Charles Caleb Colton Quotes

I am always afraid of a fool. One cannot be sure that he is not a knave as well.

Now I will show myselfTo have more of the serpent than the dove;That is--more knave than fool.

The world is made up, for the most part, of fools and knaves, both irreconcileable foes to truth.

None are so busy as the fool and the knave.

Knaves starve not in the land of fools.

Credulity is always a ridiculous, often a dangerous failing: it has made of many a clever man, a fool; and of many a good man, a knave.

There are more fools than knaves in the world, else the knaves would not have enough to live upon.

Politics will sooner or later make fools of everybody.

Ninety-nine percent of the people in the world are fools and the rest of us are in great danger of contagion.

There can scarcely be a more difficult thing than to play a double game. It is dangerous, and it is at times, a nice point to draw the distinction between such a game and dishonor.

He would double-cross and destroy the reputation of anybody.

If you don't allow for self-serving bias in the conduct of others, you are, again, a fool.

A system-grinder hates the truth.

Knavery is supple, and can bend, but honesty is firm and upright and yields not.

Old birds like Orlovius are wonderfully easy to lead by the beak, because a combination of decency and sentimentality is exactly equal to being a fool.

You can forgive a fool because he only runs in one direction and doesn't deceive anybody. It's the deceivers who make you feel bad.

Never saw the branch you are sittin on, unless they are trying to hang you from it.

A man who flatters a woman hopes either to find her a fool or to make her one.

Knavery is the best defense against a knave.

So, that’s what they wanted: lies. Beautiful lies. That’s what they needed. People were fools. It was going to be easy for me.

Full of criss-crossed fits, you lie all the time. Your tongue should be embarrassed, you're a threat to mankind.

Cunning and treachery are the offspring of incapacity.

In order to be profoundly dishonest, a person must have one of two qualities: either he is unscrupulously ambitious, or he is unswervingly egocentric.