Mischief Quotes - Page 8

• It did not look like the work of God, but it might have represented the handicraft of a God with a joyous sense of humor, a dancing God who loved mischief as much as prayer, and playfulness as much as mischief.

  Pat Conroy

  Prayer, Dancing, Looks

  Pat Conroy (2010). “South of Broad”, p.202, Atlantic Books Ltd

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• There is an unlucky tendency ... to allow every new invention to add to life's complications, and every new power to increase life's hustling; so that, unless we can dominate the mischief, we are really the worse off instead of the better.

  Vernon Lee

  Hustle, Progress, Add

  Vernon Lee (1904). “Hortus vitae : essays on the garden of life”

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• Anger is an affected madness, compounded of pride and folly, and an intention to do commonly more mischief than it can bring to pass; and, without doubt, of all passions which actually disturb the mind of man, it is most in our power to extinguish, at least, to suppress and correct, our anger.

  Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon

  Anger, Passion, Pride

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• If solitude deprives of the benefit of advice, it also excludes from the mischief of flattery. But the absence of others' applause is generally supplied by the flattery of one's own breast.

  William Benton Clulow

  Advice, Solitude, Benefits

  William Benton Clulow (1843). “Aphorisms and Reflections: A Miscellany of Thought and Opinion”, p.141

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• Milk-livered man,
  That bear'st a cheek for blows, a head for wrongs;
  Who hast not in thy brows an eye discerning
  Thine honor from thy suffering; [that not know'st
  Fools do those villains pity who are punished
  Ere they have done their mischief. Where's thy drum?
  France spreads his banners in our noiseless land,
  With plumed helm thy state begins to threat,
  Whilst thou, a moral fool, sits still and cries
  'Alack, why does he so?']

  William Shakespeare

  Eye, Blow, Men

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• I'd rather call myself a mischief-maker, an imp, rather than a satirist. Satirist sounds so self important. Plus no one is calling himself an imp right now. It makes me feel special.

  Mo Rocca

  Self, Special, Important

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• It were well if there were fewer heroes; for I scarcely ever heard of any, excepting Hercules, but did more mischief than good. These overgrown mortals commonly use their will with their right hand; and their reason with their left.

  Jeremy Collier

  Hero, Hands, Use

  Jeremy Collier (1722). “Essays Upon Several Moral Subjects: In Two Parts. ...”

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• When I meet gay men anywhere in the world, there is a spontaneity and a spirit of fun and mischief that lesbians seem incapable of.

  Camille Paglia

  Fun, Gay, Men

  Camille Paglia (2011). “Vamps & Tramps: New Essays”, p.78, Vintage

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• A soul which is conversant with virtue is like an ever flowing source, for it is pure and tranquil and potable and sweet and communicative (social) and rich and harmless and free from mischief.

  Epictetus

  Sweet, Soul, Rich

  Epictetus (2012). “Enchiridion”, p.33, Courier Corporation

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• Religion hides many mischiefs from suspicion.

  Christopher Marlowe

  Atheism, Suspicion

  Christopher Marlowe (2014). “Christopher Marlowe: Four Plays: Tamburlaine, Parts One and Two, The Jew of Malta, Edward II and Dr Faustus”, p.230, Bloomsbury Publishing

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• Oh, treacherous night thou lendest thy ready veil to every treason, and teeming mischief's beneath thy shade.

  Aaron Hill

  Night, Veils, Shade

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• His subject is the "Origin of Species," & not the origin of Organization; & it seems a needless mischief to have opened the latter speculation at all.

  Harriet Martineau

  Organization, Latter, Origin Of Species

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• The people of those foreign countries are very, very ignorant. They looked curiously at the costumes we had brought from the wilds of America. They observed that we talked loudly at table sometimes. They noticed that we looked out for expenses and got what we conveniently could out of a franc, and wondered where in the mischief we came from. In Paris they just simply opened their eyes and stared when we spoke to them in French! We never did succeed in making those idiots understand their own language.

  Mark Twain

  Country, Eye, Paris

  Mark Twain (1871). “The Innocents Abroad; Or, The New Pilgrim's Progress ...”, p.379

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• If anyone thinks he can help you, he will inevitably mislead you, and the less phony he is; the more powerful he is, the more enlightened he is, the more misery and mischief he will create for you.

  U.G. Krishnamurti

  Powerful, Thinking, Helping

  U. G. Krishnamurti, Rodney Arms (2002). “The Mystique of Enlightenment: The Radical Ideas of U. G. Krishnamurti”, p.146, Sentient Publications

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• Then grew a wrinkle on fair Venus' brow, The amber sweet of love is turn'd to gall! Gloomy was Heaven; bright Phoebus did avow He would be coy, and would not love at all; Swearing no greater mischief could be wrought, Than love united to a jealous thought.

  Robert Greene

  Jealousy, Sweet, Love Is

  Robert Greene, George Peele (1861). “The dramatic and poetical works of Robert Greene & George Peele: with memoirs of the authors and notes”, p.311

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• These trifles will lead to serious mischief.
  [Lat., Hae nugae seria ducent
  In mala.]

  Horace

  Serious, Trifles

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• Greater mischief happens often from folly, meanness, and vanity than from the greater sins of avarice and ambition.

  Edmund Burke

  Ambition, Vanity, Sin

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• To hint at a fault does more mischief than speaking out; for whatever is left for the imagination to finish will not fail to be overdone.

  Hannah More

  Imagination, Criticism, Faults

  Hannah More (1835). “The Works of Hannah More”, p.354

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• Many a wretch has rid on a hurdle who has done less mischief than utterers of forged tales, coiners of scandal, and clippers of reputation.

  Richard Brinsley Sheridan

  Rumor, Done, Scandal

  Richard Brinsley Sheridan, J. W. Lake (1838). “The school for scandal: a comedy in five acts”, p.54

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• The mischief springs from the power which the monied interest derives from a paper currency which they are able to control, from the multitude of corporations with exclusive privileges which they have succeeded in obtaining, and unless you become more watchful in your states and check this spirit of monopoly and thirst for exclusive privileges you will in the end find that the most important powers of government have been given or bartered away.

  Andrew Jackson

  Spring, Government, Important

  John Stilwell Jenkins, Andrew Jackson (2011). “Life and Public Services of Gen. Andrew Jackson, Seventh President of the United States: Including the Most Important of His State Papers”, p.366, New Leaf Publishing Group

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• At boarding schools of every description, the relaxation of the junior boys is mischief; and of the senior, vice.

  Mary Wollstonecraft

  Senior, School, Boys

  Mary Wollstonecraft (1999). “A Vindication of the Rights of Men; A Vindication of the Rights of Woman; An Historical and Moral View of the French Revolution”, p.243, OUP Oxford

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• Power is the test. Some, once they have it, are content to buy the show of liking, and punish those who withhold it; then you have a despot. But some keep a true eye for how they seem to others, and care about it, which holds them back from much mischief.

  Mary Renault

  Eye, Care, Tests

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• But war's a game, which, were their subjects wise, Kings should not play at. Nations would do well To extort their truncheons from the puny hands Of heroes, whose infirm and baby minds Are gratified with mischief, and who spoil, Because men suffer it, their toy the world.

  William Cowper

  Wise, Baby, Kings

  1785 The Task, bk.5,'The Winter Morning Walk', l.187-92.

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• For liberty hath a sharp and double edge, fit only to be handled by just and virtuous men; to bad and dissolute, it becomes a mischief unwieldy in their own hands.

  John Milton

  Men, Hands, Liberty

  John Milton (1851). “The Prose Works of John Milton: With a Biographical Introduction”, p.245

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• Lust is a strong tower of mischief, and hath in it many defenders, as neediness, anger, paleness, discord, love, and longing.

  Diogenes

  Strong, Lust, Towers

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