Richard Steele Quotes

The whole power of cunning is privative; to say nothing, and to do nothing , is the utmost of its reach. Yet men, thus narrow by nature and mean by art, are sometimes able to rise by the miscarriages of bravery and the openness of integrity, and, watching failures and snatching opportunities, obtain advantages which belong to higher characters.

A flow of words is a sure sign of duplicity.

Cunning... is but the low mimic of wisdom.

The art of using deceit and cunning grow continually weaker and less effective to the user.

The art of pleasing is the art of deception.

talent to hoodwink the blind, and with a facility of speech well calculated to deceive the ignorant …

The art of illusion is grace itself.

The cleverness of avarice is but the cunning of imbecility.

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

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

Undoubtedly ... there is a meanness in all the arts which ladies sometimes condescend to employ for captivation. What bears affinity to cunning is despicable.

A man has made great progress in cunning when he does not seem too clever to others.

Weaseling out of things is important to learn. It's what separates us from the animals... except the weasel.

Cheating is a sin, but honest cunning is simply prudence. It is a virtue. To be sure, it has a likeness to roguery, but that cannot be helped. He who has not learned to practice it is a fool.

Dissimulation is innate in woman, and almost as much a quality of the stupid as of the clever.

People had figured out all sorts of ways to make things seem different than they truly were.

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

Be cunning and full of tricks and your people shall never be destroyed.

Those who have the most cunning affect all their lives to condemn cunning; that they may make use of it on some great occasion, and to some great end.

Cunning is neither the consequence of sense, nor does it give sense. A proof that it is not sense, is that cunning people never imagine that others can see through them. It is the consequence of weakness.

Cunning proceeds from want of capacity.

If you can't hide what you are going to do, do it so everybody thinks you are a fool.

I am as vigilant as a cat to steal cream.

Therefore, a prudent ruler ought not to keep faith when by so doing it would be against his interest, and when the reasons which made him bind himself no longer exist. If men were all good, this precept would not be a good one; but as they are bad, and would not observe their faith with you, so you are not bound to keep faith with them.

The great secret of the successful fool is that he's no fool at all