Mischief Quotes - Page 5

• Surely the mischief of hypocrisy can never be enough inveighed against. When religion is in request, it is the chief malady of the church, and numbers die of it; though because it is a subtle and inward evil, it be little perceived. It is to be feared there are many sick of it, that look well and comely in God's outward worship, and they may pass well in good weather, in times of peace; but days of adversity are days of trial.

  Joseph Hall

  Adversity, Weather, Numbers

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• Delusion and weakness produce not one mischief the less, because they are universal.

  Edmund Burke

  Weakness, Produce, Delusion

  Edmund Burke (1852). “The Works and Correspondence of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke”, p.313

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• Baseball is religion without the mischief.

  Thomas Boswell

  Baseball

  "Ask Boswell: Redskins, Nationals and Washington sports". Live chat, live.washingtonpost.com. October 6, 2014.

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• What plays the mischief with the truth is that men will insist upon the universal application of a temporary feeling or opinion.

  Herman Melville

  Men, Play, Feelings

  Herman Melville (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Herman Melville (Illustrated)”, p.4895, Delphi Classics

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• People who write obscurely are either unskilled in writing or up to mischief.

  Marshall McLuhan

  Writing, Science, People

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• Love passes quickly, and passes like a street Arab, anxious to mark his way with mischief.

  Honore de Balzac

  Way, Mark, Anxious

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• A little scandal is an excellent thing; nobody is ever brighter or happier of tongue than when he is making mischief of his neighbors.

  Ouida

  Littles, Scandal, Tongue

  Ouida (1870). “Puck: His Vicissitudes, Adventures, Observations, Conclusions, Friendships, and Philosophies”, p.218

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• Colonization means potential immortality for the human genus. Man's safety on Earth was never great, and it dwindles hourly. Disarmament, even world government, will not guarantee survival in an age when population presses natural resources to the limit and when the knowledge of how to work mischief on a planetary scale is ever more widely diffused among peoples who may grow ever more desperate.

  Poul Anderson

  Mean, Men, Space

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• No one knows where he who invented the plow was born, nor where he died; yet he has done more for humanity than the whole race of heroes who have drenched the earth with blood and whose deeds have been handed down with a precision proportionate only to the mischief they wrought.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Hero, Race, Blood

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• History makes the point time and time again No greater mischief can be created than to merge the power of religion with the power of government.

  Lowell P. Weicker, Jr.

  Government, Church, States

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• The biggest mischief in the past century has been perpetrated by Rousseau with his doctrine of the goodness of human nature. The mob and the intellectuals derived from it the vision of a Golden Age which would arrive without fail once the noble human race could act according to its whims.

  Jacob Burckhardt

  Past, Race, Vision

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• Th' ethereal mould Incapable of stain would soon expel Her mischief, and purge off the baser fire, Victorious. Thus repuls'd, our final hope Is flat despair.

  John Milton

  Hope, Fire, Despair

  John Milton (1773). “The First Six Books of Milton's Paradise Lost: Rendered Into Grammatical Construction ... with Notes Grammatical, Geographical, Historical, Critical, and Explanatory. To which are Prefixed Remarks on Ellipsis and Transposition ...”, p.101

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• See yonder another King's garden, which the King waters with his bloody sweat-Gethsemane, whose bitter herbs are sweeter far to renewed souls than even Eden's luscious fruits. There the mischief of the serpent in the first garden was undone: there the curse was lifted from earth, and borne by the woman's promised seed.

  Charles Spurgeon

  Kings, Garden, Sweat

  Charles Haddon Spurgeon (1928). “Morning and Evening: Daily Readings”, p.404, CCEL

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• Be quick to do good. If you are slow, the mind, delighting in mischief, will catch you.

  Gautama Buddha

  Mind, Dhammapada, Ifs

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• Women will work out their destinies — much better, too, than men can ever do for them. All the mischief to women has come because men undertook to shape the destiny of women.

  Swami Vivekananda

  Motivational, Destiny, Men

  Swami Vivekananda (2015). “The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda”, p.3564, Manonmani Publishers

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• Mischief moves somewhere near and I must blast it with my magic.

  Jack Vance

  Moving, Magic, Blast

  Jack Vance (2000). “Mazirian the Magician: (previously titled The Dying Earth)”, p.10, Macmillan

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• It is intolerable that it should be in the power of one blockhead to do so much mischief.

  Charles James

  Power Of One, Should, Blockheads

  "George III" by John Brooke, Panther, (pp. 363-364), 1974.

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• My coherence-creating groups are going to put out all this mischief-mongership in the world.

  Maharishi Mahesh Yogi

  Creating, Groups, World

  "Outer Peace" by Lily Koppel, www.nytimes.com. October 8, 2006.

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• When the bad imitate the good, there is no knowing what mischief is intended.

  Publilius Syrus

  Knowing, Imitation

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• A peace-mingling falsehood is preferable to a mischief-stirring truth.

  Saadi

  Mingling, Stirring, Falsehood

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• It sometimes strikes me that the whole of science is a piece of impudence; that nature can afford to ignore our impertinent interference. If our monkey mischief should ever reach the point of blowing up the earth by decomposing an atom, and even annihilated the sun himself, I cannot really suppose that the universe would turn a hair.

  Aleister Crowley

  War, Hair, Sun

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• Writing is a form of mischief.

  Stephen Sondheim

  Writing, Form

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• O but we dreamed to mend Whatever mischief seemed To afflict mankind, but now That winds of winter blow Learn that we were crack-pated when we dreamed.

  William Butler Yeats

  Dream, Learning, Winter

  William Butler Yeats (1962). “Poems of William Butler Yeats”, p.250, Hayes Barton Press

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• What vast additions to the conveniences and comforts of living might mankind have acquired, if the money spent in wars had been employed in works of public utility; what an extension of agriculture even to the tops of our mountains; what rivers rendered navigable, or joined by canals; what bridges, aqueducts, new roads, and other public works, edifices, and improvements might not have been obtained by spending those millions in doing good, which in the last war have been spent in doing mischief.

  Benjamin Franklin

  War, Bridges, Rivers

  Benjamin Franklin (2006). “The Portable Benjamin Franklin”, p.332, Penguin

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• There is no doubt that the Internet brims with spamming, scamming and identity fraud. Having someone wipe out your hard drive or bank account has never been easier, and the tools for committing electronic mischief on your enemies are cheap and widely accessible.

  Evgeny Morozov

  Doubt, Enemy, Identity

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