Cunning Quotes

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

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.

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

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.

The media are very smart, they're very cunning, and they're very dishonest.

To avoid each other, their eyes had developed an amazing mobility with all the cunning of enemies fearful of meeting each other head on.

Life, faculties, production-in other words, individuality, liberty, property-this is man. And in spite of the cunning of artful political leaders, these three gifts from God precede all human legislation, and are superior to it.

When everybody in the world loves one another, then the weak will not be overpowered by the strong, the few will not be oppressed by the many, the poor will not be mocked by the wealthy, the humble will not be disdained by the honoured, and the simple will not be deceived by the cunning.

The cunning of the fox is as murderous as the violence of the wolf.

This day relenting God Hath placed within my hand A wondrous thing; and God Be praised. At His command, Seeking His secret deeds With tears and toiling breath, I find thy cunning seeds, O million-murdering Death. I know this little thing A myriad men will save. O Death, where is thy sting? Thy victory, O Grave? Poem he wrote following the discovery that the malaria parasite was carried by the amopheline mosquito.

tyranny and injustice always produce cunning and falsehood.

Denied the outlet, through play, of his energies, he recoiled upon himself and developed his mental processes. He became cunning; he had idle time in which to devote himself to thoughts of trickery.

Many are the marvels of God's Creation, but none so marvelous as man. Or so cunning, for good and ill.

To see a man as beautiful – means to make him really beautiful. There is no cunning, no deceit; this happens every time, everyone knows that.

In order to get the power and retain it, it is necessary to love power; but love of power is not connected with goodness, but with qualities which are the opposite of goodness, such as pride, cunning, cruelty.

The terrorists are fighting freedom with all their cunning and cruelty because freedom is their greatest fear - and they should be afraid, because freedom is on the march.

In explaining any puzzling Washington phenomenon, always choose stupidity over conspiracy, incompetence over cunning. Anything else gives them too much credit.

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.

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

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.

The workmen's revolution, with the terrors of destruction and murder, not only threatens us, but we have already been living upon its verge during the last thirty years, and it is only by various cunning devices that we have been postponing the crisis. The hatred and contempt of the oppressed people are increasing, and the physical and moral strength of the richer classes are decreasing: the deceit which supports all this is wearing out, and the rich classes have nothing wherewith to comfort themselves.

If I want to act relaxed, it's going to take all my cunning, skill, and concentration.

All substances the cunning chemist Time Melts down into that liquor of my life.

Envy, like the worm, never runs but to the fairest fruit; like a cunning bloodhound, it singles out the fattest deer in the flock.

In youth, before I waxe'  d old, The blind boy,Venus' baby, For want of cunning made me bold, In bitter hive to grope for honey.

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.

Many men have been capable of doing a wise thing, more a cunning thing, but very few a generous thing.

I think schools, as they are now regulated, the hot-beds of vice and folly, and the knowledge of human nature supposedly attained there, merely cunning selfishness.

The broad effects which can be obtained by punishment in man and beast, are the increase of fear, the sharpening of the sense of cunning, the mastery of the desires; so it is that punishment tames man, but does not make him "better.".

The English are good at bad guys - the James Bond-style villain, cunning, slow-burning. The Americans are much more obvious about it.

The cunning tempter, by avoiding the grossness of vice, often silences objections.

Be audacious and cunning in your plans, firm and persevering in their execution, determined to find a glorious end.

Whoever appears to have much cunning has in reality very little; being deficient in the essential article, which is, to hide cunning.

It has been a sort of maxim, that the greatest art is to conceal art; but I know not how, among some people we meet with, their greatest cunning is to appear cunning.

Art is the final cunning of the human soul which would rather do anything than face the gods.

The Gospel of the army is cunning, as of all other human activities. The wisdom of the snake under the meekness of the sheep is what wins out. The first Commandment is--never let them get anything on you-- The second: Graft--get privileges others haven't got--worm yourself into confidence The Third--seem neat and prosperous--as if you had money in the bank

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

What I wanted was to die among strangers, untroubled, beneath a cloudless sky. And yet my desire differed from the sentiments of that ancient Greek who wanted to die under the brilliant sun. What I wanted was some natural, spontaneous suicide. I wanted a death like that of a fox, not yet well versed in cunning, that walks carelessly along a mountain path and is shot by a hunter because of its own stupidity.

However [political parties] may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion.

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.

This is the great fault of wine; it first trips up the feet: it is a cunning wrestler.

Nothing is more dreadful than private duels in America. The two adversaries attack each other like wild beasts. Then it is that they might well covet those wonderful properties of the Indians of the prairies - their quick intelligence, their ingenious cunning, their scent of the enemy.

Fancy what a game of chess would be if all the chessmen had passions and intellects, more or less small and cunning; if you were not only uncertain about your adversary's men, but a little uncertain also about your own. You would be especially likely to be beaten, if you depended arrogantly on your mathematical imagination, and regarded your passionate pieces with contempt. Yet this imaginary chess is easy compared with a game a man has to play against his fellow-men with other fellow-men for instruments.

Cancer is such a ruthless adversary because it behaves as if it has its own fiendishly cunning agenda.

We make no apology then for raising our voices loud to a world that is ripening in sin the lord has said,” Say nothing but repentance unto this generation; The adversary is subtle, cunning, he knows that he cannot induce good men and women immediately to do major evils so he moves slyly, whispering half truths until he has his intended victims following him finally he clamps his chains upon them and fetters them tight, and then he laughs at their discomfiture and their misery.

I was becoming more cunning than an animal in hiding my supply of morphine. A squirrel saving nuts is limited by its undeveloped imagination ... but I was not so handicapped. A squirrel, for example, is debarred from sending money to some greedy doctor or druggist and making arrangements to have a bit of powder sent each day by mail.

And Adam ruled, for he was the King. Until the day his will to be King deserted him. Then he died, food for a stronger. And the strongest was always the King, not by strength alone, but King by cunning and luck and strength together. Among the rats.

Every man of action has a strong dose of egoism, pride, hardness, and cunning. But all those things will be regarded as high qualities if he can make them the means to achieve great ends.

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.

A proper secrecy is the only mystery of able men; mystery is the only secrecy of weak and cunning ones.