Top 444 Cunning Quotes & Sayings

Cunning is strength withheld.

Somewhere in [China's] soul lurks the cunning of an old dog, and it is a cunning that is strangely impressive. What a strange old soul! What a great old soul!

The animals to whom nature has given the faculty we call cunning know always when to use it, and use it wisely; but when man descends to cunning he blunders and betrays.

Terence O'Ryan heard him and straightway brought him a crystal cup full of the foaming ebon ale which the noble twin brothers Bungiveagh and Bungardilaun brew ever in their divine alevats, cunning as the sons of deathless Leda. For they garner the succulent berries of the hop and mass and sift and bruise and brew them and they mix therewith sour juices and bring the must to the sacred fire and cease not night or day from their toil, those cunning brothers, lords of the vat.

"As I think I told you once before," said I, "it is you who have been, in your greed and cunning, against all the world. It may be profitable to you to reflect, in future, that there never were greed and cunning in the world yet, that did not do too much, and overreach themselves. It is as certain as death."

All my own experience of life teaches me the contempt of cunning, not the fear. The phrase "profound cunning," has always seemed to me a contradiction in terms. I never knew a cunning mind which was not either shallow, or on some point diseased.

In the same way the eminence attaching to the mere possession of great wealth disappoints us nine times out of ten, especially if the wealth has been accumulated rapidly. For great wealth is accumulated rapidly by cunning or chance, or a mixture of the two. Cunning has nothing to do with high qualities; it is rather a presumption against them; while chance has nothing to do with them either. Therefore it is that men are always complaining after meeting So-and-so, that he seemed to be astonishingly stupid, though he made a million in ten years and started as a pauper.

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.

A cunning woman is a knavish fool.

Cunning authors cut to be quoted.

The greatest cunning is to have none at all.

Do not be held a cheat, even though it is impossible to live today without being one. Let your greatest cunning lie in covering up what looks like cunning.

I'm devious, cruel, cunning and addictive.

Love is a cunning weaver of fantasies and fables.

Charm is a cunning self-forgetfulness.

One Man may be more cunning than another, but not more cunning than every body else.

Cunning... is but the low mimic of wisdom.

Stratagem is the right hand of cunning.

Quiet cunning bested boastful brawn

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.

Wine is a cunning wrestler.

Can you care for the people and rule the country and not be cunning?

Whoever appears to have much cunning has in reality very little; being deficient in the essential article, which is, to hide cunning.

In business be as able as you can, but do not be cunning; cunning is the dark sanctuary of incapacity.

Cunning has effect from the credulity of others, rather than from the abilities of those who are cunning. It requires no extraordinary talents to lie and deceive.

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.

The cunning livery of hell.

The fox is very cunning, but he is more cunning who catches the fox.

Those who are overreached by our cunning are far from appearing to us as ridiculous as we appear to ourselves when the cunning of others has overreached us.

Cunning and treachery proceed from want of capacity.

Cunning is neither the consequence of sense, nor does it give sense. A proof that it is not sense, is that cunning people never imagine that others can see through them. It is the consequence of weakness.

Cunning has only private selfish aims, and sticks at nothing which may make them succeed. Discretion has large and extended views, and, like a well-formed eye, commands a whole horizon; cunning is a kind of shortsightedness, that discovers the minutest objects which are near at hand, but is not able to discern things at a distance.

The weak in courage is strong in cunning.

So if you're not Artemis Fowl, then who are you?" The boy extended a dripping hand straight up. "My name is Orion. I am so pleased to meet you at last. I am, of course, your servant." Holly shook the proferred hand, thinking that manners were lovely, but she really needed someone cunning and ruthless right now, and this kid didn't appear to be very cunning.

Reason is just as cunning as she is powerful. Her cunning consists principally in her mediating activity, which, by causing objects to act and re-act on each other in accordance with their own nature, in this way, without any direct interference in the process, carries out reason's intentions.

More are taken in by hope than by cunning.

Cunning is the dwarf of wisdom.

Cunning proceeds from want of capacity.

The cleverness of avarice is but the cunning of imbecility.

Football is a game, and people have to be cunning.

If the lion was advised by the fox, he would be cunning.

Be not caught by the cunning of those who appear in a disguise.

I am a mediocre being, a bit cunning.

Cold & cunning come from the north: But cunning sans wisdom is nothing worth.

Self-love is more cunning than the most cunning man in the world.

The very cunning conceal their cunning; the indifferently shrewd boast of it.

History has different yardsticks for the cruelty of the Northerners and the cruelty of the Southerners in the Civil War. A slave-owner who through cunning and violence shackles a slave in chains, and a slave who through cunning or violence breaks the chains – let not the contemptible eunuchs tell us that they are equals before a court of morality!

Cunning to wise, is as an Ape to a Man.

The cunning of the fox is as murderous as the violence of the wolf.

It has been a sort of maxim, that the greatest art is to conceal art; but I know not how, among some people we meet with, their greatest cunning is to appear cunning.

Be neither silly, nor cunning, but wise

Cunning and treachery are the offspring of incapacity.

But Death was cunning.

Discretion is the perfection of reason, and a guide to us in all the duties of life; cunning is a kind of instinct, that only looks out after our immediate interests and welfare. Discretion is only found in men of strong sense and good understanding; cunning is often to be met with in brutes themselves, and in persons who are but the fewest removes from them.

Whatever bears affinity to cunning is despicable.

A cunning mind emphatically delights in its own cunning, and is the ready prey of cunning.

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.

I always believe that when you're not courageous, you become cunning.

One man may be more cunning than another, but no one can be more cunning than all the world.

One must be cunning and wicked in this world.