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.
Cheating is a sin, but honest cunning is simply prudence. It is a virtue. To be sure, it has a likeness to roguery, but that cannot be helped. He who has not learned to practice it is a fool.
Customary use of artifice is the sign of a small mind, and it almost always happens that he who uses it to cover one spot uncovers himself in another.
I am as vigilant as a cat to steal cream.
One must be cunning and wicked in this world.
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.
A man has made great progress in cunning when he does not seem too clever to others.
Skilled in every trick, a worthy heir of his paternal craft, he would make black look like white, and white look black. [Lat., Furtum ingeniosus ad omne, Qui facere assueret, patriae non degener artis, Candida de nigris, et de candentibus atra.]
Weaseling out of things is important to learn. It's what separates us from the animals... except the weasel.
Littlefinger looked like a boy who had just taken a furtive bite from a honeycomb. He was TRYING to watch for bees, but the honey was so sweet.
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.
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.
Cunning proceeds from want of capacity.
So false is faction, and so smooth a liar, As that it never had a side entire.
