Knaves Quotes

The art of manipulating public opinion, which is a necessary art for the democratic politician, and, like other arts, is sometimespractised with greater virtuosity by knaves than by honest men (who are apt to disdain it), has a different technique in different countries. For instance, in England we excel in whitewashing: in America they excel in tarring and feathering. We strain our nerves and stretch our consciences to avoid a scandal: Americans do the same to make one. ~ George Bernard Shaw

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. ~ George Savile

You shall mark
Many a duteous and knee-crooking knave
That, doting on his own obsequious bondage,
Wears out his time, much like his master's ass,
For nought but provender; and when he's old, cashier'd:
Whip me such honest knaves. ~ William Shakespeare

Who are next to knaves? Those that converse with them. ~ Alexander Pope

When Knaves betray each other, one can scarce be blamed or the other pitied. ~ Benjamin Franklin

Alas! how has the social spirit of Christianity been perverted by fools at one time, and by knaves and bigots at another; by the self-tormentors of the cell, and the all-tormentors of the conclave! ~ Charles Caleb Colton

We are arrant knaves all, believe none of us. ~ William Shakespeare

If yee would know a knave, give him a staffe. ~ George Herbert

Knaves will come and knaves will go. ~ James Cook

Despoilers obey the Malthusian law; they multiply with the means of existence, and the means of existence of knaves is the credulity of their dupes. ~ Frederic Bastiat

The heart never grows better with age; I fear rather worse, always harder. ~ Lord Chesterfield

I'm telling you, you bastard, you're going to pay for that rum. In gold or goods, I don't care which."
"Captain Mallory." Gray's baritone was forbidding. "And I apply that title loosely, as you are no manner of captain in my estimation…I have no intention of compensating you for the loss of your cargo. I will, however, accept your thanks."
"My thanks? For what?"
"For what?" Now O'Shea entered the mix. "For saving that heap of a ship and your worthless, rum-soaked arse, that's what."
"I'll thank you to go to hell," the gravelly voice answered. Mallory, she presumed. "You can't just board a man's craft and pitch a hold full of spirits into the sea. Right knaves, you lot."
"Oh, now we're the knaves, are we?" Gray asked. "I should have let that ship explode around your ears, you despicable sot. Knaves, indeed."
"Well, if you're such virtuous, charitable gents, then how come I'm trussed like a pig?" Sophia craned her neck and pushed the hatch open a bit further. Across the deck, she saw a pair of split-toed boots tied together with rope.
Gray answered, "We had to bind you last night because you were drunk out of your skull. And we're keeping you bound now because you're sober and still out of your skull."
The lashed boots shuffled across the deck, toward Gray. "Let me loose of these ropes, you blackguard, and I'll pound you straight out of your skull into oblivion."
O'Shea responded with a stream of colorful profanity, which Captain Gra ~ Tessa Dare

I hold it to be one of the distinguishing excellences of elective over hereditary successions that the talents which nature has provided in sufficient proportion, should be selected by the society for the govenment of their affairs, rather than that this should be be transmitted through the loins of knaves and fools passing from the debauches of the table to those of the bed. ~ Thomas Jefferson

You will be amused when you see that I have more than once deceived without the slightest qualm of conscience, both knaves and fools. ~ Giacomo Casanova

For my part, if a man must needs be a knave I would have him a debonair knave... It makes your sin no worse as I conceive, to do it à la mode and stylishly. ~ Anthony Hope

And everyone would climb the stairs chuckling to their rooms and dream of aces and knaves and a supply of trumps that would last for ever and ever, one trump after another, an invincible superiority subject to neither change nor decay nor old age, for a trump will always be a trump, come what may. ~ J.G. Farrell

Where Young must torture his invention To flatter knaves, or lose his pension. ~ Jonathan Swift

That man is thought a dangerous knave, Or zealot plotting crime, Who for advancement of his kind Is wiser than his time. ~ Douglas William Jerrold

The Man who pretends to be a modest enquirer into the truth of a self-evident thing is a Knave. ~ William Blake

If I be drunk, I'll be drunk with those that have the fear of God, and not with drunken knaves. ~ William Shakespeare

There will be nothing you may not aspire to; you will go everywhere, and you will find out what the world is - an assemblage of fools and knaves. ~ Honore De Balzac

It should seem that indolence itself would incline a person to be honest, as it requires infinitely greater pains and contrivance to be a knave. ~ William Shenstone

Honest men are the soft easy cushions on which knaves repose and fatten. ~ Thomas Otway

This is the excellent foppery of the world, that,
when we are sick in fortune,
often the surfeit
of our own behavior,
we make guilty of our
disasters the sun, the moon, and the stars: as
if we were villains by necessity; fools by
heavenly compulsion; knaves, thieves, and
treachers, by spherical predominance; drunkards,
liars, and adulterers, by an enforced obedience of
planetary influence; and all that we are evil in,
by a divine thrusting on: an admirable evasion
of whoremaster man, to lay his goatish
disposition to the charge of a star. ~ William Shakespeare

A king may spille, a king may save; A king may make of lorde a knave; And of a knave a lorde also. ~ John Gower

O heart, be at peace, because
Nor knave nor dolt can break
What's not for their applause,
Being for a woman's sake. ~ William Butler Yeats

Hanifs (Muslims) are stumbling, Christians all astray
Jews wildered, Magians far on error's way.
We mortals are composed of two great schools
Enlightened knaves or else religious fools. ~ Al-Ma'arri

Knaves starve not in the land of fools. ~ Charles Churchill

Well, I must do't. Away, my disposition, and possess me Some harlot's spirit! My throat of war be turn'd, Which quier'd with my drum, into a pipe Small as an eunuch, or the virgin voice That babies lull asleep! The smiles of knaves Tent in my cheeks, and schoolboys' tears take up The glasses of my sight! A beggar's tongue Make motion through my lips, and my arm'd knees, Who bow'd but in my stirrup, bend like his That hath receiv'd an alms! I will not do't, Lest I surcease to honor mine own truth, And by my body's action teach my mind A most inherent baseness. ~ William Shakespeare

Mankind are a herd of knaves and fools. It is necessary to join the crowd, or get out of their way, in order not to be trampled to death by them. ~ William Hazlitt

Aunt Ruth looked at the unlucky pair.
"What are you doing here?" she asked Perry.
Stovepipe Town made a mistake.
"Oh, looking for a round square," said Perry off-handedly, his eyes suddenly becoming limpid with mischief and lawless roguery. ~ L.M. Montgomery

This is in thee a nature but infected;
A poor unmanly melancholy sprung
From change of fortune. Why this spade? this place?
This slave-like habit? and these looks of care?
Thy flatterers yet wear silk, drink wine, lie soft;
Hug their diseased perfumes, and have forgot
That ever Timon was. Shame not these woods,
By putting on the cunning of a carper.
Be thou a flatterer now, and seek to thrive
By that which has undone thee: hinge thy knee,
And let his very breath, whom thou'lt observe,
Blow off thy cap; praise his most vicious strain,
And call it excellent: thou wast told thus;
Thou gavest thine ears like tapsters that bid welcome
To knaves and all approachers: 'tis most just
That thou turn rascal; hadst thou wealth again,
Rascals should have 't. Do not assume my likeness. ~ William Shakespeare

There's never a villain dwelling in all Denmark But he's an arrant knave. ~ William Shakespeare

HE who says there is no such thing as an honest man, you may be sure is himself a knave. ~ George Bishop Berkeley

To be born in imbecility, in the midst of pain and crisis; to be the plaything of ignorance, error, need, sickness, wickedness, and passions; to return step by step to imbecility, from the time of lisping to that of doting; to live among knaves and charlatans of all kinds; to die between one man who takes your pulse and another who troubles your head; never to know where you come from, why you come and where you are going! That is what is called the most important gift of our parents and nature. Life. ~ Denis Diderot

If a man can hear the truth he's spoken twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools ... ~ Rudyard Kipling

This is some fellow,
Who having been prais'd for bluntness, doth affect
A saucy roughness and constrains the garb
Quite from his nature: he can't flatter, he!
An honest mind and plain,
he must speak truth!
And they will take it so; if not he's plain.
These kind of knaves I know, which in this plainness
Harbor more craft, and far corrupter ends,
Than twenty silly, ducking observants,
That stretch their duty nicely. ~ William Shakespeare

There are three difficulties in authorship: to write anything worth publishing, to find honest men to publish it, and to find sensible men to read it. ~ Charles Caleb Colton

Knavery is the best defense against a knave. ~ Plutarch

So long as women are slaves, men will be knaves. ~ Elizabeth Cady Stanton

Negro equality, Fudge!! How long in the Government of a God great enough to make and maintain this Universe, shall there continue to be knaves to vend and fools to gulp, so low a piece of demagoguism as this? ~ Abraham Lincoln

When a knave is in a plumtree he hath neither friend nor kin. ~ George Herbert

The honest Man takes Pains, and then enjoys Pleasures; the knave takes Pleasure, and then suffers Pains. ~ Benjamin Franklin

Barristan Semly was not a bookish man, but he had often glanced through the pages of the White Book, where the deeds of his predecessors had been recorded. Some had been heroes, some weaklings, knaves, or cravens. Most were only men - quicker and stronger than most, more skilled with sword and shield, but still prey to pride, ambition, lust, love, anger, jealousy, greed for gold, hunger for power, and all the other failing that afflicted lesser mortals. The best of them overcame their flaws, did their duty, and died with their swords in their hands. The worst ...
The worst were those who played the game of thrones. ~ George R R Martin

This," James said, when he had disappeared. "This is the excellent foppery of the world, that, when we are sick in fortune - often the surfeit of our own behavior - we make guilty of our disasters the sun, the moon, and the stars … as if we were villains on necessity; fools by heavenly compulsion; knaves, thieves, and treachers by spherical predominance; drunkards, liars, and adulterers by an enforc'd obedience of planetary influence; and all that we are evil in, by a divine thrusting-on! ~ M.L. Rio

We find that at present the human race is divided into one wise man, nine knaves, and ninety fools out of every hundred. That is, by an optimistic observer. The nine knaves assemble themselves under the banner of the most knavish among them, and become 'politicians'; the wise man stands out, because he knows himself to be hopelessly outnumbered, and devotes himself to poetry, mathematics, or philosophy; while the ninety fools plod off under the banners of the nine villains, according to fancy, into the labyrinths of chicanery, malice and warfare. It is pleasant to have command, observes Sancho Panza, even over a flock of sheep, and that is why the politicians raise their banners. It is, moreover, the same thing for the sheep whatever the banner. If it is democracy, then the nine knaves will become members of parliament; if fascism, they will become party leaders; if communism, commissars. Nothing will be different, except the name. The fools will be still fools, the knaves still leaders, the results still exploitation. As for the wise man, his lot will be much the same under any ideology. Under democracy he will be encouraged to starve to death in a garret, under fascism he will be put in a concentration camp, under communism he will be liquidated. ~ T.H. White

Men may seem detestable as joint stock-companies and nations; knaves, fools, and murderers there may be; men may have mean and meagre faces; but man, in the ideal, is so noble and so sparkling, such a grand and glowing creature, that over any ignominious blemish in him all his fellows should run to throw their costliest robes. ~ Herman Melville

Most Men are Cowards, all Men should be Knaves.
The Difference lies, as far as I can see,
Not in the thing it self, but the Degree. ~ John Wilmot

He that cheats another is a knave; but he that cheats himself is a fool. ~ Karl G. Maeser

Give fools their gold, and knaves their power; let fortune's bubbles rise and fall; who sows a field, or trains a flower, or plants a tree, is more than all. ~ John Greenleaf Whittier

Wickedness may prosper for awhile, but in the long run, he that sets all the knaves at work will pay them. ~ Roger L'Estrange

History - an account, mostly false, of events, mostly unimportant ~ John Barth

The Queen of Hearts, she made some tarts, all on a hot summer's day. The Knave of Hearts, he stole those tarts. The mad Queen said, "Off with his head! Off with his head! Off with his head!" Well ... that's too bad ... no more heads to cut. ~ Jun Mochizuki

By fools, knaves fatten; by bigots, priests are well clothed; every knave finds a gull. ~ Johann Georg Ritter Von Zimmermann

You are not worth another word, else I'd call you knave. ~ William Shakespeare

Knaves are not to be confused with divas. Knavish behavior is a product of low integrity; diva-ish behavior is one of high exceptionalism. Knaves prioritize the individual over the team; divas think they are better than the team, but want success equally for both. Knaves need to be dealt with as quickly as possible. ~ Eric Schmidt

The events we have passed through form a coherent pattern and the political actors who have shaped the world are rational
if not necessarily moral or decent
actors. Americans tend to think of its leaders as fools and knaves and of its enemies as psychotic. This seems to comfort us. While America's leaders might be knaves, they are not fools, and while our enemies might have utterly different moral values that are repugnant to us, they are far from insane. ~ George Friedman

It is far more easy to acquire a fortune like a knave, than to expend it, like a gentleman. ~ Charles Caleb Colton

Bold knaves thrive without one grain of sense,
But good men starve for want of impudence. ~ John Dryden

When the fool supports the knave, the good man may fold his hands. The fool in league with the knave against himself is a combination that none may withstand. Oh, monster of humanity and enlightenment, despairing of a world in which the only natural allies are the fools and knaves, a mankind sterile with self-complicity. ~ Samuel Beckett

In all conditions of life a poor man is a near neighbor to an honest one, and a rich man is as little removed from a knave. ~ Jean De La Bruyere

How easy it is to call rogue and villain, and that wittily! But how hard to make a man appear a fool, a blockhead, or a knave, without using any of those opprobrious terms! Tosparethegrossness ofthenames, and to dothe thing yet moreseverely, isto drawa full face, and tomake the nose and cheeks stand out, and yet not to employ any depth of shadowing. ~ John Dryden

You needn't worry about me. I know enough to do what every man ought to do in wartime when he's watched and threatened by bullies. I conceal my feelings; lie whenever necessary; pretend to admire the rascals who've ruined our city and our country; cheer dolts, bullies and knaves and damn all wise temperate men! ~ Kenneth Roberts

But why insult the poor, affront the great?'
A knave's a knave, to me, in every state. ~ Alexander Pope

Now I will show myselfTo have more of the serpent than the dove;That is
more knave than fool. ~ Christopher Marlowe

Titles are marks of honest men, and wise; The fool or knave that wears a title lies. ~ Edward Young

Knaves will thrive when honest plainness knows not how to live. ~ James Shirley

Political convictions then were of the utmost importance, so intensely felt that it was difficult even for well-balanced and temperate men to think of the opposition party without bitterness. To the rank and file of the Federalists, the Democrats seemed a vulgar, ignorant mob at best, at worst a group of "knaves and blockheads." To the Democrats, the Federalists appeared abandoned traitors fawning at the feet of the British government, a blindly selfish aristocracy who deserved little better treatment than the French nobility had received a few years before during the Reign of Terror. ~ William Edward Buckley

Revenge is a debt, in the paying of which the greatest knave is honest and sincere, and, so far as he is able, punctual. ~ Charles Caleb Colton

Who friendship with a knave hath made, Is judged a partner in the trade. ~ John Gay

An honest man, sir, is able to speak for himself, when a knave is not. ~ William Shakespeare

Money does all things,
for it gives and it takes away; it makes honest men and knaves, fools and philosophers; and so forward, mutatis mutandis, to the end of the chapter. ~ Roger L'Estrange

When the Many are rulers, it cannot but be that, again, knavery is bred in the state; but now the knaves do not grow to hate one another - they become fast friends. For they combine together to maladminister the public concerns. This goes on until one man takes charge of affairs for the Many and puts a stop to the knaves. As a result of this, he wins the admiration of the Many, and, being so admired, lo! you have your despot again; ~ Herodotus

I said you lie, knave!" shouted Beaumains, drawing his sword. "And for telling such craven falsehoods, you must die!"
The knight looked plaintively at Roger. "What's wrong with this fellow?"
He was dropped on his head when he was a baby," answered Roger. ~ Gerald Morris

It might be argued, that to be a knave is the gift of fortune, but to play the fool to advantage it is necessary to be a learned man. ~ William Hazlitt

Better be a foole then a knave.
[Better be a fool than a knave.] ~ George Herbert

The great chastisement of a knave is not to be known, but to know himself. ~ Jean Antoine Petit-Senn

Though we may not desire to detect fraud, we must not, on that account, endeavor to be insensible of it, for, as cunning is a crime, so is duplicity a fault, and if men dread knaves, they also despise fools. ~ Norm MacDonald

When I contemplate the natural dignity of man, when I feel (for nature has not been kind enough to me to blunt my feelings) for the honour and happiness of its character, I become irritated at the attempt to govern mankind by force and fraud, as if they were all knaves and fools, and can scarcely avoid disgust at those who are thus imposed upon. ~ Thomas Paine

There are more fools than knaves in the world, else the knaves would not have enough to live upon. ~ Samuel Butler

If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build'em up with worn-out tools ... ~ Rudyard Kipling

But to such a man as Schopenhauer, - one who considered five sixths of the population to be knaves or blockheads, and who had thought out a system for the remaining fraction, - to such a man as he, the question of esteem, or the lack thereof, was of small consequence. He cared nothing for the existence which he led in the minds of other people. To his own self he was true, to the calling of his destiny constant, and he felt that he could sit and snap his fingers at the world, knowing that Time, who is at least a gentleman, would bring him his due unasked. ~ Edgar Saltus

A man who first tried to guess 'what the public wants,' and then preached that as Christianity because the public wants it, would be a pretty mixture of fool and knave ~ C.S. Lewis

What do we see by [our enlightened age] which our ancestors saw not, and which at the same time is worth seeing? We see a hundred men hanged, where they saw one. We see five hundred transported, where they saw one. We see five thousand in the workhouse, where they saw one ... We see children perishing in manufactories, where they saw them flourishing in the fields. We see prisons, where they saw castles. We see masters, where they saw representatives. In short, they saw true men, where we see false knaves. They saw Milton, and we see Mr. Sackbut. ~ Thomas Love Peacock

Lastly, they must be men of honest report, whose life and sound conversation are by their deeds perfectly tried and sufficiently witnessed of unto the people: and finally, they must be such as bear authority, and not be despised as rascal and vile knaves. ~ Heinrich Bullinger