Cunning Quotes - Page 7

• O Nature, and O soul of man! how far beyond all utterance are your linked analogies; not the smallest atom stirs or lives on matter, but has its cunning duplicate in mind.

  Herman Melville

  Men, Soul, Mind

  Herman Melville (2012). “Moby Dick (Illustrated & Annotated Edition)”, p.339, Jazzybee Verlag

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• A cunning woman is her own mistress because she confides in no one. She who deceives others anticipates deceit, and guards herself.

  Ninon de L'Enclos

  Mistress, Deceit, Deceiving

  26 Copy quote

• 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

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

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

  Jiddu Krishnamurti

  Clever, Convenience

  31 Copy quote

• 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

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• This knot of nature is so well tied that nobody was ever cunning enough to find the two ends.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Nature, Science, Two

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2008). “The Spiritual Emerson: Essential Works by Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.89, Penguin

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• The need always to lie and always to avoid the truth stripped everyone of what Custine called 'the two greatest gifts of God-the soul and the speech which communicates it.' People became hypocritical, cunning, mistrustful, cynical, silent, cruel, and indifferent to the fate of others as a result of the destruction of their own souls.

  Theodore Dalrymple

  Lying, Fate, Two

  14 Copy quote

• 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

  18 Copy quote

• A game of secret, cunning stratagems, in which only the fools who are fated to lose reveal their true aims or motives - even to themselves.

  Eugene O'Neill

  Love, Games, Secret

  Eugene O'Neill (1988). “More Stately Mansions”, p.160, Oxford University Press on Demand

  20 Copy quote

  Show source

• People who think of themselves as tough-minded and realistic, among them influential political leaders and businessmen as well as go-getters and hustlers of smaller caliber, tend to take it for granted that human nature is selfish and that life is a struggle in which only the fittest may survive. According to this philosophy, the basic law by which man must live, in spite of his surface veneer of civilization, is the law of the jungle. The "fittest" are those who can bring to the struggle superior force, superior cunning, and superior ruthlessness.

  S. I. Hayakawa

  Philosophy, Selfish, Struggle

  "Language in Thought and Action". Book by S. I. Hayakawa (p. 8), 1949.

  30 Copy quote

  Show source

• That humanity and sincerity which dispose men to resist injustice and tyranny render them unfit to cope with the cunning and power of those who are opposed to them. The friends of liberty trust to the professions of others because they are themselves sincere, and endeavour to secure the public good with the least possible hurt to its enemies, who have no regard to anything but their own unprincipled ends, and stick at nothing to accomplish them.

  William Hazlitt

  Hurt, Men, Humanity

  William Hazlitt (2016). “Characters of Shakespeare's Plays”, p.48, William Hazlitt

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• In the struggle for supremacy the various political parties outdo each other in trickery, deceit, cunning, and shady machinations, confident that the one who succeeds is sure to be hailed by the majority as the victor. That is the only god--Success. As to what expense, what terrible cost to character, is of no moment.

  Emma Goldman

  Party, Struggle, Character

  Emma Goldman (2015). “Anarchism: Top Crime Collections”, p.38, 谷月社

  10 Copy quote

  Show source

• Those who have the most cunning affect all their lives to condemn cunning; that they may make use of it on some great occasion, and to some great end.

  Francois de La Rochefoucauld

  Use, May, Ends

  4 Copy quote

• Through knowledge we behold the world's creation, How in his cradle first he fostered was; And judge of Nature's cunning operation, How things she formed of a formless mass.

  Edmund Spenser

  Judging, World, Firsts

  Edmund Spenser, George Gilfillan (1859). “The poetical works of Edmund Spenser: With memoir and critical dissertations”, p.46

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• Fashion is not style. Nay, we can say more: Fashion is instead of style. Style is an idiom springing spontaneously from the personality but deliberately maintained. If you have no personality, you may be able to save your face and, possibly, your entire anatomy by following the current fashion, but all we shall know about you, when we see you coming down the street, is that you had enough money to buy a glossy magazine and were sufficiently cunning to work out the cut of the garments shown therein.

  Quentin Crisp

  Fashion, Cutting, Work Out

  5 Copy quote

• 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.

  33 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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

  16 Copy quote

  Show source

• Search then the ruling passion; there alone, The wild are constant, and the cunning known; The fool consistent, and the false sincere; Priests, princes, women, no dissemblers here.

  Alexander Pope

  Passion, Fool, Sincere

  'Epistles to Several Persons' 'To Lord Cobham' (1734) l. 174

  20 Copy quote

  Show source

• A picture is an artificial work, outside nature. It calls for as much cunning as the commission of a crime.

  Edgar Degas

  Work Out, Deception, Crime

  13 Copy quote

• The air brightened, the running shadow patches were now the obverse, and it seemed to him that the fact that the day was clearing was another cunning stroke on the part of the foe, the fresh battle toward which he was carrying ancient wounds.

  William Faulkner

  Running, Air, Shadow

  William Faulkner (2016). “The Sound and the Fury (Third International Edition) (Norton Critical Editions)”, p.150, W. W. Norton & Company

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• It's easy to slide into believing you're the hypnotist here, the mirage master, the smart cookie who knows what's real and how all the tricks are done. The fact is you're still just another slack-jawed mark in the audience. No matter how good you are, this world is always going to be better at this game. It's more cunning than you are, it's faster and it's a whole lot more ruthless. All you can do is try to keep up, know your weak spots and never stop expecting the sucker punch.

  Tana French

  Real, Smart, Believe

  13 Copy quote

• Nowhere on the planet, nowhere in history, was there a regime more vicious, more bloodthirsty, and at the same time more cunning than the Bolshevik, the self-styled Soviet regime.

  Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

  War, Self, Cold

  9 Copy quote

• A man has made great progress in cunning when he does not seem too clever to others.

  Jean de la Bruyere

  Clever, Lying, Men

  4 Copy quote

• Stripped of the cunning artifices of the tailor, and standing forth in the garb of Eden - what a sorry set of round-shouldered, spindle-shanked, crane-necked varlets would civilized men appear!

  Herman Melville

  Sorry, Men, Eden

  Herman Melville (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Herman Melville (Illustrated)”, p.175, Delphi Classics

  4 Copy quote

  Show source