Francois de La Rochefoucauld Quotes

It is double pleasure to deceive the deceiver.

It is a double pleasure to deceive the deceiver.

A question is a trap and an answer is your foot in it.

A game of secret, cunning stratagems, in which only the fools who are fated to lose reveal their true aims or motives - even to themselves.

I fooled some of the most brilliant people in journalism.

Dishonesty is so grasping it would deceive God himself, were it possible.

For me, it works to my advantage when people think I'm stupid. If somebody who disdains you or wants to control you underestimates you, you can play their game right back.

O, what a tangled web we weave, When first we practice to deceive!

Creative betrayal is the essence of successful statesmanship.

I don't like intrigue. I'm not a man of intrigue.

Undoubtedly ... there is a meanness in all the arts which ladies sometimes condescend to employ for captivation. What bears affinity to cunning is despicable.

I keep my enemies close/ I give 'em enough rope/ They put themselves in the air/ I just kick away the chair.

Dissimulation is innate in woman, and almost as much a quality of the stupid as of the clever.

The daily employment of cunning marks a little mind, it generally happens that those who resort to it in one respect to protect themselves lay themselves open to attack in another.

For 'tis the sport to have the engineer Hoist with his own petar; and't shall go hard But I will delve one yard below their mines And blow them at the moon.

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.

I wouldn't know how to fool a man any more. My deceiving days seem so long ago.

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

I'm not naturally manipulative.

The English had hit upon a splendid joke. They intended to catch me or to bring me down.

We shall perish by guile just as we slew.

Tricks and treachery are the practice of fools, that don't have brains enough to be honest.

I liked Dallas better because it was more deceptive, you could do more with it.

The weak in courage is strong in cunning.

Old age and treachery will always beat youth and exuberance.