No man is so much a fool as not to have wit enough sometimes to be a knave; nor any so cunning a knave as not to have the weakness sometimes to play the fool.

Many men swallow the being cheated, but no man can ever endure to chew it.

Nothing would more contribute to make a man wise than to have always an enemy in his view.

No man is so much a fool as not to have wit enough sometimes to be a knave; nor any so cunning a knave as not to have the weakness sometimes to play the fool.

Hope is generally a wrong guide, though it is good company along the way.

There is reason to think the most celebrated philosophers would have been bunglers at business; but the reason is because they despised it.

Popularity is a crime from the moment it is sought; it is only a virtue where men have it whether they will or no.

Our nature hardly allows us to have enough of anything without having too much.

A husband without faults is a dangerous observer.

Nothing has an uglier look to us than reason, when it is not on our side.

A princely mind will undo a private family.

Education is what remains when we have forgotten all that we have been taught.

Most men make little use of their speech than to give evidence against their own understanding.

The sight of a drunkard is a better sermon against that vice than the best that was ever preached on that subject.

He that leaveth nothing to chance will do few things ill, but he will do very few things.

Love is a passion that hath friends in the garrison.

Malice is of a low stature, but it hath very long arms.

Laws are generally not understood by three sorts of persons, viz, by those who make them, by those who execute them, and by those who suffer if they break them.

A prince who will not undergo the difficulty of understanding must undergo the danger of trusting.

The best Qualification of a Prophet is to have a good Memory.

Some men's memory is like a box where a man should mingle his jewels with his old shoes.

Men are not hanged for stealing horses, but that horses may not be stolen.

A man man may dwell so long upon a thought that it may take him prisoner.

They who are of the opinion that Money will do everything, may very well be suspected to do everything for Money.

The vanity of teaching doth oft tempt a man to forget that he is a blockhead.

A man who is a master of patience is master of everything else.

If the laws could speak for themselves, they would complain of the lawyers.

The best way to suppose what may come, is to remember what is past.

When the people contend for their liberty, they seldom get anything by their victory but new masters.

Popularity is generally an appeal to the people from the sentence given by men of sense against them.

Art is the final cunning of the human soul which would rather do anything than face the gods.

The terrorists are fighting freedom with all their cunning and cruelty because freedom is their greatest fear - and they should be afraid, because freedom is on the march.

Man has made many machines, complex and cunning, but which of them indeed rivals the workings of his heart?

None speak of the bravery, the might, or the intellect of Jesus; but the devil is always imagined as a being of acute intellect, political cunning, and the fiercest courage. These universal and instinctive tendencies of the human mind reveal much.

No man is so much a fool as not to have wit enough sometimes to be a knave; nor any so cunning a knave as not to have the weakness sometimes to play the fool.

Many men have been capable of doing a wise thing, more a cunning thing, but very few a generous thing.

Every man of action has a strong dose of egoism, pride, hardness, and cunning. But all those things will be regarded as high qualities if he can make them the means to achieve great ends.

The weak in courage is strong in cunning.

The fact is that America's weapons systems have made it impossible for anybody to confront it militarily. So, all you have is your wits and your cunning, and your ability to fight in the way the Iraqis are fighting.

These people being of a sharp and acute intellect, and gifted with a rich and powerful understanding, excel in whatever studies they pursue, and are more quick and cunning than the other inhabitants of a western clime.

Nothing doth more hurt in a state than that cunning men pass for wise.

I recognize in thieves, traitors and murderers, in the ruthless and the cunning, a deep beauty - a sunken beauty.

Bondage is the life of personality, and for bondage the personal self will fight with tireless resourcefulness and the most stubborn cunning.

In every American there is an air of incorrigible innocence, which seems to conceal a diabolical cunning.

Knowledge without justice ought to be called cunning rather than wisdom.

In saying what is obvious, never choose cunning. Yelling works better.

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.

And by a prudent flight and cunning save A life which valour could not, from the grave. A better buckler I can soon regain, But who can get another life again?

The art of using deceit and cunning grow continually weaker and less effective to the user.