Knaves Quotes - Page 6

• Though we may not desire to detect fraud, we must not, on that account, endeavor to be insensible of it, for, as cunning is a crime, so is duplicity a fault, and if men dread knaves, they also despise fools.

  Norm MacDonald

  Men, Duplicity, Desire

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• We have not the slightest idea that women are made of such light material that the breath of any fool or knave may blow them on the rocks of ruin.

  Jane Swisshelm

  Women, Blow, Ideas

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• Cardinal Mazarin was a great knave, but no great man; much more cunning than able; scandalously false and dirtily greedy.

  Lord Chesterfield

  Character, Men, Greed

  Lord Philip Dormer Stanhope Chesterfield, Eugenia Stanhope (1827). “Letters Written by the Earl of Chesterfield to His Son”, p.355

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• In the mass of mankind, I fear, there is too great a majority of fools and knaves; who, singly from their number, must to a certain degree be respected, though they are by no means respectable.

  Lord Chesterfield

  Respect, Mean, Numbers

  Lord Chesterfield, David Roberts (2008). “Lord Chesterfield's Letters”, p.125, Oxford University Press

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• If I get clear of my debts, I care not though men call me bold, glib of tongue, audacious, impudent, shameless, a fabricator of falsehoods, inventor of words, practised in lawsuits, a pettifogger, a rattle, a fox, a sharper, a knave, a dissembler, a slippery fellow, an imposter, a rogue that deserves the cat-o-nine-tails, a blackguard, a twister, a licker-up of hashes; they call all this when they meet me, if they please, I care not.

  Aristophanes

  Cat, Men, Tails

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