Montesquieu Quotes

Cunning differs from wisdom as twilight from open day.

It pays to be obvious, especially if you have a reputation for subtlety.

I spent my whole life figuring out how to get out of work. I would say I was intelligent, but intelligent in a very surreptitious, invisible way.

A good general always makes you search for his weaknesses.

For me, it works to my advantage when people think I'm stupid. If somebody who disdains you or wants to control you underestimates you, you can play their game right back.

The idea of being charming and really nasty at the same time is a really difficult thing to do.

Always know I have something up my sleeve.

I've always got a couple of tricks up my sleeve.

He may look dumb, but that's just a disguise.

He uses his folly like a stalking-horse, and under the presentation of that he shoots his wit.

Ponder and deliberate before you make your move. He will conquer who has learned the artifice of deviation. Such is the art of maneuvering.

Don't think so much of your own Cunning, as to forget other Men's; a Cunning Man is overmatched by a cunning Man and a Half.

The cleverest character in comedy is the clown, for he who would make people take him for a fool, must not be one.

The height of cleverness is to be able to conceal it.

Nonsense," said Graff. "Ender always has plans within plans.

One of the marks of a truly great mind, I had discovered, is the ability to feign stupidity on demand.

But when the fox hath once got in his nose, He'll soon find means to make the body follow.

A slick way to outfigure a person is to get him figuring you figure he's figuring you're figuring he'll figure you aren't really figuring what you want him to figure you figure.

If we consider my latest book, Strategie de la deception, what we need to focus on are the other aspects of the same phenomenon.

The very cunning conceal their cunning; the indifferently shrewd boast of it.

There are two thoughts that will ensure success in all you do; (1) Don't tell everything you know, and (2) until Ace Ventura, no actor had considered talking through his ass.

The fact is, the Time Traveller was one of those men who are too clever to be believed: you never felt that you saw all round him; you always suspected some subtle reserve, some ingenuity in ambush, behind his lucid frankness.

A cunning mind emphatically delights in its own cunning, and is the ready prey of cunning.

And she’s very clever, Peeta. Well, she was. Until you outfoxed her

Dr. Thomas Fuller wrote: "With foxes, we must play the fox".