities - courage, passion, the capacity to love, cunning - whereas all our imagination can do is naively pile up the illusion of courage.

  Jean Baudrillard

  Love, Passion, Imagination

  Jean Baudrillard (1990). “Cool Memories”, p.24, Verso

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• One Man may be more cunning than another, but not more cunning than every body else.

  Benjamin Franklin

  Men, Body, May

  Benjamin Franklin (2013). “Poor Richard's Almanack”, p.65, Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.

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• Disease an never be conquered, can never be quelled by emotion's willful screaming or faith's symbolic prayer. It can only be conquered by the energy of humanity and the cunning in the mind of man. In the patience of a Curie, in the enlightenment of a Faraday, a Rutherford, a Pasteur, a Nightingale, and all other apostles of light and cleanliness, rather than of a woebegone godliness, we shall find final deliverance from plague, pestilence, and famine.

  Sean O'Casey

  Prayer, Men, Light

  23 Copy quote

• A cunning man overreaches no one half as much as himself.

  Henry Ward Beecher

  Men, Cunning Man, Half

  Henry Ward Beecher, Edna Dean Proctor (1858). “Life Thoughts: Gathered from the Extemporaneous Discourses of Henry Ward Beecher”, p.52

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• Love is a cunning weaver of fantasies and fables.

  Sappho

  Love, Fables, Fantasy

  64 Copy quote

• Cunning is only the mimic of discretion, and may pass upon weak men in the same manner as vivacity is often mistaken for wit, and gravity for wisdom.

  Joseph Addison

  Men, Weak Man, May

  Joseph Addison (1721). “The Works of the Right Honourable Joseph Addison, Esq”, p.208

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• The fox is very cunning, but he is more cunning who catches the fox.

  Pedro Calderon de la Barca

  Foxes

  14 Copy quote

• In every American there is an air of incorrigible innocence, which seems to conceal a diabolical cunning.

  A. E. Housman

  Funny, Sarcastic, Air

  "Voices: A Memoir". Book by Frederic Prokosch, 1983.

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• Stratagem is the right hand of cunning.

  George William Curtis

  Hands, Stratagem

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• Many men have been capable of doing a wise thing, more a cunning thing, but very few a generous thing.

  Alexander Pope

  Wise, Honesty, Women

  Alexander Pope, Alexander Chalmers (1807). “A Supplementary Volume to the Works of Alexander Pope, Esq: Containing Pieces of Poetry, Not Inserted in Warburton's and Warton's Editions : and a Collection of Letters, Now First Published”, p.124

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• Cunning... is but the low mimic of wisdom.

  Plato

  Wisdom, Philosophical, Mimicking

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• Art is the final cunning of the human soul which would rather do anything than face the gods.

  Iris Murdoch

  Art, Soul, Finals

  Iris Murdoch (1999). “Existentialists and Mystics: Writings on Philosophy and Literature”, p.491, Penguin

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• Every man of action has a strong dose of egoism, pride, hardness, and cunning. But all those things will be regarded as high qualities if he can make them the means to achieve great ends.

  Giorgos Seferis

  Strong, Mean, Pride

  63 Copy quote