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Knavery Quotes

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Knavery Quotes

“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.”

IfsMenDoeHandsPrinciplesForgivingRevengeSuitsPocketsCheatVocationQuarrelsThoroughPlunderKnavesRuptureKnavery
Book:Lacon: Or Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think
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“He who esteems the Virginia reel A bait to draw saints from their spiritual weal, And regards the quadrille as a far greater knavery Than crushing His African children with slavery, Since all who take part in a waltz or cotillon Are mounted for hell on the devil's own pillion, Who, as every true orthodox Christian well knows, Approaches the heart through the door of the toes.”

KnowsWellsHeartChildrenChristianSpiritualHellGreaterDoorsApproachDrawsDevilRegardSlaveryDancingSaintEsteemCrushOrthodoxToesOrthodox ChristianVirginiaBaitVery TrueWaltzKnavery
Book:Delphi Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell (Illustrated)
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“While I live, no rich or noble knave shall walk the world in credit to his grave.”

WorldWalksRichCreditNobleGravesKnavesKnavery
Book:The Beauties of Pope, Or, Useful and Entertaining Passages: Selected from the Works of that Admired Author : as Well as from His Translation of Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, &c
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“Honesty is not only the deepest policy, but the highest wisdom; since, however difficult it may be for integrity to get on, it is a thousand times more difficult for knavery to get off; and no error is more fatal than that of those who think that Virtue has no other reward because they have heard that she is her own.”

ThinkingMayDifficultVirtueHeardHonestyPolicyIntegrityThousandHighestErrorsRewardsKnavery
Book:Lacon: Or Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think
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“It is a curious paradox that precisely in proportion to our own intellectual weakness will be our credulity, to those mysterious powers assumed by others; and in those regions of darkness and ignorance where man cannot effect even those things that are within the power of man, there we shall ever find that a blind belief in feats that are far beyond those powers has taken the deepest root in the minds of the deceived, and produced the richest harvest to the knavery of the deceiver.”

MenMindBeliefDarknessTakenEffectsIgnoranceIntellectualWeaknessRootsBlindMysteriousCuriousProportionRegionsParadoxHarvestDeceivedFeatsCredulityDeceiverKnaveryBlind Belief
Book:Lacon: Or Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think
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“An entirely honest man, in the severe sense of the word, exists no more than an entirely dishonest knave: the best and the worst are only approximations of those qualities. Who are those that never contradict themselves? yet honesty never contradicts itself: Who are those that always contradict themselves? yet knavery is mere self-contradiction. Thus the knowledge of man determines not the things themselves, but their proportions, the quan∣tum of congruities and incongruities.”

MenSelfQualityWorstHonestHonestyMereDetermineProportionContradictionQuantumSevereHonest ManKnavesApproximationIncongruityKnavery
Author:Johann Kaspar Lavater
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“If one of you sees, sometime, something unedifying and so much as goes on to pass it on and put it into the heart of another brother, in doing so you not only harm yourself but you harm your brother by putting one more little bit of knavery into his heart. Even if that brother has his mind set on prayer or some other noble activity, and the first arrives and furnishes him with something to prate about, he not only impedes what he ought to be doing, but brings a temptation on him. There is nothing graver or more deadly than this doing harm, not only to himself but also to his neighbor.”

IfsMindFirstsHeartLittlesChristianBitsPrayerBrotherGoes OnOughtActivityLittle BitHarmNobleNeighborTemptationOrthodoxOrthodox ChristianYour BrotherMind SetKnavery
Author:Dorotheus of Gaza
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“I should think this a gull, but that the white-bearded fellow speaks it; knavery cannot, sure, hide himself in such reverence.”

ThinkingShouldSpeakWhiteFellowsReverenceGullsKnavery
Book:The Works of William Shakspeare: The Text Formed from an Intirely New Collation of the Old Editions, with the Various Readings, Notes, a Life of the Poet, and a History of the Early English Stage
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“Some people think that evolutionary psychology claims to have discovered that human nature is selfish and wicked. But they are flattering the researchers and anyone who would claim to have discovered the opposite. No one needs a scientist to measure whether humans are prone to knavery. The question has been answered in the history books, the newspapers, the ethnographic record, and the letters to Ann Landers. But people treat it like an open question, as if someday science might discover that it's all a bad dream and we will wake up to find that it is human nature to love one another.”

PeopleIfsThinkingNeedsHumansHas BeensBookDreamMightPsychologyRecordsHuman NatureLettersOppositesScientistTreatsClaimsWake UpSelfishNewspapersWickedSomedayEvolutionary PsychologyResearchersFlatteringLove One AnotherHistory BooksBad DreamKnavery
Author:Steven Pinker
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“Instead of recognizing the State as ‘the common enemy of all well-disposed, industrious and decent men,’ the run of mankind, with rare exceptions, regards it not only as a final and indispensable entity, but also as, in the main, beneficent. The mass-man, ignorant of its history, regards its character and intentions as social rather than anti-social; and in that faith he is willing to put at its disposal an indefinite credit of knavery, mendacity and chicane, upon which its administrators may draw at will.”

MenWellsMayStatesCharacterRunningSocialCommonEnemyMankindWillingMassDrawsRegardIntentionFinalsCreditIgnorantDecentExceptionEntityIndispensableRecognizingIndustriousAdministratorsAnti SocialDecent ManCommon EnemyKnaveryMendacity
Author:Albert J. Nock
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