Villainy Quotes - Page 3

• Men whose wit has been mother of villainy once have learned from it to be evil in all things.

  Sophocles

  Mother, Men, Evil

  Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides (1960). “The Complete Greek Tragedies: Sophocles”

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• To enlist the support of the people and of parliament, you only have to propose a profitable villainy.

  Franz Grillparzer

  People, Support, Prussia

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• You know, my boy, he said, it's impossible to love men such as they are. And yet we must. So try to do good to men by doing violence to your feelings, holding your nose, and shutting your eyes, especially shutting your eyes. Endure their villainy without anger, as much as possible; try to remember that you're a man too. For, if you're even a little above average intelligence, you'll have the propensity to judge people severely. Men are vile by nature and they'd rather love out of fear. Don't give in to such love: despise it always.

  Fyodor Dostoevsky

  Love, Eye, Boys

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• And I take this opportunity to declare, that... I will to my dying day oppose with all the powers and faculties God has given me, all such instruments of slavery on the one hand, and villainy on the other, as this writ of assistance is. It appears to me the worst instrument of arbitrary power, - the most destructive of English liberty and the fundamental principles of law, that ever was found in an English law book.

  James Otis

  Book, Opportunity, Hands

  "James Otis: Against Writs of Assistance". James Otis' speech (February 1761), as quoted in William Tudor "James Otis's Speech on the Writs of Assistance", books.google.com. 1906.

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• He who profits by villainy, has perpetrated it.

  Iain Pears

  Profit

  Iain Pears (1999). “AN Instance of the Fingerpost”, p.112, Penguin

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• Heaven knows insanity was disreputable enough, long ago; but now that the lawyers have got to cutting every gallows rope and picking every prison lock with it, it is become a sneaking villainy that ought to hang and keep on hanging its sudden possessors until evil-doers should conclude that the safest plan was to never claim to have it until they came by it legitimately. The very calibre of the people the lawyers most frequently try to save by the insanity subterfuge ought to laugh the plea out of the courts, one would think.

  Mark Twain

  Cutting, Thinking, Long Ago

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• I find it hard to believe that a lady like...’ Pertellis hesitated, and coughed. ‘There is something elevated in the female spirit that will always hold a woman back from the coldest and most vicious forms of villainy.’ ‘No, there isn’t,’ Miss Kitely said kindly but firmly, as she set a dish in his hand. ‘Drink your chocolate, Mr Pertellis.

  Frances Hardinge

  Believe, Hands, Missing

  Frances Hardinge (2011). “Fly By Night”, p.348, Pan Macmillan

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• To-day Massachusetts; and the whole of the American republic, from the border of Maine to the Pacific slopes, and from the Lakes to the Gulf, stand upon the immutable and everlasting principles of equal and exact justice. The days of unrequited labor are numbered with the past. Fugitive slave laws are only remembered as relics of that barbarism which John Wesley pronounced "the sum of all villainies," and whose knowledge of its blighting effects was matured by his travels in Georgia and the Carolinas.

  Horace Mann

  Past, Lakes, Law

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• All the great villainies of history, from the murder of Abel onward, have been perpetrated by sober men, chiefly by Teetotalers.

  H. L. Mencken

  Food, Men, Cooking

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• Villains are usually the worst casuists, and rush into crimes to avoid less. Henry VIII. committed murder to avoid the imputation of adultery; and in our times, those who commit the latter crime attempt to wash off the stain of seducing the wife by signifying their readiness to shoot the husband.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Husband, Wife, Adultery

  Charles Caleb Colton (1836). “Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think”, p.83

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• Thou slave, thou wretch, thou coward!
  Thou little valiant, great in villainy!
  Thou ever strong upon the stronger side!
  Thou Fortune's champion, that dost never fight
  But where her humorous ladyship is by
  To teach thee safety.

  William Shakespeare

  Strong, Humorous, Fighting

  William Shakespeare, George Steevens (1811). “The Plays of William Shakspeare: Accurately Printed from the Text of the Corrected Copy Left by the Late George Steevens. With a Selection of Explanatory and Historical Notes, from the Most Eminent Commentators; a History of the Stage, a Life of Shakespeare, &c.[edited] by Alexander Chalmers”, p.231

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• Hypocrisy is the necessary burden of villainy, affectation part of the chosen trappings of folly; the one completes a villain, the other only finishes a fop.

  Samuel Johnson

  Hypocrisy, Villain, Burden

  Samuel Johnson, William Page (1860). “Life and Writings”, p.145

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• No visor does become black villainy so well as soft and tender flattery.

  William Shakespeare

  Black, Doe, Flattery

  William Shakespeare, Isaac Reed, Samuel Johnson (1822). “Romeo and Juliet. Comedy of errors. Titus Andronicus. Pericles”, p.350

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• There is a tremendous amount of corporate villainy going on in the US, where corporations are doing things that they know are causing harm, and they wouldn't do this where their children live or where their children are growing up. Communities often don't have the tools necessary to fight back against grievous harms being caused them. So to give a cause of action for folks who can demonstrate the harm that's being caused, it's critically important that you allow people to have more tools with which to defend themselves and defend their communities.

  Cory Booker

  Children, Growing Up, Fighting

  Source: www.motherjones.com

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