Shrewdness Quotes

• Shrewdness in public life all over the world is always honored, while honesty in public men is generally attributed to dumbness and is seldom rewarded.

  Will Rogers

  Honesty, Men, World

  Will Rogers, Bryan B. Sterling, Frances N. Sterling (1993). “Will Rogers' World: America's Foremost Political Humorist Comments on the Twenties and Thirties--and Eighties and Nineties”, p.79, Rowman & Littlefield

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• Man with all his shrewdness is as stupid about understanding by himself the mysteries of God, as an ass is incapable of understanding musical harmony.

  John Calvin

  Stupid, Men, Understanding

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• Never teach your child to be cunning or you may be certain you will be one of the very first victims of his shrewdness.

  Josh Billings

  Children, May, Firsts

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• All the shrewdness of 'man' seeks one thing: to be able to live without responsibility.

  Soren Kierkegaard

  Responsibility, Men, Able

  Soren Kierkegaard (1959). “Attack Upon 'Christendom'”

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• Jews are known for many things, but strength, swiftness, and agility are not among them. There is one trait, as controversial as it is familiar, for which Jews are above all known, and that is shrewdness in business.

  Steven Pinker

  Swiftness, Agility, Controversial

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• A prince who is not himself wise cannot be wisely advised. . . . Good advice depends on the shrewdness of the prince who seeks it, and not the shrewdness of the prince on good advice.

  Niccolo Machiavelli

  Wise, Advice, Depends

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• Hitler, who founded the Third Reich, who ruled it ruthlessly and often with uncommon shrewdness, who led it to such dizzy heights and such a sorry end, was a person of undoubted, if evil genius. It is true that in the German people, as a mysterious Providence and centuries of experience had molded them up to that time, he found a natural instrument which he was able to shape to his own sinister ends.

  William L. Shirer

  Sorry, History, Evil

  William L. Shirer, Ron Rosenbaum (2011). “The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany”, p.5, Simon and Schuster

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• As far as the education of children is concerned I think they should be taught not the little virtues but the great ones. Not thrift but generosity and an indifference to money; not caution but courage and a contempt for danger; not shrewdness but frankness and a love of truth; not tact but love for one's neighbor and self-denial; not a desire for success but a desire to be and to know.

  Natalia Ginzburg

  Love, Success, Education

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• All you have to do is buy cheap and sell dear, act with thrift and shrewdness, and be persistent.

  Hetty Green

  Dear, Persistent, Thrift

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• The probability of finding a particular book increases in relation to the clarity of the store's focus, the diligence and shrewdness of the bookseller, and the size of the business.

  Gabriel Zaid

  Book, Focus, Size

  Gabriel Zaid “So Many Books: Reading and Publishing in an Age of Abundance”, Paul Dry Books

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• Why do you need street smarts? Shrewdness? Toughness? It's to protect something soft that is going to be in danger if it's exposed at the wrong time and place. It's to protect a soul. But to protect your soul, you have to have one to start with.

  Peter Schjeldahl

  Smart, Soul, Needs

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• The good Bishop of Assisi expressed a sort of horror at the hard life which the Little Brothers lived at the Portiuncula, without comforts, without possessions, eating anything they could get and sleeping anyhow on the ground. St. Francis answered him with that curious and almost stunning shrewdness which the unworldly can sometimes wield like a club of stone. He said, 'If we had any possessions, we should need weapons and laws to defend them.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Brother, Sleep, Law

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• There is a kind of shrewdness many men have that enables them to get money. It is the shrewdness of the fox after the chicken. A low order of mentality often goes with it.

  Sherwood Anderson

  Money, Men, Order

  Sherwood Anderson (1953). “Letters: selected and edited with an introd. and notes by Howard Mumford Jones, in association with Walter B. Rideout”

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• Those who fled will fight another time.

  Tertullian

  Time, Fighting, Flight

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• Nobody who has done business in any country with an Indian would doubt the shrewdness of Indians, but what Indian people bring to the world is something special and unique, which is the capacity for a loving interaction.

  Gregory David Roberts

  Country, Unique, People

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• What boy well raised can compare with your street gamin who has the knowledge and the shrewdness of a grown-up broker.

  Elbert Hubbard

  Boys, Compare, Wells

  Elbert Hubbard (1922). “Selected Writings of Elbert Hubbard ...”

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