Tricks Men Quotes & Sayings

He was a thundering paradox of a man, noble and ignoble, inspiring and outrageous, arrogant and shy, the best of me and the worst of men, the most protean, most ridiculous, and most sublime. No more baffling, exasperating soldier ever wore a uniform. Flamboyant, imperious, and apocalyptic, he carried the plumage of a flamingo, could not acknowledge errors, and tried to cover up his mistakes with sly, childish tricks. Yet he was also endowed with great personal charm, a will of iron, and a soaring intellect. Unquestionably he was the most gifted man-at arms- this nation has produced. -William Manchester on Douglas MacArthur — William Manchester

Life, the true mistress of all real men - would have tricked me as it tricks everyone else. We — Louis-Ferdinand Celine

The death of Lincoln was a disaster for Christendom. There was no man in the United States great enough to wear his boots and the bankers went anew to grab the riches. I fear that foreign bankers with their craftiness and tortuous tricks will entirely control the exuberant riches of America and use it to systematically corrupt civilization. — Otto Von Bismarck

THE SHADOWS Table of Contents Old Ralph Rinkelmann made his living by comic sketches, and all but lost it again by tragic poems. So he was just the man to be chosen king of the fairies, for in Fairyland the sovereignty is elective. It is no doubt very strange that fairies should desire to have a mortal king; but the fact is, that with all their knowledge and power, they cannot get rid of the feeling that some men are greater than they are, though they can neither fly nor play tricks. So at such times as there happens to be twice the usual number of sensible electors, such a man as Ralph Rinkelmann gets to be chosen. They — George MacDonald

He wore a tiny turquoise stud earring I always associated with Dungeons and Dragons types. Men who own ferrets and think magic tricks are cool. — Gillian Flynn

Writing is for men who can think and feel, not mindless sensation seekers out of nightclubs and bars. But these are bad times. We are condemned to work with upstarts, clowns who no doubt got their training in a circus and then turned to journalism as the appropriate place to display their tricks. — Naguib Mahfouz

In your dream you call for Chaplain Charlie. You met the Navy chaplain when you interviewed him for a feature article you were writing. Chaplain Charlie was an amateur magician. With his magic, Chaplain Charlie entertained Marines in sick bays and distributed spiritual tourniquets to men who were still alive, but weaponless. To brutal, godless children Chaplain Charlie spoke about how God is merciful, despite appearances, about how the Ten Commandments lack detail because when you're writing on stone tablets with lightning bolts you've got to be brief, about how the Free World will conquer Communism with aid of God and a few Marines, and about free fish. One day a Vietnamese child booby-trapped Chaplain Charlie's black bag of tricks. Chaplain Charlie reached in and pulled out a bright ball of death... — Gustav Hasford

Don't worry about hurting me, Jordan." She brushed back her hair again as she turned from him and headed for the bedroom. "It was too late for that a long time ago."
...
"I've heard the lecture," she informed him as she glared back at him. "I've heard you tell your men how love is an illusion, and how they need to watch their backs before that illusion bites him on the ass, so many times it sickens me. Unless you have something original to add to it, then I don't want to hear it again, if you don't mind."
...
"You're fooling yourself." He had to force the words past his lips. "You're letting lust and pleasure betray you. Tehya. It tricks you. When it fades, all you have left is either friendship or enmity. It's the enmity that worries me, the knowledge of all the little ways you can destroy one another with the knowledge you've gained. I don't want us to go that route. I don't want you to hate me."
...
"Who ruined you before I ever had a chance at your heart? — Lora Leigh

When love begins to sicken and decay
It useth an enforced ceremony.
There are no tricks in plain and simple faith:
But hollow men, like horses hot at hand,
Make gallant show, and promise of their mettle. — William Shakespeare

I suppose it's unfair, tricks of argument that leave wounds, but with this sort of thing that (C.S.) Lewis does, what I feel is a craftsman's joy at the sight of a superior performance. — Joy Davidman

That which we call wit consists much in quickness and tricks, and is so full of lightness that it seldom goes with judgment and solidity; but when they do meet, it is commonly in an honest man. — King James I

For honest merit to succeed amid the tricks and intrigues which are now so lamentably common, I know is difficult; but the honor of success is increased by the obstacles which are to be surmounted. Let me triumph as a man or not at all. — James A. Garfield

The thing about women is that they got liberated too fast. They never learned to be straightforward about life because they had to sneak around for about a thousand years tricking men into doing things they wanted. So they manipulate you instead of telling you what they want, so you never know where the hell you are. And then they get mad at you and bitch. — Jennifer Crusie

Men have a trick of coming up to what is expected of them, good or bad. — Jacob August Riis

When a man and woman have sexual relations, who gets the
most out of the deal? The man, or the woman? Since we live in a society
full of tricks, the man thinks he gets more out of the encounter.
But what do men really get out of it? The reality is that women have
the potential to get more out of it than the man, especially if the
man's seeds have accumulated a certain amount of value. — Tariq Nasheed

But eventually I nudged the old bandages in the corner toward me. Once I had them in my hands, I unwound them to their full length.
"What are you doing with those?" Roden asked, "You're not injured."
"The vigils are forbidden from harming me tonight. Vargan was very clear that I wasn't to come out tomorrow looking like a martyr." My grin widened." But don't worry, Avenia already fell for this trick once before. They love it."
"That's your trick?" Roden asked. "Can't you take this seriously?"
"If you understood what Vargan's men did to me, you'd know exactly how serious I am."
"Hush now," I said. "Imogen needs to sleep, I need to think and you need to ... let me think. — Jennifer A. Nielsen

They were still gawking at me. I reminded myself that these men could make my heart explode in my chest, but eventually I just couldn't stand it.
"I don't do tricks, you know," I snapped.
The Grisha exchanged a glance.
"That was a pretty good trick back in the tent," Ivan said.
I rolled my eyes. "Well, if I plan on doing anything exciting, I promise to give fair warning so just ... take a nap or something."
Ivan looked affronted. I felt a little snap of fear, but the fair-haired Corporalnik let out a bark of laughter.
"I am Fedyor," he said. "And this is Ivan. — Leigh Bardugo

[On marriage and permanent attachment:]
Well, well
the prizes all go to the women who 'play their cards well'
but if they can only be won in that way, I would rather lose the game ... [C]lever [women] bide their time
make themselves indispensable first, and then se font prier [=play hard to get]. Clever
but I can't do it. — Dorothy L. Sayers

She had reached an accommodation with darkness months ago. She knew a thousand tricks of moving without sight that these men had never dreamed of. The night was her friendly kingdom, ready to hide her. None of them could outrun her in the dark. — Joanna Bourne

The problem is you make the tricks look good. You are a brilliant acrobat, and a witty comedian. You are skillful. People want a fool to be foolish
trip on banana peels and grin and spout nonsense. These men want fools to make them feel better about themselves, not to remind them what they lack. — Kelli Swofford Nielsen

The whole history of these books (i.e. the Gospels) is so defective and doubtful that it seems vain to attempt minute enquiry into it: and such tricks have been played with their text, and with the texts of other books relating to them, that we have a right, from that cause, to entertain much doubt what parts of them are genuine. In the New Testament there is internal evidence that parts of it have proceeded from an extraordinary man; and that other parts are of the fabric of very inferior minds. It is as easy to separate those parts, as to pick out diamonds from dunghills. — Thomas Jefferson

Great men do not play stage tricks with the doctrines of life and death: only little men do that. — John Ruskin

God created Adam master and lord of living creatures, but Eve spoilt all, when she persuaded him to set himself above God's will. 'Tis you women, with your tricks and artifices, that lead men into error. — Martin Luther

Do you not know that King Kong the first was just three foot six inches tall? He only came up to Faye Wray's belly button! If God could do the tricks that we can do he'd be a happy man! — Peter O'Toole

It's true that all men are pigs. The trick is to tame one who knows how to find truffles. — Lev L. Spiro

No, I have never wanted to be a man. I have often wanted to be more effective as a woman, but I have never felt that trousers would do the trick! — Eleanor Roosevelt

I had loved magic tricks from the time I was six or seven. I bought books on magic. I did magic acts for my parents and their friends. I was aiming for show business from early days, and magic was the poor man's way of getting in: you buy a trick for $2, and you've got an act. — Steve Martin

Ever note, Lucilius, When love begins to sicken and decay It useth an enforced ceremony. There are no tricks in plain and simple faith; But hollow men, like horses hot at hand, Make gallant show and promise of their mettle; But when they should endure the bloody spur, They fall their crests, and like deceitful jades Sink in the trial. — William Shakespeare

One thing I have never understood is how to work it so that when you're married, things keep happening to you. Things happen to you when you're single. You meet new men, you travel alone, you learn new tricks, you read Trollope, you try sushi, you buy nightgowns, you shave your legs. Then you get married, and the hair grows in. I love the everydayness of marriage, I love figuring out what's for dinner and where to hang the pictures and do we owe the Richardsons, but life does tend to slow to a crawl. — Nora Ephron

In the end, alchemy, whether it is metallurgical or financial, fails. A base business can not be transformed into a golden business by tricks of accounting or capital structure. The man claiming to be a financial alchemist may become rich. But gullible investors rather than business achievements will usually be the source of his wealth. — Warren Buffett

I'd be happy with Daniel. I already was. The fact that the universe had given me two lovely men and a baby in the space of a year...well, the universe was full of tricks and mystery. — Kristan Higgins

You've seed how things goes in the world o' men. You've knowed men to be low-down and mean. You've seed ol' Death at his tricks ... Ever' man wants life to be a fine thing, and a easy. 'Tis fine, boy, powerful fine, but 'tain't easy. Life knocks a man down and he gits up and it knocks him down agin. I've been uneasy all my life ... I've wanted life to be easy for you. Easier'n 'twas for me. A man's heart aches, seein' his young uns face the world. Knowin' they got to get their guts tore out, the way his was tore. I wanted to spare you, long as I could. I wanted you to frolic with your yearlin'. I knowed the lonesomeness he eased for you. But ever' man's lonesome. What's he to do then? What's he to do when he gits knocked down? Why, take it for his share and go on.
- Penny Baxter — Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

Don't learn the tricks of the trade. Learn the trade. — Sherry Argov

As she stepped up to the stall door the two men inside turned at her approach. Her heart stopped in her chest. It couldn't be - God couldn't be that cruel to her. She blinked, certain her eyes were playing tricks on her, but no they weren't, staring back at her was Chance Ryan.
The man who had broken her heart ten years ago. — Tamara Hoffa

You see, sister, little Miss Scarlett has no idea who she is. Her chraming tricks attract men who are unworthy of her. "Rhett's voice dropped to a whisper. "Hindoos believe we have had lives before this. Is it true? He raised a mocking eyebrow. Perhaps Scarlett and I were star-crossed lovers; perhaps we died in each other's arms ... — Donald McCaig

There are no times in life when opportunity, the chance to be and do, gathers so richly about the soul as when it has to suffer. Then everything depends on whether the man turns to the lower or the higher helps. If he resorts to mere expedients and tricks the opportunity is lost. He comes out harder, poorer, smaller for his pain. But, if he turns to God, the hour of suffering is the turning hour of his life. — Phillips Brooks

I feed off men. I lure them with my sexual tricks, then bite off their heads while they sleep."
"Ain't She Sweet?. — Susan Elizabeth Phillips

An actor is no more than an assortment of odds and ends which barely add upp to a whole man. An actor is an interpreter of other men's words, often a soul which wishes to to reveal itself to the world but dare not, a craftsman, a bag of tricks, a vanity bag, a cool observer of mankind, a child, and at his best a kind of unfrocked priest who for an hour or two, can call on heacen and hell to mesmerise a group of innocents. — Alec Guinness

Immortality is often ridiculous or cruel: few of us would have chosen to be Og or Ananias or Gallio. Even in mathematics, history sometimes plays strange tricks; Rolle figures in the textbooks of elementary calculus as if he had been a mathematician like Newton; Farey is immortal because he failed to understand a theorem which Haros had proved perfectly fourteen years before; the names of five worthy Norwegians still stand in Abel's Life, just for one act of conscientious imbecility, dutifully performed at the expense of their country's greatest man. But on the whole the history of science is fair, and this is particularly true in mathematics. No other subject has such clear-cut or unanimously accepted standards, and the men who are remembered are almost always the men who merit it. Mathematical fame, if you have the cash to pay for it, is one of the soundest and steadiest of investments. — G.H. Hardy

Such a brute should underneath all his braggart tricks, his viciousness, his vileness, be a coward. But I am convinced that he was not. Because even cowardice requires a certain degree of sensitivity, and a certain value for life. — Warren Eyster

He who lives to see two or three generations is like a man who sits some time in the conjurer's booth at a fair, and witnesses the performance twice or thrice in succession. The tricks were meant to be seen only once; and when they are no longer a novelty and cease to deceive, their effect is gone. — Arthur Schopenhauer

The man who sees two or three generations is like one who sits in the conjuror's booth at a fair, and sees the same tricks two or three times. They are meant to be seen only once. — Arthur Schopenhauer

It was only natural that the intellectuals who questioned the necessity of American purpose did not rush from Cambridge and New Haven to inflict their doubts about American power and goals upon the nation's policies. So people like Riesman, classic intellectuals, stayed where they were while the new breed of thinkers-doers, half of academe, half of the nation's think tanks and of policy planning, would make the trip, not doubting for a moment the validity of their right to serve, the quality of their experience. They were men who reflected the post-Munich, post-McCarthy pragmatism of the age. One had to stop totalitarianism, and since the only thing the totalitarians understood was force, one had to be willing to use force. They justified each decision to use power by their own conviction that the Communists were worse, which justified our dirty tricks, our toughness. — David Halberstam

In tribal times, there were the medicine men. In the Middle Ages, there were the priests. Today, there are the lawyers. For every age, a group of bright boys, learned in their trades and jealous of their learning, who blend technical competence with plain and fancy hocus-pocus to make themselves masters of their fellow men. For every age, a pseudo-intellectual autocracy, guarding the tricks of the trade from the uninitiated, and running, after its own pattern, the civilization of its day. — Fred Rodell

Merciful heaven, Thou rather with thy sharp and sulphurous bolt Splits the unwedgeable and gnarled oak Than the soft myrtle; but man, proud man, Dressed in a little brief authority, Most ignorant of what he's most assured His glassy essence
like an angry ape Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven As makes the angels weep; who, with our spleens, would all themselves laugh mortal. — William Shakespeare