Leo XIII Quotes

Too often in politics the stiletto is slipped between your shoulder blades, while its wielder continues to smile sweetly.

He who knows how to flatter also knows how to slander.

When a sinister person means to be your enemy, they always start by trying to become your friend.

Ignorant, restless desperadoes, without conscience or principles, have led a deluded multitude to follow their standard under pretense of grievances which have no existence but in their imaginations.

Confound their politics, Frustrate their knavish tricks.

Politics—where they pat you on the back so they'll know where to stick the knife.

Politics, so far as mobilizing support is concerned, represents the art of calculated cheating, or more precisely how to cheat without being really caught

The king is so subtle with his words that he would confound the apostolic religion itself. He will find the weak points of the pope's character and will trip him up to his destruction.

Station is the paradox of the world of my people, the limitation of our power within the hunger for power. It is gained through treachery and invites treachery against those who gain it. Those most powerful in Menzoberranzan spend their days watching over their shoulders, defending against the daggers that would find their backs. Their deaths usually come from the front." -Drizzt Do'Urden

Hypocrites are more enraging than extremists, as every campaign operative knows.

In Washington, the ostensible story is rarely the real story.

General Biassou is a simple, vulnerable man without much knowledge, and he is easily led astray by the scoundrels surrounding him. He has sworn eternal hatred for me, and for some time now, he has been trying to destroy me using whatever means he can.

Mastered by deadly passions, Rigaud has dug a gulf at your feet; he has laid snares which you could not avoid. He wished to have you as partisans in his revolt; and to succeed in his object, he has employed falsehood and seduction.

A politician normally flatters you in your face and criticises you behind your back.

Those who were behind conspiracies against me and my government will be exposed.

Dealing with a government with whom mendacity is a science is an extremely difficult and delicate matter.

The same man cannot be both Friend and Flatterer.

Crows pick out the eyes of the dead, when the dead have no longer need of them; but flatterers mar the soul of the living, and her eyes they blind.

If he be so resolved, I can o'ersway him; for he loves to hear That unicorns may be betrayed with trees And bears with glasses, elephants with holes, Lions with toils, and men with flatterers

Keep thy smooth words and juggling homilies for those who know thee not.

The other day John McCain appeared on the show 'The View,' and one of the hosts accused McCain of being a liar. Yeah, she may have a point, because McCain started the interview by saying, 'Ladies, you look beautiful.'

The reason that adulation is not displeasing is that, though untrue, it shows one to be of consequence enough, in one way or other, to induce people to lie.

They do not abuse the king that flatter him. For flattery is the bellows blows up sin; The thing the which is flattered, but a spark To which that blast gives heat and stronger glowing.