In every American there is an air of incorrigible innocence, which seems to conceal a diabolical cunning.
Cunning
Knowledge without justice ought to be called cunning rather than wisdom.
Every man of action has a strong dose of egoism, pride, hardness, and cunning. But all those things will be regarded as high qualities if he can make them the means to achieve great ends.
Man’s unhappiness, as I construe, comes of his greatness; it is because there is an Infinite in him, which with all his cunning he cannot quite bury under the Finite.
Cunning… is but the low mimic of wisdom.
I am a mediocre being, a bit cunning.
Many men have been capable of doing a wise thing, more a cunning thing, but very few a generous thing.
None speak of the bravery, the might, or the intellect of Jesus; but the devil is always imagined as a being of acute intellect, political cunning, and the fiercest courage. These universal and instinctive tendencies of the human mind reveal much.
Some animals are cunning and evil-disposed, as the fox; others, as the dog, are fierce, friendly, and fawning. Some are gentle and easily tamed, as the elephant; some are susceptible of shame, and watchful, as the goose. Some are jealous and fond of ornament, as the peacock.
Happy people are ignoramuses and glory is nothing else but success, and to achieve it one only has to be cunning.