No man is so much a fool as not to have wit enough sometimes to be a knave; nor any so cunning a knave as not to have the weakness sometimes to play the fool. (Marquis of Halifax)
Cunning Quotes
She knew her distance and did angle for me, Madding my eagerness with her restraint, As all impediments on fancy’s course Are motives of more fancy; and in fine, her infinite cunning, with her modern grace Subdued me to her rate. (All’s Well That Ends Well)
I have a plan so cunning you could stick a tail on it and call it a weasel.
More are taken in by hope than by cunning.
There is a cunning which we in England call the turning of the cat in the pan.
In things that a man would not be seen in himself, it is a point of cunning to borrow the name of the world; as to say, “The world says,” or “There is a speech abroad.”
There is a cunning which we in England call “the turning of the cat in the pan;” which is, when that which a man says to another, he lays it as if another had said it to him.
It is a good point of cunning for a man to shape the answer he would have in his own words and propositions, for it makes the other party stick the less.
Cunning, n. The faculty that distinguishes a weak animal or person from a strong one. It brings its possessor much mental satisfaction and great material adversity. An Italian proverb says: “The furrier gets the skins of more foxes than asses.”
There is no Heaven, there is no Hell; These are the dreams of baby minds; Tools of the wily Fetisheer, To fright the fools his cunning blinds.