Cunning Quotes - Page 13

• The daily employment of cunning marks a little mind, it generally happens that those who resort to it in one respect to protect themselves lay themselves open to attack in another.

  Francois de La Rochefoucauld

  Mind, Employment, Littles

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• What man so wise, what earthly wit so ware,
  As to descry the crafty cunning train,
  By which deceit doth mask in visor fair,
  And cast her colours dyed deep in grain,
  To seem like truth, whose shape she well can feign,
  And fitting gestures to her purpose frame,
  The guiltless man with guile to entertain?

  Edmund Spenser

  Wise, Men, Deceit

  Edmund Spenser, Roy Maynard (1999). “Fierce Wars and Faithful Loves: Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queene”, p.125, Canon Press & Book Service

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• The devil comes and soon my subconscious and conscious might start to brawl. As this cunning demon takes me as its voodoo doll.

  Fergie

  Devil, Dolls, Might

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• Friend, my enemy, I call you out. You, you, you there with a bad thorn in your side. You there, my friend, with a winning air. Who pawned the lie on me when he looked brassly at my shyest secret. With my whole heart under your hammer. That though I loved him for his faults as much as for his good. My friend were an enemy upon stilts with his head in a cunning cloud. -Dylan Thomas

  Dylan Thomas

  Lying, Heart, Winning

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• Wages is a cunning device of the devil, for the benefit of tender consciences, who would retain all the advantages of the slave system, without the expense, trouble, and odium of being slave-holders.

  Orestes Brownson

  Wisdom, Devil, Wages

  Richard M. Reinsch, II, Orestes Augustus Brownson (2016). “Seeking the Truth: An Orestes Brownson Anthology”, p.171, CUA Press

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• This is the great evil in wine, it first seizes the feet; it is a cunning wrestler.
  [Lat., Magnum hoc vitium vino est,
  Pedes captat primum; luctator dolosu est.]

  Plautus

  Wine, Feet, Evil

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• Discretion is the perfection of reason, and a guide to us in all the duties of life; cunning is a kind of instinct, that only looks out after our immediate interests and welfare. Discretion is only found in men of strong sense and good understanding; cunning is often to be met with in brutes themselves, and in persons who are but the fewest removes from them.

  Jean de la Bruyere

  Strong, Men, Perfection

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• Behavior of such cunning cruelty that only a human being could have thought of or contrived it we call 'inhuman,' revealing thus some pathetic ideal standard for our species that survives all betrayals.

  Rose Macaulay

  Betrayal, Behavior, Standards

  Rose Macaulay (1926). “A Casual Commentary”

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• For the multitude of worldly friends profiteth not, nor may strong helpers anything avail, nor wise counselors give profitable counsel, nor the cunning of doctors give consolation, nor riches deliver in time of need, nor a secret place to defend, if Thou, Lord, do not assist, help, comfort, counsel, inform, and defend.

  Thomas a Kempis

  God, Wise, Strong

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• What is denominated discretion in man we call cunning in brutes.

  Jean de La Fontaine

  Men, Brutes, Discretion

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• Picture this," said Magnus. "Me with a little monkey friend. I could teach him tricks. I could dress him in a cunning jacket. He could look just like me! But more monkey-shaped.

  Cassandra Clare

  Dresses, Looks, Littles

  Cassandra Clare, Sarah Rees Brennan (2013). “What Really Happened in Peru”, p.10, Simon and Schuster

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• I love enemies, though not in the Christian way. They amuse me, excite my blood. Being always on one’s guard, catching every glance, the significance of every word, guessing at intentions, frustrating their plots, pretending to be tricked, and suddenly, with a shove, upturning the whole enormous and arduously built edifice of their cunning and schemes—that’s what I call life.

  Mikhail Lermontov

  Christian, Blood, Enemy

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• A player who dives and wins a penalty in Portugal, or Spain or Italy is considered clever, experienced, cunning, someone who understands the game. In England a player who wins a penalty like that is a cheat.

  Jose Mourinho

  Soccer, Football, Clever

  "'Why go for 5-0 when 2-0 will do?' says Jose". Interview with David Shonfield, www.theguardian.com. January 14, 2006.

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• You say I have the most wicked face of any woman. You say my hair is like the serpent locks of Medusa, that my eyes have the cruel cunning of Borgia, that my mouth is the mouth of the sinister scheming Delilah, that my hands are like the talons of a Circe or the blood-bathing Elizabeth Bathory. And then you ask me of my soul—you wish to know if it is reflected in my face.

  Theda Bara

  Eye, Hair, Blood

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• In the same way the eminence attaching to the mere possession of great wealth disappoints us nine times out of ten, especially if the wealth has been accumulated rapidly. For great wealth is accumulated rapidly by cunning or chance, or a mixture of the two. Cunning has nothing to do with high qualities; it is rather a presumption against them; while chance has nothing to do with them either. Therefore it is that men are always complaining after meeting So-and-so, that he seemed to be astonishingly stupid, though he made a million in ten years and started as a pauper.

  Hilaire Belloc

  Stupid, Men, Years

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• Cunning cheats itself wholly, and other people partially.

  Miguel de Cervantes

  People, Cheat

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• The cleverness of avarice is but the cunning of imbecility.

  Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton

  Cleverness, Misers, Imbecility

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• Wise men have but few confidants, and cunning ones none.

  Josh Billings

  Confidence, Wise, Men

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• Cardinal Mazarin was a great knave, but no great man; much more cunning than able; scandalously false and dirtily greedy.

  Lord Chesterfield

  Character, Men, Greed

  Lord Philip Dormer Stanhope Chesterfield, Eugenia Stanhope (1827). “Letters Written by the Earl of Chesterfield to His Son”, p.355

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• Truth, but not the whole truth, must be the invariable principle of every man who hath either religion, honour, or prudence. Thosewho violate it, may be cunning, but they are not able. Lies and perfidy are the refuge of fools and cowards.

  Lord Chesterfield

  Truth, Lying, Men

  Lord Chesterfield (1998). “Lord Chesterfield's Letters”, p.298, OUP Oxford

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• Self-love is more cunning than the most cunning man in the world.

  Francois de La Rochefoucauld

  Love Is, Men, Self

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• Those who are overreached by our cunning are far from appearing to us as ridiculous as we appear to ourselves when the cunning of others has overreached us.

  Francois de La Rochefoucauld

  Ridiculous, Appearing

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• It is sometimes necessary to play the fool to avoid being deceived by cunning men.

  Francois de La Rochefoucauld

  Men, Play, Cunning Man

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• Cunning pays no regard to virtue, and is but the low mimic of reason.

  Henry St John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke

  Pay, Virtue, Reason

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• It would be doing cunning too much honor to call it an inferior species of true discernment.

  Fulke Greville, 1st Baron Brooke

  Honor, Would Be, Too Much

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