Knavery and flattery are blood relations.
Knavery seems to be so much a the striking feature of its inhabitants that it may not in the end be an evil that they will become aliens to this kingdom.
Cunning leads to knavery. It is but a step from one to the other, and that very slippery. Only lying makes the difference; add that to cunning, and it is knavery.
Zeno first started that doctrine, that knavery is the best defence against a knave.
Knavery's plain face is never seen till used.
There's never a villain dwelling in all Denmark But he's an arrant knave.
Knavery is supple, and can bend, but honesty is firm and upright and yields not.
While I live, no rich or noble knave shall walk the world in credit to his grave.
Fashion--a word which knaves and fools may use, Their knavery and folly to excuse.
Every knave is a thorough knave, and a thorough knave is a knave throughout.
Knaves starve not in the land of fools.
A brave world, sir, full of religion, knavery, and change: we shall shortly see better days.
A knave thinks himself a fool, all the time he is not making a fool of some other person.
The worst of all knaves are those who can mimic their former honesty.
A thorough-paced knave will rarely quarrel with one whom he can cheat: his revenge is plunder; therefore he is usually the most forgiving of beings, upon the principle that if he come to an open rupture, he must defend himself; and this does not suit a man whose vocation it is to keep his hands in the pocket of another.
Knavery is ever suspicious of knavery.
Very often, say what you will, a knave is only a fool.
Even knaves may be made good for something.
But I would still reply, that the knavery and folly of men are such common phenomena, that I should rather believe the most extraordinary events to arise from their concurrence, than admit of so signal a violation of the laws of nature
Knaves will thrive when honest plainness knows not how to live.
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