Knaves Quotes - Page 5

• Aha! What villains are these, that trespass upon my private lands! Come to scorn at my fall, perchance? Draw, you knaves, you dogs!

  J. K. Rowling

  Dog, Fall, Land

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• When I contemplate the natural dignity of man; when I feel (for Nature has not been kind enough to me to blunt my feelings) for the honor and happiness of its character, I become irritated at the attempt to govern mankind by force and fraud, as if they were all knaves and fools, and can scarcely avoid disgust at those who are thus imposed upon.

  Thomas Paine

  Character, Men, Feelings

  Thomas Paine (1852). “The Rights of Man: With a Brief Historical Preface”, p.32

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• If I get clear of my debts, I care not though men call me bold, glib of tongue, audacious, impudent, shameless, a fabricator of falsehoods, inventor of words, practised in lawsuits, a pettifogger, a rattle, a fox, a sharper, a knave, a dissembler, a slippery fellow, an imposter, a rogue that deserves the cat-o-nine-tails, a blackguard, a twister, a licker-up of hashes; they call all this when they meet me, if they please, I care not.

  Aristophanes

  Cat, Men, Tails

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• The best way to deceive a knave is to tell him the truth.

  Ivan Panin

  Deception, Way, Deceiving

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• A king may spille, a king may save; A king may make of lorde a knave; And of a knave a lorde also.

  John Gower

  Kings, May

  John Gower (1857). “Confessio amantis”, p.147

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• He that dies a martyr proves that he was not a knave, but by no means that he was not a fool.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Mean, Atheism, Fool

  Charles Caleb Colton (1824). “Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think”, p.181

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• Alas! how has the social spirit of Christianity been perverted by fools at one time, and by knaves and bigots at another; by the self-tormentors of the cell, and the all-tormentors of the conclave!

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Self, Cells, Fool

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• Revenge is a debt, in the paying of which the greatest knave is honest and sincere, and, so far as he is able, punctual.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Revenge, Debt, Able

  Charles Caleb Colton (1824). “Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think”, p.124

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• It might be argued, that to be a knave is the gift of fortune, but to play the fool to advantage it is necessary to be a learned man.

  William Hazlitt

  Men, Play, Might

  William Hazlitt (2015). “Delphi Collected Works of William Hazlitt (Illustrated)”, p.1317, Delphi Classics

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• Avoid the politic, the factious fool,
  The busy, buzzing, talking harden'd knave;
  The quaint smooth rogue that sins against his reason,
  Calls saucy loud sedition public zeal,
  And mutiny the dictates of his spirit.

  Thomas Otway

  Talking, Mutiny, Rogues

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• Riches are oft by guilt and baseness earn'd;
  Or dealt by chance to shield a lucky knave,
  Or throw a cruel sunshine on a fool.
  But for one end, one much-neglected use,
  Are riches worth your care; (for nature's wants
  Are few, and without opulence supplied;)
  This noble end is, to produce the soul;
  To show the virtues in their fairest light;
  To make humanity the minister
  Of bounteous Providence; and teach the breast
  The generous luxury the gods enjoy.

  John Armstrong

  Sunshine, Light, Luxury

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• It should seem that indolence itself would incline a person to be honest, as it requires infinitely greater pains and contrivance to be a knave.

  William Shenstone

  Honesty, Pain, Being Honest

  William Shenstone (1804). “Essays on Men and Manners”, p.151

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• This is some fellow,
  Who having been prais'd for bluntness, doth affect
  A saucy roughness and constrains the garb
  Quite from his nature: he can't flatter, he!
  An honest mind and plain,--he must speak truth!
  And they will take it so; if not he's plain.
  These kind of knaves I know, which in this plainness
  Harbor more craft, and far corrupter ends,
  Than twenty silly, ducking observants,
  That stretch their duty nicely.

  William Shakespeare

  Silly, Mind, Crafts

  William Shakespeare (1866). “A Treasury of Thought from Shakespeare: The Choice Sayings of His Principal Characters, Analytically and Alphabetically Arranged”, p.38

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• Though we may not desire to detect fraud, we must not, on that account, endeavor to be insensible of it, for, as cunning is a crime, so is duplicity a fault, and if men dread knaves, they also despise fools.

  Norm MacDonald

  Men, Duplicity, Desire

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• We have not the slightest idea that women are made of such light material that the breath of any fool or knave may blow them on the rocks of ruin.

  Jane Swisshelm

  Women, Blow, Ideas

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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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• In the mass of mankind, I fear, there is too great a majority of fools and knaves; who, singly from their number, must to a certain degree be respected, though they are by no means respectable.

  Lord Chesterfield

  Respect, Mean, Numbers

  Lord Chesterfield, David Roberts (2008). “Lord Chesterfield's Letters”, p.125, Oxford University Press

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• An honest man, sir, is able to speak for himself, when a knave is not.

  William Shakespeare

  Honesty, Men, Able

  William Shakespeare (2016). “King Henry IV Part 2: Third Series”, p.389, Bloomsbury Publishing

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• A right mind and generous affection hath more beauty and charms than all other symmetries in the world besides; and a grain of honesty and native worth is of more value than all the adventitious ornaments, estates, or preferments; for the sake of which some of the better sort so oft turn knaves.

  Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 7th Earl of Shaftesbury

  Honesty, Mind, Ornaments

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• Money does all things,--for it gives and it takes away; it makes honest men and knaves, fools and philosophers; and so forward, mutatis mutandis, to the end of the chapter.

  Roger L'Estrange

  Money, Men, Giving

  Sir Roger L'Estrange (1714). “Fables of Æsop and other eminent mythologists: with morals and reflections”, p.414

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• That knave preserves the pearl in his purse who considers all people purse-cuts.

  Saadi

  Cutting, People, Pearls

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• The great chastisement of a knave is not to be known, but to know himself.

  Jean Antoine Petit-Senn

  Chastisement, Knows, Known

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• Titles are marks of honest men, and wise; The fool or knave that wears a title lies.

  Edward Young

  Wise, Honesty, Lying

  Edward Young, Sir Herbert Croft, Sir Herbert Croft (5th bart), Samuel Johnson (1822). “The Poems of Edward Young ...”, p.134

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• Who friendship with a knave hath made, Is judged a partner in the trade.

  John Gay

  Made, Partners, Trade

  John Gay, O. F. Owen (1857). “The fables of John Gay illustrated”, p.80

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• The Man who pretends to be a modest enquirer into the truth of a self-evident thing is a Knave.

  William Blake

  Men, Self, He Man

  William Blake (1966). “Complete Writings: With Variant Readings”, p.386, Oxford University Press, USA

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