Francis Quarles Quotes

Trickery succeeds sometimes, but it always commits suicide.

In King’s Landing, there are two sorts of people. The players and the pieces… Every man’s a piece to start with, and every maid as well. Even some who think they are players." Petyr Baelish

The most notorious swindler has not assumed so many names as self-love, nor is so much ashamed of his own. She calls herself patriotism, when at the same time she is rejoicing at just as much calamity to her native country as will introduce herself into power, and expel her rivals.

Maybe because I'm a nice and sweet person in life, I like the darker roles. The really dark one is Lady Macbeth.

Politics: a Trojan horse race

The ambition and focus that propel you to success can also be your downfall.

Politics, to Ariel Sharon, was like a Ferris wheel. But he didn't make do with just staying on the wheel; he did all he could to climb to the top and stay there.

Ego is certainly there in many of the greatest and most dizzying tales of success - but it's there in some of the greatest stories of failure and self-implosion as well.

People are always trying to be on top. And not always with a macabre agenda, but I think that people are desperately trying to remain in control, rather than being honest.

When we weren't being transcendent we specialized in self-inflicted disaster.

Power is all. Another falsification; I do not tell how I gain or maintain it. I only record the ginger stroll through the vaguely fetid garden of its rewards.

Took awhile, got the jokers out of the deck now, I'm holdin all the cards and niggas wanna play chess now

Politics is the art of achieving prestige and power without merit.

He was giving me enough rope to hang myself with. Apparently he didn't realize that once a noose is tied it will fit one neck as easily as another.

destruction is ultimately self-destruction.

Mine would be, "We will stand together, he and I. One in victory, one in shame. Only then can I truly own the power of Halla. How sweet the moment of revelation will be, when he learns that he handed it to me." -SD the Pilgrims of Rayne

Fine wits destroy themselves with their own plots, in meddling with great affairs of state.

To someone seeking power, the poorest man is the most useful.

It is curious how vanity helps the successful man and wrecks the failure.

Pride breakfasted with plenty, dined with poverty, and supped with infamy.

Next out of the hall came the sisters and their husbands. Before I could say anything, the captain had clamped his hand over my mouth and was lifting me off my feet as I kicked. Cornwall made as to draw his dagger, but Regan pulled him away. "You've just won a kingdom, my duke, killing vermin is a servant's task. Leave the bitter fool stew in his own bile." She wanted me. It was clear.

You might as well aim high. Why shoot yourself in the foot when you can shoot yourself in the head?

I suppose it’s comfort, perhaps a sense of self-control, doing worse things to yourself than the world will ever dare inflict.

It is easier to deceive yourself, and to do so unperceived, than to deceive another.

There's room at the top they are telling you still, but first you must learn how to smile as you kill.