A Quote by Lord Chesterfield

Cardinal Mazarin was a great knave, but no great man; much more cunning than able; scandalously false and dirtily greedy. — © Lord Chesterfield
Cardinal Mazarin was a great knave, but no great man; much more cunning than able; scandalously false and dirtily greedy.
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.
A great estate is a great disadvantage to those who do not know how to use it, for nothing is more common than to see wealthy persons live scandalously and miserably; riches do them no service in order to virtue and happiness; therefore 'tis precept and principle, not an estate, that makes a man good for something.
Nothing more completely baffles one who is full of trick and duplicity than straigthforward and simple integrity in another. A knave would rather quarrel with a brother knave than with a fool, but he would rather avoid a quarrel with one honest man than with both. He can combat a fool by management and address, and he can conquer a knave by temptations. But the honest man is neither to be bamboozled nor bribed.
Don't think so much of your own Cunning, as to forget other Men's; a Cunning Man is overmatched by a cunning Man and a Half.
One Man may be more cunning than another, but not more cunning than every body else.
It is a pity that, commonly, more care is had--yea, and that among very wise men--to find out rather a cunning man for their horse than a cunning man for their children.
Self-love is more cunning than the most cunning man in the world.
Those who have the most cunning affect all their lives to condemn cunning; that they may make use of it on some great occasion, and to some great end.
One man may be more cunning than another, but no one can be more cunning than all the world.
Much better than it has been all week. I got sick again this week, so I wasn't really able to breathe. I was on antibiotics (until Wednesday). This program was so great coming here. I felt more confident than I ever have all season, more calm, more relaxed, bending the knees. So even that program with the one mistake ... you can't be perfect all the time, but for me that was a great skate for me and I'm happy with how it went.
The student is half afraid to meet one of the great philosophers face to face. He feels himself inadequate and thinks he will not understand him. But if he only knew, the great man, just because of his greatness, is much more intelligible than his modern commentator. The simplest student will be able to understand, if not all, yet a very great deal of what Plato said; but hardly anyone can understand some modern books on Platonism.
CUNNING, n. The faculty that distinguishes a weak animal or person from a strong one. It brings its possessor much mental satisfaction and great material adversity. An Italian proverb says: "The furrier gets the skins of more foxes than asses."
Man has much power of discourse which for the most part is vain and false; animals have but little, but it is useful and true, and a small truth is better than a great lie.
So powerfully does fortune appear to sway the destinies of men, putting a silver spoon into one man's mouth, and a wooden one into another's, that some of the most sagacious of men, as Cardinal Mazarin and Rothschild, seem to have been inclined to regard luck as the first element of worldly success; experience, sagacity, energy, and enterprise as nothing, if linked to an unlucky star.
The Jackdaw sat in the Cardinal's chair! Bishop and Abbot and Prior were there, Many a monk and many a friar, Many a knight and many a squire, With a great many more of lesser degree,-- In sooth a goodly company; And they served the Lord Primate on bended knee. Never, I ween, Was a prouder seen, Read of in books or dreamt of in dreams, Than the Cardinal Lord Archbishop of Rheims.
Not much happens without a dream. And for something great to happen, there must be a great dream. Behind every great achievement is a dreamer of great dreams. Much more than a dreamer is required to bring it to reality; but the dream must be there first.
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