Jonathan Swift Quotes

Cunning has effect from the credulity of others, rather than from the abilities of those who are cunning. It requires no extraordinary talents to lie and deceive.

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.

In fact, to gull a fool seems to me an exploit worthy of a witty man.

For the task assigned them Men aren't smart enough or sly Any rogue can blind them With a clever lie.

One man may be more cunning than another, but no one can be more cunning than all the world.

Every man wishes to be wise, and they who cannot be wise are almost always cunning.

Cunning is a short blanket--if you pull it over your face, you expose your feet.

Tricks and treachery are the practice of fools, that don't have brains enough to be honest.

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

It takes a wise man to handle a lie, a fool had better remain honest.

A good liar must have a good memory. Kissinger is a stupendous liar with a remarkable memory.

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

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."

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

Cunning is the dwarf of wisdom.

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

You cannot play naive if you're not.

Dishonesty is so grasping it would deceive God himself, were it possible.

For me, the facts in anything are always secondary. You don't lie convincingly with the truth. You lie convincingly with being a good liar.

I have always observed that to succeed in the world one should seem a fool, but be wise.

Cunning leads to knavery. It is but a step from one to the other, and that very slippery. Only lying makes the difference; add that to cunning, and it is knavery.

With foxes we must play the fox.

O, what a tangled web we weave, When first we practice to deceive!

You can fool some of the people some of the time and some of the people all of the time. That’s usually enough.

We may employ artifice to deceive a rival, anything against our enemies.