Knave Quotes & Sayings

Stationer, that Riddlesden, the attorney, was a very knave. — Benjamin Franklin

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

An entirely honest man, in the severe sense of the word, exists no more than an entirely dishonest knave; the best and the worst are only approximations to those qualities. Who are those that never contradict themselves? yet honesty never contradicts itself. Who are they that always contradict themselves? yet knavery is mere self-contradiction. Thus the knowledge of man determines not the things themselves, but their proportions, the quantum of congruities and incongruities. — Johann Kaspar Lavater

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

The Wood is that that makes the gallows tree;
The Weed is that that strings the hangman's bag;
The Wag, my pretty knave, betokens thee. — Walter Raleigh

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

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

Very often, say what you will, a knave is only a fool. — Voltaire

They look upon fraud as a greater crime than theft, and therefore seldom fail to punish it with death; for they allege, that care and vigilance, with a very common understanding, may preserve a man's goods from thieves, but honesty has no defence against superior cunning; and, since it is necessary that there should be a perpetual intercourse of buying and selling, and dealing upon credit, where fraud is permitted and connived at, or has no law to punish it, the honest dealer is always undone, and the knave gets the advantage. — Jonathan Swift

Still, the car started, so we drove off to the movies. Popcorn happened. Previews, ads, and an annoying kid all went down like clockwork. The picture started and then ended a while later, the world unchanged by its passing. — Adam P. Knave

My curse on plays
That have to be set up in fifty ways,
On the day's war with every knave and dolt,
Theater business, management of men. — William Butler Yeats

Truth, an objective thing, is usually conceived of as something simple. Quite the opposite is correct: truth is enormously complicated; it calls for effort on several levels to arrive at its definition; it demands the utmost devotion in its service.
Do you doubt it? Then resolve evermore to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth. You must hurt your friends, suffer the most pitiless scrutiny and persecution, turn the festive occasion into a nightmare of share words and recriminations. You will be called "a sour-puss," a curmudgeon, a difficult man, and very possibly a knave and an untruthful braggart.
The world, as it is organized, is a conspiracy against truth. Individuals, communities, nations, they are all afraid of the truth as if it were a medusa head which froze men to stone, even as it froze them to virtue. — Francis Beauchesne Thornton

The heart never grows better by age; I fear rather worse, always harder. A young liar will be an old one, and a young knave will only be a greater knave as he grows older. — Lord Chesterfield

Dost thou verily think that the Earl of Birmingham is low enough to plead for his life?' Sir Robert returned angrily, the wrathful blood coloring his handsome face. 'I wouldst scorn in the knowledge that I owed my life and liberty to a scurrilous murderer and knave. Do with me what thou wilt, surly knave, but rest in the knowledge that no plea for mercy shall be wrung from my lips. — Alicia A. Willis

Dinner waited for us: steaks and potatoes and manly things, items of a manly meal. Also vodka cranberries. — Adam P. Knave

A thousand years of torture rule, The knave who dares to harm a fool." I — Christopher Moore

Avoid the politic, the factious fool,
The busy, buzzing, talking harden'd knave;
The quaint smooth rogue that sins against his reason,
Calls saucy loud sedition public zeal,
And mutiny the dictates of his spirit. — Thomas Otway

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

He who kills from afar knows nothing at all about act of killing. He who kills from afar derives no lesson from life or from death; he neither risks nor stains his hands with blood, nor hears the breathing of his adversary, nor reads the fear, courage, or indifference in his eyes. He who kills from afar tests neither his arm, his heart, nor his conscience, nor does he create ghosts that will later haunt him every single night for the rest of his life. He who kills from afar is a knave who commends to others the dirty and terrible task that is his own. — Arturo Perez-Reverte

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

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

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

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

That skull had a tongue in it, and could sing once: how the knave jowls it to the ground, as if it were Cain's jaw-bone, that did the first murder! It might be the pate of a politician, which this ass now o'er-reaches; one that would circumvent God, might it not? — William Shakespeare

With no name attached to it, the place somehow declared itself nowhere and everywhere at the same time — Adam P. Knave

Saying something is far too simple is a doubter's way or trying to make the world more complex so he won't have answers. — Adam P. Knave

He wasn't anti-gun really - he just wasn't pro-being-shot-at. — Adam P. Knave

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

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

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

The same ambition can destroy or save, and make a patriot as it makes a knave. — Alexander Pope

He that dies a martyr proves that he was not a knave, but by no means that he was not a fool. — Charles Caleb Colton

Mere children, ha!" said Jane. "I say we tie up the knave and then discuss his fate."
Since everyone thought this a good idea, Batty and Hound donated Jeffrey's neckties, and soon Bug Man, aka Sock or Spock, aka Norman Birnbaum, was bound hand and foot. Jane, Batty, and Hound then took a few minutes to be Aztec priests calling for blood, until Rosalind quieted them down. Norman was slime, but that was no reason to terrify him.
Then came a long discussion about what they should do next... Jane's suggestion of throwing Norman into their basement so that he could dwell on his sins was rejected outright. — Jeanne Birdsall

Carrot followed me to the couch. We sat down and settled in. The couch was our center, somehow. Whatever, it didn't matter why or how, the couch simply managed to be where we decided big stuff. This time "big stuff" would just include defeating impossibly powerful imaginary creatures that used to live in my head. — Adam P. Knave

None are so busy as the fool and the knave. — John Dryden

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

He felt like his own heart might stop beating just from acknowledging the concept. The sadness, the sorrow, and the loss, they were living things, funnily enough. — Adam P. Knave

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

It is, therefore, a just political maxim, that every man must be supposed a knave. — David Hume

The King and Queen of Hearts were seated on their throne when they arrived, with a great crowd assembled about them
all sorts of little birds and beasts, as well as the whole pack of cards: the Knave was standing before them, in chains, with a soldier on each side to guard him; and near the King was the White Rabbit, with a trumpet in one hand, and a scroll of parchment in the other. In the very middle of the court was a table, with a large dish of tarts upon it: they looked so good, that it made Alice quite hungry to look at them
'I wish they'd get the trial done,' she thought, 'and hand round the refreshments!' But there seemed to be no chance of this, so she began looking at everything about her, to pass away the time. — Lewis Carroll

You ate my dog, you undead freak!"
Hey! Watch the slander. I hear the acceptable term is 'corporeally
challenged' now. No need to be rude. — Adam P. Knave

Lussurioso: "Welcome, be not far off, we must be better acquainted. Push, be bold with us, thy hand!"
Vindice: "With all my heart, i'faith. How dost, sweet musk-cat?
When shall we lie together?"
Lussurioso: (aside) "Wondrous knave!
Gather him into boldness? 'Sfoot, the slave's
Already as familiar as an ague,
And shakes me at his pleasure!
Friend, I can
Forget myself in private, but elsewhere,
I pray do you remember be."
Vindice: "Oh, very well, sir.
I conster myself saucy."
Lussurioso: "What hast been? What profession?"
Vindice: "A bone-setter."
Lussurioso: "A bone-setter!"
Vindice: "A bawd, my lord, one that sets bones together."
Lussurioso: (aside) "Notable bluntness! — Thomas Middleton

We have not the slightest idea that women are made of such light material that the breath of any fool or knave may blow them on the rocks of ruin. — Jane Swisshelm

A rich man is an honest man
no thanks to him; for he would be a double knave, to cheat mankind when he had no need of it: he has no occasion to press upon his integrity, nor so much as to touch upon the borders of dishonesty. — Daniel Defoe

A knave thinks himself a fool, all the time he is not making a fool of some other person. — William Hazlitt

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

And for more egregious offenses, you need to get rid of the knave, quickly. Think — Eric Schmidt

Riches are oft by guilt and baseness earn'd;
Or dealt by chance to shield a lucky knave,
Or throw a cruel sunshine on a fool.
But for one end, one much-neglected use,
Are riches worth your care; (for nature's wants
Are few, and without opulence supplied;)
This noble end is, to produce the soul;
To show the virtues in their fairest light;
To make humanity the minister
Of bounteous Providence; and teach the breast
The generous luxury the gods enjoy. — John Armstrong

men crown the knave and scourge the tool that did his will — Edward Rowland Sill

A Whig is properly what is called a Trimmer - that is, a coward to both sides of the question, who dare not be a knave nor an honest man, but is a sort of whiffing, shuffling, cunning, silly, contemptible, unmeaning negation of the two. — William Hazlitt

I've been a foul-mouthed knave." "Well, I don't know." "A beetle-headed malfeasor." "Nothing so - " "A base, proud tottyhead." He paused, but she said nothing. "Aren't you going to object?" "No," she drawled the word. "Humility is so refreshing in a man. — Christina Dodd

None are so busy as the fool and knave. — John Dryden

Cardinal Mazarin was a great knave, but no great man; much more cunning than able; scandalously false and dirtily greedy. — Lord Chesterfield

He didn't want to get his hopes up, but he also refused to be a pessimist about this moment. Everything could go either way. — Adam P. Knave

We are no more free agents than the queen of clubs when she victoriously takes prisoner the knave of hearts. — Mary Wortley Montagu

Necessity makes an honest man a knave. — Daniel Defoe

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

Am I thy looking-glass that thou callest me knave? — Oscar Wilde

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

Though this knave came something saucily into this world before he was sent for, yet was is mother Fair; there was good sport at his making, and the Whoreson must be acknowledged. — William Shakespeare

Since the fall of Man and the return of Magery and our older ways, most disputes were settled in a civilized manner: sword to the face, mace to the neck, acceptable societal situational handlers — Adam P. Knave

Even virtue followed beyond reason's rule May stamp the just man knave, the sage a fool. — Horace

Talk about an ideal democracy! In the realm of time there is no aristocracy of wealth, and no aristocracy of intellect. Genius is never rewarded by even an extra hour a day. And there is no punishment. Waste your infinitely precious commodity as much as you will, and the supply will never be withheld from you. No mysterious power will say: - "This man is a fool, if not a knave. He does not deserve time; he shall be cut off at the meter." It is more certain than consols, and payment of income is not affected by Sundays. Moreover, you cannot draw on the future. Impossible to get into debt! You can only waste the passing moment. You cannot waste to-morrow; it is kept for you. You cannot waste the next hour; it is kept for you — Arnold Bennett

I am always afraid of a fool. One cannot be sure that he is not a knave as well. — William Hazlitt

The potential, for anything, was overwhelming to a degree that bothered him. It wasn't, he thought, the idea of power. It certainly wasn't that nervous feeling T.C. would get in the pit of his stomach when he knew he had an incredible opportunity in front of him, that amazing brief pause before an act of creation. This was something else. Something to fear and respect. — Adam P. Knave

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

Innate ideas are in every man, born with him; they are truly himself. The man who says that we have no innate ideas must be a fool and knave, having no conscience or innate science. — William Blake

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

How strange it is, that a fool or a knave, with riches, should be treated with more respect by the world, than a good man, or a wise man in poverty! — Ann Radcliffe

A man of wit could not be a knave or villain. — Aphra Behn

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

Nobody rose in Packingtown by doing good work. You could lay that down for a rule - if you met a man who was rising in Packingtown, you met a knave. That man who had been sent to Jurgis' father by the boss, he would rise; the man who told tales and spied upon his fellows would rise; but the man who minded his own business and did his work - why, they would "speed him up" till they had worn him out, and then they would throw him into the gutter. — Upton Sinclair

Every knave is a thorough knave, and a thorough knave is a knave throughout. — George Berkeley

I do not pretend to give such a sum; I only lend it to you. When you shall return to your country with a good character, you cannot fail of getting into some business, that will in time enable you to pay all your debts. In that case, when you meet with another honest man in similar distress, you must pay me by lending this sum to him; enjoining him to discharge the debt by a like operation, when he shall be able, and shall meet with such another opportunity. I hope it may thus go through many hands, before it meets with a knave that will stop its progress. This is a trick of mine for doing a deal of good with a little money. — Benjamin Franklin

That knave preserves the pearl in his purse who considers all people purse-cuts. — Saadi

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

A knave; a rascal; an eater of broken meats; a
base, proud, shallow, beggarly, three-suited,
hundred-pound, filthy, worsted-stocking knave; a
lily-livered, action-taking knave, a whoreson,
glass-gazing, super-serviceable finical rogue;
one-trunk-inheriting slave; one that wouldst be a
bawd, in way of good service, and art nothing but
the composition of a knave, beggar, coward, pandar,
and the son and heir of a mongrel bitch: one whom I
will beat into clamorous whining, if thou deniest
the least syllable of thy addition. — William Shakespeare

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

Credulity is always a ridiculous, often a dangerous failing: it has made of many a clever man, a fool; and of many a good man, a knave. — Frances Wright

A single thought, he considered, could do all sorts of harm. Harm to what, he wasn't sure, but he identified it as harm. — Adam P. Knave

Knave of hearts and bane to all women, be it known that you must win your tournament for me, otherwise I shall have a most difficult time explaining to my new lord my newest addition.
-A letter to Stryder, from Rowena — Kinley MacGregor

If I get clear of my debts, I care not though men call me bold, glib of tongue, audacious, impudent, shameless, a fabricator of falsehoods, inventor of words, practised in lawsuits, a pettifogger, a rattle, a fox, a sharper, a knave, a dissembler, a slippery fellow, an imposter, a rogue that deserves the cat-o-nine-tails, a blackguard, a twister, a licker-up of hashes; they call all this when they meet me, if they please, I care not. — Aristophanes

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

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

The life even of a just man is a round of petty frauds; that of a knave a series of greater. We degrade life by our follies and vices, and then complain that the unhappiness which is only their accompaniment is inherent in the constitution of things. — Christian Nestell Bovee

A thorough-paced knave will rarely quarrel with one whom he can cheat: his revenge is plunder; therefore he is usually the most forgiving of beings, upon the principle that if he come to an open rupture, he must defend himself; and this does not suit a man whose vocation it is to keep his hands in the pocket of another. — Charles Caleb Colton

I've never been one to mourn the passing of what could have been a promising relationship. When Jeff Knave broke my heart in the ninth grade, I decided then and there that if a guy couldn't see that I was something special, I'd say good-bye with no regrets. Not that I think I'm more special than anyone else, mind you. But if a thing is not meant to be, I figure it's just not part of God's infinite plan. — Angela Elwell Hunt

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

God has punished the knave, and the devil has drowned the rest. — Voltaire

Pay attention to minute particulars. Take care of the little ones. Generalization and abstraction are the plea of the hypocrite, scoundrel, and knave. — William Blake

What is this place?"
"Nothing at all. Everywhere there is. Both at once?" Wereberry offered. — Adam P. Knave

He had always thought her beautiful - for a peasant girl. But with that golden hair falling around her, it made her face and eyes glow like some kind of enchantment. He was thinking like an addle-headed knave. — Melanie Dickerson

Said the Knave, I didn't write it and they can't prove that I did; there's no name signed at the end. — Lewis Carroll

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

Not able to stop it, I felt a small smile tilt up the corners of my mouth. "Noted. Althought I must protest that you keep forcing unwanted kisses on me."
"It's the only way to get one. Unwanted indeed." He raised a knowing eyebrow at me. Arrogant Knave. I shook my head, feeling sad and happy all at the same time. "Why do you persist, Wolfe?"
His grin was slow and wicked as he stood back from me, allowing my body and mind to breathe again. "Strategy."
"Strategy?"
He cocked his eyebrow. "At first I thought imposed isolation would make you miss me-"
"Why you arro-"
"-But then I realised that it's being near me you can't resist. And there are only so many kisses you'll take before you give in to me completely, Rogan. — Samantha Young

True loyalty consists not in bowing the knee to earthly greatness, or in heroic deeds to "gild the kingly knave, or garnish out the fool," but in noble, generous acts of honest purpose, where truth, honor, and virtue, and a nation's welfare, are dearer than life. — James Ellis

While I live, no rich or noble knave shall walk the world in credit to his grave. — Alexander Pope

You know," she said, pulling back from his neck. "I've always been wrong about something."
"And that is?"
"I thought there was nothing in the world more seductive than a troubadour singing his observations about his lady love. But I was wrong."
She trailed her fingernail down his arm, raising chills in its wake. "The most incredible seduction is when a knight who is renowned for his strength speaks from his heart. Not as a knave out to woo a woman because he can, but as a man who wants only to give of himself." Her gaze seared him as she stared into his eyes and he saw her innermost sincerity. "I love you, Stryder. I always will."
-Stryder and Rowena — Kinley MacGregor

A fool is often as dangerous to deal with as a knave, and always more incorrigible. — Charles Caleb Colton