Mischief Quotes - Page 9

• 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

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• I was not yet three years old when my mother determined to send one of my elder sisters to learn to read at a school for girls we call the Amigas. Affection, and mischief, caused me to follow her, and when I observed how she was being taught her lessons I was so inflamed with the desire to know how to read, that deceiving - for so I knew it to be - the mistress, I told her that my mother had meant for me to have lessons too. ... I learned so quickly that before my mother knew of it I could already read.

  Juana Inés de la Cruz

  Girl, Mother, School

  83 Copy quote

• 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”

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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

  11 Copy quote

• 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

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• Revolt in whatever way we want, with the spontaneity of the London rioters, with the certainty and willingness to die of religious fundamentalists or with the twinkling mischief of the trickster... Take to the streets, together, with the understanding that the feeling that you aren't being heard or seen or represented isn't psychosis; it's government policy.

  Russell Brand

  Religious, Psychosis, Government

  "Wild emotions are all very well, Russell Brand, but then what?" by Nick Cohen, www.theguardian.com. October 26, 2013.

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

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

  Horace

  Serious, Trifles

  8 Copy quote

• 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.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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

  12 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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

  16 Copy quote

• Not to mention the CIA which should be, I think, dissolved, it's of no use - a great source of mischief - I don't see any point to the FBI.

  Jerry Brown

  Thinking, Use, Source

  4 Copy quote

• When Philip had news brought him of divers and eminent successes in one day, "O Fortune!" said he, "for all these so great kindnesses do me some small mischief.

  Plutarch

  Kindness, One Day, News

  Plutarch (1871). “Plutarch's Morals”, p.194

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• Sex was like Disneyland to her: an allotment of organized wonders and legal mischief.

  Martin Amis

  Sex, Wonder, Allotments

  4 Copy quote

• Halloween's eve is also known as mischief night. Kids are supposed go around playing pranks tonight. That's great, just what teenagers need -- another excuse to be jerks.

  Craig Ferguson

  Halloween, Teenager, Kids

  7 Copy quote

• 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

  4 Copy quote

• Yeah, I've always been accused of having a sense of mischief and I'm very flattered that you say you can see it in the roles I play, because I think that's important, even if I do play intense characters, like especially Christine Cagney.

  Sharon Gless

  Character, Thinking, Play

  7 Copy quote

• 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

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Certainty is the mother of repose, and therefore the common law aims at certainty.

  Philip Yorke, 1st Earl of Hardwicke

  Mother, Law, Common

  "The Dictionary of Legal Quotations". Book by James William Norton-Kyshe, 1904.

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• Passions are like storms which, full of present mischief, serve to purify the atmosphere.

  Andrew Michael Ramsay

  Passion, Atmosphere, Storm

  5 Copy quote

• No one has something original or important to say will willing we run the risk of being misunderstood; people who write obscurely are either unskilled in writing or up to mischief

  William Zinsser

  Running, Writing, People

  4 Copy quote

• I work very much on the principle that anything created by mankind has mischief and error hardwired into its inception.

  Jasper Fforde

  Errors, Principles, Mankind

  4 Copy quote

• Like a chastity belt, the package tour keeps you out of mischief but a bit restive for wondering what you missed.

  Peg Bracken

  Travel, Wonder, Belts

  Peg Bracken (1973). “But I Wouldn't Have Missed it for the World!: The Pleasures and Perils of an Unseasoned Traveler”, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt P

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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

  14 Copy quote

  Show source

• Obstinacy, sir, is certainly a great vice; and in the changeful state of political affairs it is frequently the cause of great mischief. It happens, however, very unfortunately, that almost the whole line of the great and masculine virtues--constancy, gravity, magnanimity, fortitude, fidelity, and firmness--are closely allied to this disagreeable quality, of which you have so just an abhorrence; and in their excess all these virtues very easily fall into it.

  Edmund Burke

  Fall, Political, Quality

  William Pitt (Earl of Chatham), Edmund Burke, Thomas Erskine Baron Erskine, Jean Gabriel Peltier (1834). “Celebrated Speeches of Chatham, Burke, and Erskine: To which is Added the Arguement of Mr. Mackintosh in the Case of Peltier”, p.87

  6 Copy quote

  Show source