Walter Kirn Quotes

The bold are helpless without cleverness.

We avenge intellect when we dupe a fool, and it is a victory not to be despised for a fool is covered with steel and it is often very hard to find his vulnerable part.

I always believe that when you're not courageous, you become cunning.

It takes a very wise man to act the fool.

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."

A hare is not caught with a drum.

Machination is worth more than force.

There never yet has been a country which became powerful without knowledge. A man by his own strength alone cannot successfully combat a tiger, but by his intelligence, he can devise means to entrap him.

Those who tread among serpents, and along a tortuous path, must use the cunning of the serpent.

I'm smarter than the average; I just act dumb. That's what gets people's attention; you act dumb, you get people's attention.

I'm very good at manipulation.

You never show what you are going to do; you always do what the opponent doesn't expect.

In soccer, you have to be sly.

Sometimes a villain is very quiet - it makes them more deadly, more intellectual.

If someone underestimates you because you are warm and approachable, then you have an advantage over them.

Nobody likes to believe that they need anybody's help in anything, and the smarter you are - and I'm not smart - or the tougher you are - and at times I thought I was pretty tough - the more trouble you have.

If people think they've found my biggest weakness, let them try to take advantage of it.

A shinobi embodies an archetype that is able to use everything at their disposal. They don't pick a fighting style; they use every means and everything they can get their hands on. They exploit every weakness.

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 height of cleverness is to be able to conceal it.

It is in disputes as in armies, where the weaker side sets up false lights, and makes a great noise, to make the enemy believe them more numerous and strong than they really are.

The strong live off the weak and the clever live off the strong.

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

Cunning and treachery proceed from want of capacity.