"Craftiness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and inherent love of strife. But when the lust of gain began to creep like a fever into the blood of those with whom worldly riches should be as nothing compared to the riches of the mind, the heart, and the spirit, then the dryrot of hypocrisy set in—then came craftiness, cruelty, injustice, and pitilessness, and such grossness of personal conduct as revolts even the soul of an admitted sinner. Moral government? Where is it to day? Look at France—Italy—Spain! Count up the lies told by the priests ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... Spencer, standing tall and erect, had watched the women go out. How typical the party was of Natalie, of her meticulous care in small things and her indifference or real ignorance as to what counted. Was it indifference, really, or was it supreme craftiness, the stupidity of her dinners, the general unattractiveness of the women she gathered around her, the ill-assortment of people who had little in themselves ...
— Dangerous Days • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... and dragging: take him at his best, and even when he could be induced to hold his tongue, his mere presence in a corner of the drawing-room, with his open-air wrinkles, his scanty hair, his battered hands, and the cheerful craftiness of his expression, advertised the whole gang of us for a self-made family. My aunt might mince and my cousins bridle; but there was no getting over the solid, physical fact of the stonemason in ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... thin, party-wall alone separated the two estates. Pierre speculated on the eagerness of his wealthy neighbour, who, to gratify his caprice, offered as much as fifty thousand francs for the land. It was double its value. Pierre, whoever, with the craftiness of a peasant, pulled a long face, and said that he did not care to sell; that his mother would never consent to get rid of the property where the Fouques had lived from father to son for nearly two centuries. ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola
... the table before him, and a small portion of its contents had fallen into his palm. He tossed the black grains into the fire, where they flashed for an instant, sending a pungent ball of white smoke into the room. 'Twas as though the craftiness of Satan had shown to him ...
— The Fifth of November - A Romance of the Stuarts • Charles S. Bentley
... and soap," Scott answered, with a craftiness beyond his years. He told the literal truth, but not all the truth. No need to inform this critical stranger what was the crust that lay on ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... pouring still. In vain with spell and charm the wizard wrought, Faster and faster were the buckets brought, Higher and higher rose the flood around, Till the fiends clapped their hands above their master drowned So, Carolinian, it may prove with thee, For God still overrules man's schemes, and takes Craftiness in its self-set snare, and makes The wrath of man to praise Him. It may be, That the roused spirits of Democracy May leave to freer States the same wide door Through which thy slave-cursed Texas entered in, From out the blood and fire, the wrong ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... look of craftiness had changed at once to one of startled distress. "Come back out o' this with yuh." She caught Mrs. Cregan's arm. "It's no thing to be doin' on the street! Come back, now. ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various
... However, he ordered a good lodging to be given them and had them told that he would grant them audience in three days. But Diego Veloso and Blas Ruyz—either by their former knowledge of the country, or actuated by later craftiness, proceeding from their interpretation of that suspicious delay—visiting a beautiful Indian woman of the king's house, were secretly told by her that, since she was admitted to and even desired in the affairs of that usurper, she ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XVI, 1609 • H.E. Blair
... marrying, one, the cleverest, was now his mortal enemy, and meditated already withdrawing her interests from the common fund. Incapable of observing the difference that a Creole nature placed between his mother-in-law and other women, Paul was far from suspecting her craftiness. The Creole nature is apart from all others; it derives from Europe by its intellect, from the tropics by the illogical violence of its passions, from the East by the apathetic indifference with which it does, or suffers, either good or evil, ...
— The Marriage Contract • Honore de Balzac
... condemn it, so many fathers abhor it, so many grave men speak against it; "Use not the company of a woman," saith Siracides, 8. 4. "that is a singer, or a dancer; neither hear, lest thou be taken in her craftiness." In circo non tam cernitur quam discitur libido. [5151]Haedus holds, lust in theatres is not seen, but learned. Gregory Nazianzen that eloquent divine, ([5152]as he relates the story himself,) when a noble friend of his solemnly invited him with other bishops, to his daughter ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... journey to Antioch, in order to execute vengeance personally on the Count of the East, who had offended him; and during his absence from Byzantium an adversary stole a march on him. This adversary was the eunuch Eutropius, the lord chamberlain, a bald old man, who with oriental craftiness had won his way up from the meanest services and employments. Determining that the future Empress should be bound to himself and not to Rufinus, he chose Eudoxia, a girl of singular beauty, the daughter of a distinguished Frank, but ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 • Various
... had done its work; the North had played its grim comedy to the final curtain, making sport of men's affections and turning love to rankling hate. But into the mind of each man crept a certain craftiness. Each longed to strike, but feared to face the consequences. It was lonesome, here among the white hills and the deathly silences, yet they reflected that it would be still more lonesome if they were left to keep step with nothing more substantial than a memory. They determined, therefore, to wait ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Campfire Stories • Various
... was lightened, and the next day appeared, Ra Harakhti arose, and one looked unto the other. And the youth spake with his elder brother, saying: "Wherefore earnest thou after me to slay me in craftiness, when thou didst not hear the words of my mouth? For I am thy brother in truth, and thou art to me as a father, and thy wife even as a mother: is it not so? Verily, when I was sent to bring for us corn, thy wife said to me, 'Come, stay with me'; for behold this has been turned over unto thee ...
— Egyptian Literature
... man had to hold his own against the animals by force of strength and cunning; and he was well acquainted with them. He respected them for the qualities in which they excelled him, the hare for his swiftness, the beaver for his skill, the fox for his craftiness. What he worshipped, however, was not the individuals of a species, but the species as a whole, typified perhaps in a great hare or a great fox, the mythical first parent of the species, and possessing ...
— History of Religion - A Sketch of Primitive Religious Beliefs and Practices, and of the Origin and Character of the Great Systems • Allan Menzies
... leader of men into wicked courses. He also introduced a change in the ways of simplicity wherein men had lived before, and he was the author of measures and weights. And whereas men lived innocently and generously while they knew nothing of such arts, he changed the world into cunning craftiness.[41] ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... His glance was keen but showed cunning rather than intelligence; his lips were straight, and so thin that, as they closed, they were drawn in over the teeth; his cheek-bones were broad and projecting, a never-failing proof of audacity and craftiness; while the flatness of his forehead, and the enlargement of the back of his skull, which rose much higher than his large and coarsely shaped ears, combined to form a physiognomy anything but prepossessing, save ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... love with her ... if he should ask her to be his wife? If she could be a bit clever, if she avoided compromising herself in any way, and understood how to fascinate him—she felt rather ashamed of her craftiness. But, after all, was it so bad that she should think of such things, considering that she was really in love with him, and had never loved any other man but him? And did not the whole tone of his letter give her the right to indulge in ...
— Bertha Garlan • Arthur Schnitzler
... the churches, and there is one word NOT written on them, and that word is "Rest." You will find many other words written on them. On some faces you see "Selfishness" in crabbed, crooked letters; on others "Lust" in bold-faced type; on others "Gluttony"; on others, "Self-Conceit"; on others, "Craftiness"; and on through a thousand unworthy legends; but the one thing which makes life worth living is not found except ...
— The Heart-Cry of Jesus • Byron J. Rees
... done. We lowered the ladder and I climbed down it to the pathway, with a loaded revolver in my hand as a precautionary measure, for during our cruise among the islands I had heard one or two rather gruesome stories of the craftiness and ferocity of certain savages while out on the warpath. But in the present instance my precaution was needless. The prostrate savage was quite dead, and I pushed him over the edge of the pathway into the torrent that roared over ...
— The First Mate - The Story of a Strange Cruise • Harry Collingwood
... of the outlaw jumped to meet those of the cattleman. For a fraction of a second he was caught off his guard. Then the film of wary craftiness covered ...
— Oh, You Tex! • William Macleod Raine
... was a young man of twenty-five, tall, thin, and with a face that was a mixture of craftiness and cowardice. He was the son of a half-brother to the late Colonel Ruthven and could boast of but few of the good traits of Marion's family. He lived on a plantation half a mile from the bay and spent most of his time in attention to his personal ...
— Young Captain Jack - The Son of a Soldier • Horatio Alger and Arthur M. Winfield
... retired to a corner and seated himself in a heap on his chair, his heels on the rungs, wiping the tears from his eyes, refusing to be comforted. Old Broderson startled Annixter, who sat next to him, out of all measure by suddenly winking at him with infinite craftiness. ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... see all thy infernal craftiness. If I were to command thee to put him to a fair trial, thou wouldst confuse the senses of the just man, so that he would commit acts ...
— Faustus - his Life, Death, and Doom • Friedrich Maximilian von Klinger
... no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive. But speaking the truth in love, may grow up into Him in all things, which is the Head, ...
— The Way of Salvation in the Lutheran Church • G. H. Gerberding
... the Spaniards, until they came to the Carib town of Maguana, where he found Caonabo surrounded by a throng of armed warriors. The Spaniards had bearded the lion in his den, and were in a position of extreme peril should the cacique prove hostile. But Ojeda was a past-master in craftiness, and by professions of friendship and other arts of duplicity he persuaded the chief to accompany him alone into the edge ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume III • Charles Morris
... and of a quality much superior to those either of Siberia or America. A variety of artifices are made use of by the hunters to catch this animal, which in all climates seem to preserve the same character of craftiness and cunning. Traps of different sorts, some calculated to fall upon them, others to catch them by the feet, others by the head, are amongst the most common; to which may be added, several ingenious contrivances for ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17 • Robert Kerr
... unreasonable friends. No hasty act of his administration can be traced to his impatience. He had a tender, brotherly regard for every human being; and the thought of oppression was torment to him.... A statesman without a statesman's craftiness, a politician without a politician's meannesses, a great man without a great man's vices, a philanthropist without a philanthropist's impracticable dreams, a Christian without pretensions, a ruler without the pride of place and power, an ...
— The Life of Abraham Lincoln • Henry Ketcham |
