Knavish Quotes & Sayings

I was not born for courts or great affairs;I pay my debts, believe, and say my prayers.Pope. — Samuel Johnson

Scatter her enemies, And make them fall; Confound their politics, Frustrate their knavish tricks. — Mahatma Gandhi

Child-rearing is my main interest now. I'm a hands-on father. — Sean Penn

So often I'm like, No, thanks, to all of that stuff, just give me the room to exist both in the shit and stars . . . We have to fight to be understood as being distinct and incongruent. But I think it is worth fighting for. — Rachel Kaadzi Ghansah

Cupid is a knavish lad,
Thus to make poor mortals mad! — William Shakespeare

Do you take me for a sponge, my lord? hamlet: Ay, sir; that soaks up the king's countenance, his rewards, his authorities. But such officers do the king best service in the end: he keeps them, like an ape, in the corner of his jaw; first mouthed, to be last swallowed: when he needs what you have gleaned, it is but squeezing you, and, sponge, you shall be dry again. rosencrantz: I understand you not, my lord. hamlet: I am glad of it: a knavish speech sleeps in a foolish ear. — William Shakespeare

There is no ideal in observation. When you have an ideal, you cease to observe, you are then merely approximating the present to the idea, and therefore there is duality, conflict, and all the rest of it. The mind has to be in the state when it can see, observe. The experience of the observation is really an astonishing state. In that there is no duality. The mind is simply - aware. — Jiddu Krishnamurti

But, but, but here lies the difficulty. Precisely what the New Testament understands by Christianity and by being a Christian is-and this the New Testament makes no effort to conceal but emphasizes decisively-what most of all is repugnant to the natural man, is an offense to him, against which with wild passion and defiance he must revolt, or else cunningly try at any price to be rid of it, as for example by the help of a knavish trick, calling Christianity what is the exact opposite of Christianity, and then thanking God for Christianity and for the great and inestimable privilege of being a Christian. Attack On Christendom pp 150-3 — Soren Kierkegaard

Actually, time and time again people always come back to my early, more innocent stuff, and say, "I kind of prefer that." I could go back to writing that and probably make more people happy, but it just doesn't feel like the right thing to do. I don't want to take the lazy route. — Herbert

We are both disturbed and fascinated by visions of bleak futures, predictions of what might come if we as a society aren't careful. — Marie Lu

A knavish speech sleeps in a fool's ear. — William Shakespeare

A cunning woman is a knavish fool. — George Lyttelton, 1st Baron Lyttelton

An institute run with such knavish imbecility that if it were not the work of God it would not last a fortnight. — Hilaire Belloc

Yet but three come one more.
Two of both kinds make up four.
Ere she comes curst and sad.
Cupid is a knavish lad.
Thus to make poor females mad. — William Shakespeare

Knaves are not to be confused with divas. Knavish behavior is a product of low integrity; diva-ish behavior is one of high exceptionalism. Knaves prioritize the individual over the team; divas think they are better than the team, but want success equally for both. Knaves need to be dealt with as quickly as possible. — Eric Schmidt

I've learned that home isn't a place, it's a feeling. — Cecelia Ahern

The public is the tribunal before which all art is judged - not the critics or the academies. The public is the artist's only patron, and has certain fundamental rights. It will submit to education, and will respond to suggestion, but it will not be bullied. — Walter J. Phillips

I almost shudder at the thought of alluding to the most fatal example of the abuses of grief which the history of mankind has preserved - the Cross. Consider what calamities that engine of grief has produced! With the rational respect that is due to it, knavish priests have added prostitutions of it, that fill or might fill the blackest and bloodiest pages of human history.

{Letter to Thomas Jefferson, September 3, 1816] — John Adams

The Catholic Church is an institution I am bound to hold divine but for unbelievers a proof of its divinity might be found in the fact that no merely human institution conducted with such knavish imbecility would have lasted a fortnight. — Hilaire Belloc

The United States is already Mexico's largest trading partner. — Enrique Pena Nieto

I think that being vulnerable is about feeling helpless, or powerless ... it's about allowing myself to be in a place where I could be hurt. — Sadie Calvano

You deny our vows. You deny my rights. You abuse my pride and leave me nothing of yourself. You send me from you on some lackey's strength. You betray me at every turn."
Shanna met his glare and hurled a fierce reply. "You took my heart and set your fingers firm around it, then, no doubt delighted at your success, you rent it with unfaithfulness."
"Unfaithfulness is only from a husband. You play the same to me and yet do say I am no spouse."
"You plead you are my husband true and spite the suitors come to woo me."
"Yea!" Ruark raged. "Your suitors flock about your skirts in heated lust, and you yield them more than me."
Shanna paused before him, rage etched upon her face. "You're a churlish cad!"
"They fondle you boldly and you set not their hands away from you."
"A knavish blackguard!"
"You are a married woman!"
"I am a widow!"
"You are my wife!" Ruark shouted to be heard over the rising wind outside. — Kathleen E. Woodiwiss

God is constant. Always forgiving. Always loving. Never changing. — Jefferson Bethke

The typical lawmaker of today is a man wholly devoid of principle - a mere counter in a grotesque and knavish game. If the right pressure could be applied to him, he would be cheerfully in favor of polygamy, astrology or cannibalism. — H.L. Mencken

To say the Truth, I have often concluded, that the honest Part of Mankind would be much too hard for the knavish, if they could bring themselves to incur the Guilt, or thought it worth their while to take the Trouble. — Henry Fielding

Oliver, my professor, was a scientific bounder, a journalist by instinct, a thief of ideas, - he was always prying! And you know the knavish system of the scientific world. I simply would not publish, and let him share my credit. I went on working, I got nearer and nearer making my formula into an experiment, a reality. I told no living soul, because I meant to flash my work upon the world with crushing effect and become famous at a blow. I took up the question of pigments to fill up certain gaps. And suddenly, not by design but by accident, I made a discovery in physiology. — H.G.Wells