Knaves Quotes - Page 2

• Credulity is always a ridiculous, often a dangerous failing: it has made of many a clever man, a fool; and of many a good man, a knave.

  Frances Wright

  Clever, Men, Good Man

  Frances Wright (1831). “A Few Days in Athens: Being the Translation of a Greek Manuscript Discovered in Herculaneum”, p.31

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• You talk to me in parables.
  You may have known that I'm no wordy man,
  Fine speeches are the instruments of knaves
  Or fools that use them, when they want good sense;
  But honesty
  Needs no disguise nor ornament: be plain.

  Thomas Otway

  Honesty, Men, Needs

  William Congreve, James Miller, Henry Fielding, David Garrick, Thomas Southern (1815). “The Mourning Bride. A Tragedy”

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• Honest men are the soft easy cushions on which knaves repose and fatten.

  Thomas Otway

  Honesty, Men, Easy

  Thomas Otway, Thomas Thornton (1813). “The Works of Mr. Thomas Otway: In Three Volumes”, p.17

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• Officers, what offence have these men done? DOGBERRY Marry, sir, they have committed false report; moreover, they have spoken untruths; secondarily, they are slanders; sixth and lastly, they have belied a lady; thirdly, they have verified unjust things; and, to conclude, they are lying knaves.

  William Shakespeare

  Lying, Men, Done

  1598 Dogberry to Don Pedro. Much Ado About Nothing, act 5, sc.1, l.208-12.

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• Knaves starve not in the land of fools.

  Charles Churchill

  Land, Knavery, Fool

  Charles Churchill (1855). “The Poetical Works of Charles Churchill: With Memoir, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes”, p.223

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• Bold knaves thrive without one grain of sense, But good men starve for want of impudence.

  John Dryden

  Men, Good Man, Want

  'Constantine the Great' (1684) epilogue

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• Now I will show myselfTo have more of the serpent than the dove;That is--more knave than fool.

  Christopher Marlowe

  Knavery, Fool, Dove

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• Water of life is gonna flow again/changed from the blood of heroes and knaves/Word mercy's gonna have a new meaning/ when we are judged by the children of our slaves.

  Bruce Cockburn

  Children, Hero, Blood

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• It is... a just political maxim, that every man must be supposed a knave.

  David Hume

  Men, Political, Politics

  David Hume (1825). “Essays and treatises on several subjects: essays, moral, political and literary”, p.37

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• He who says there is no such thing as an honest man, you may be sure is himself a knave.

  George Berkeley

  Truth, Lying, Men

  George Berkeley (1837). “Works: Account of His Life and Letters”, p.362

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• You will be amused when you see that I have more than once deceived without the slightest qualm of conscience, both knaves and fools.

  Giacomo Casanova

  Fool, Deceived, Qualms

  Giacomo Casanova (2013). “The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt: Complete”, p.26, Simon and Schuster

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• The same ambition can destroy or save, and make a patriot as it makes a knave.

  Alexander Pope

  Leadership, Ambition, Sea

  Alexander Pope (1804). “The Leaser. Being a Selection from the Poetical Works of Alexander Pope, with an Account of His Life and Writings”, p.15

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• History - an account, mostly false, of events, mostly unimportant

  John Barth

  History, Events, Historian

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• History is an account, mostly false, of events, mostly unimportant, which are brought about by rulers, mostly knaves, and soldiers, mostly fools.

  Ambrose Bierce

  Lying, History, Soldier

  Cynic's Word Book (1906) p. 161

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• The Queen of Hearts, she made some tarts,
  All on a summer day:
  The Knave of Hearts, he stole those tarts,
  And took them quite away!

  Lewis Carroll

  Summer, Queens, Heart

  1865 Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, ch.11,'Who Stole the Tarts?'.

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• This is the excellent foppery of the world, that, when we are sick in fortune,--often the surfeit of our own behavior,--we make guilty of our disasters the sun, the moon, and the stars: as if we were villains by necessity; fools by heavenly compulsion; knaves, thieves, and treachers, by spherical predominance; drunkards, liars, and adulterers, by an enforced obedience of planetary influence; and all that we are evil in, by a divine thrusting on: an admirable evasion of whoremaster man, to lay his goatish disposition to the charge of a star.

  William Shakespeare

  Stars, Liars, Men

  'King Lear' (1605-6) act 1, sc. 2, l. [132]

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• Who sows a field, or trains a flower, Or plants at tree, is more than all.

  John Greenleaf Whittier

  Flower, Garden, Tree

  John Greenleaf Whittier (1857*). “Poems of John Greenleaf Whittier”, p.249

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• A fool is often as dangerous to deal with as a knave, and always more incorrigible.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Fool, Dangerous, Deals

  Charles Caleb Colton (1836). “Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think”, p.188

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• Even knaves may be made good for something.

  Jean-Jacques Rousseau

  Knavery, May, Made

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• Knaves will thrive when honest plainness knows not how to live.

  James Shirley

  Knavery, Honest, Thrive

  James Shirley (1793). “The Maid's Revenge. A Tragedy [in Five Acts, in Prose and Verse].”, p.38

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• Most Men are Cowards, all Men should be Knaves.
  The Difference lies, as far as I can see,
  Not in the thing it self, but the Degree.

  John Wilmot

  Lying, Men, Self

  John Wilmot, John Adlard (2002). “The Debt to Pleasure: John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester, in the Eyes of His Contemporaries and in His Own Poetry and Prose”, p.102, Taylor & Francis

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• Where Young must torture his invention To flatter knaves, or lose his pension.

  Jonathan Swift

  Flattery, Invention, Young

  Jonathan Swift (1823). “The select works of Jonathan Swift ...: containing the whole of his poetical works ... embellished with engravings”, p.55

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• For my part, if a man must needs be a knave I would have him a debonair knave... It makes your sin no worse as I conceive, to do it à la mode and stylishly.

  Anthony Hope

  Men, Needs, Sin

  Anthony Hope (2011). “The Prisoner of Zenda”, p.94, House of Stratus

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• Anyone who pretends not to be interested in money is either a fool or a knave.

  Patricia Wentworth

  Money, Fool

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• Knavery is the best defense against a knave.

  Plutarch

  Knavery, Defense

  "Moralia". Book by Plutarch. Chapter "Of Bashfulness",

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