"Craftiness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and inquiring at different places, he said there was no such house as Second's in the street; whereupon Andrew Pringle, my son, asked him what he meant, and the man said that he supposed it was one Second's Hotel, or Coffee-house, that we wanted. Now, only think of the craftiness of the ne'er-da-weel; it was with some difficulty that I could get him to understand, that second was just as good as number two; for Andrew Pringle, my son, would not interfere, but lay back in the coach, and was like to split his sides at my ...
— The Ayrshire Legatees • John Galt
... Normandy which he coveted. Against his father's will, Louis married Charlotte of Savoy, daughter of his strongest neighbour in Dauphiny; suspicion and bad feeling grew strong between father and son; Louis was specially afraid of his father's counsellors; the King was specially afraid of his son's craftiness and ambition. It came to an open rupture, and Louis, in 1456, fled to the Court of Duke Philip of Burgundy. There he lived at refuge at Geneppe, meddling a good deal in Burgundian politics, and already opposing himself to his great rival, Charles of Charolais, afterwards ...
— Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois, Complete • Marguerite de Valois, Queen of Navarre
... considering various plans for aiding Bob, Foster quickly reached the store of Len Dardus, but as he entered and caught sight of an old, gray-haired man, with a face in which craftiness was the chief characteristic, he wondered if, after all, the police sergeant could ...
— Bob Chester's Grit - From Ranch to Riches • Frank V. Webster
... how easy for that lodge to interfere secretly but controllingly in its discipline of members, or in its selection or dismission of a pastor! These suggestions are not merely imaginary. Subjection of the church, in this way, to the cunning craftiness of evil and designing men is ...
— Secret Societies • David MacDill, Jonathan Blanchard, and Edward Beecher
... let not the benevolence of your heart be your undoing, for in the loveliness of her face is cunning and great peril. I have lived all my days amid the craftiness of women, and my lord also knows somewhat of their strange tricks, which bring ...
— Judith • Arnold Bennett
... harsh treatment of Katharine of Aragon, a helpless hostage in his hands; the revolting proposal for a union with the crazy Joanna of Castile. This view is further borne out when we observe that in these years also his political foresight degenerates into craftiness, personal animosities playing a larger part. The intellectual falling off is hardly less marked than the moral. For the personal repute of a King who was almost, if not quite, one of the great, it is ...
— England Under the Tudors • Arthur D. Innes
... declared him to be "COMPLEETEMENT GA-GA." The voluptuous surroundings of Nepenthe, the abundant food, adoration of disciples, alcoholic and carnal debaucheries, had impaired his tough Monjik frame and blunted his wit, working havoc with that energy and peasant craftiness which once ruled an Emperor's Court. His body was obese. His mind was in a state of advanced putrefaction. Even his personal cleanliness left something to be desired. Sitting there, puffy and pasty, in a darkened room, he looked more ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... the officer, his yellow canines showing like tusks. His matted face was an unlovely sight. In it stark, naked fear struggled with craftiness ...
— Man Size • William MacLeod Raine
... question, her legs fail her for fright; and lucky it was for her that she could not run, for this reason. She had barely gone half a quarter of a league before she sees one of the brigands coming after her, just out of craftiness to make quite sure that she had seen nothing. She guesses this, and sits ...
— The Country Doctor • Honore de Balzac
... Great Mogul, surrounded with his guards, thanked the doctor for his mediation, and acknowledged himself in the wrong for calling the image of Cot a peast, "but," said he, "I spoke by metaphor, and parable, and comparison, and types; as we signify meekness by a lamb, lechery by a goat, and craftiness by a fox; so we liken ignorance to an ass, and brutality to a bear, and fury to a tiger; therefore I made use of these similes to express my sentiments (look you), and what I said before Cot, I will not unsay before man ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... vouch for themselves, for their reality. It is ever amazing to me that the hand which drew the pathetic and beautiful creations, the kindly humored men, the lovely women, the unfortunate little ones, could portray also with such marvellous accuracy the villainy and craftiness of such characters as Bumble, Bill Sykes, Pecksniff, Uriah Heep and Squeers. Undoubtedly from his earliest childhood he had possessed the quick perception, the instinct, which could read in people's characters their tendencies toward good and evil, and throughout his life he ...
— My Father as I Recall Him • Mamie Dickens
... pride and strength of old Mauprat, all resembled him in physical vigour, brutality of manners, and, to some extent, in craftiness and jesting ill-nature. The truth is they were veritable brutes, capable of any evil, and completely dead to any noble thought or generous sentiment. Nevertheless, they were endowed with a sort of ...
— Mauprat • George Sand
... Had she not so far discovered a certain craftiness in the character of the Two Diamond stray-man that would ...
— The Two-Gun Man • Charles Alden Seltzer
... 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 them again. ...
— Oh, You Tex! • William Macleod Raine
... route that Guth had really tried to get in touch with him, and in fact appeared greatly concerned over his failure to do so, for at Tanana he received another message, and again at St. Michaels. He was grimly amused at the little Jew's craftiness, yet it sorely offended him to think that any one should consider him such a welcher. He had no intention of causing trouble, for he knew he had no legal claim against the fellow, and he doubted if he possessed ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach
... lithe, dark men, with keen faces and dark eyes, differing wonderfully from the calm, dignified, handsome Turks, but handsome in their way if it had not been for a peculiarly sharp, shifty expression that suggested craftiness and a desire to ...
— Yussuf the Guide - The Mountain Bandits; Strange Adventure in Asia Minor • George Manville Fenn
... to write to him to bind him to his beautiful human emotion. By contrast with the treacherous Tresten, whose iciness roused her to defiance, the nervous little advocate seemed an emissary of the skies, and she invoked her treasure-stores of the craven's craftiness in revolt to compose a letter that should move him, melt the good angel to espouse her cause. He was to be taught to understand—nay, angelically he would understand at once—why she had behaved apparently so contradictorily. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... of the ideals of chivalry and honour of the gentleman, no stored-up results of education and culture, but only an age-long rage against the age-long dominating class, together with the instincts of craftiness, parsimony, and almost ...
— Towards the Great Peace • Ralph Adams Cram
... the Minister to Russia, William Pinkney, to St. Petersburg, as Secretary of the Legation of the United States. Residing there for two years, he acquired the formal manners of the Court of the Emperor Alexander, with a diplomatic craftiness which he always retained. He was a courteous presiding officer, as was thus oddly exemplified while he occupied the chair. The two Senators from the State of Arkansas pronounced the name of their State differently. Mr. ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... affair to the bishop, the bishop to Ragnvald, and Ragnvald to the "good men" or lendirmen of Orkney, who express themselves satisfied, and Ragnvald builds the Cathedral he had vowed to St. Magnus in Kirkwall—a strange medley of craftiness, murder, and piety. ...
— Sutherland and Caithness in Saga-Time - or, The Jarls and The Freskyns • James Gray
... also, which before were hid from us, and see why it is that, though the Gospel is set on a hill in the midst of the world, like a city which cannot be hid, yet to multitudes it is notwithstanding hid, since He taketh the wise in their own craftiness, and the pure in heart alone ...
— Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. VIII (of 8) • John Henry Newman
... narration. The tone is still governed by irony and pathos, wherein Thackeray chiefly excels; yet the contrasts between weak and strong natures, the superiority of honesty and the moral sense over craftiness and unscrupulous cleverness, are now touched off with a lighter and surer hand. The unmitigated villain and the coarse-tongued hard-hearted virago have disappeared with other primitive stage properties; ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... Science despoils the kingdom of evil, and pre-eminently 103:1 promotes affection and virtue in families and therefore in the community. The Apostle Paul refers to the 103:3 personification of evil as "the god of this world," and further defines it as dishonesty and craftiness. Sin ...
— Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures • Mary Baker Eddy
... 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 in these countries to feed ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... heard all over the world how Maria Gargarelli, who lived in the service of our paroco, somehow was outwitted by Satanasso. Monsignore thought the paroco had not done all he might have done against his wiles and craftiness, and sent his Reverence over to the monastery in the mountains, Laverna yonder, to make him look sharp; ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... for the one inevitable sprig of bitter—Jud! The big bully of a boy had learned that David was his equal physically and his superior mentally, but the fear of David and of David's good standing kept him from venturing out in the open; so from cover he sought by all the arts known to craftiness to harass the younger boy, whose patience this test ...
— David Dunne - A Romance of the Middle West • Belle Kanaris Maniates
... he muttered, and noting that Cap'n Sproul seemed to be recovering his self-possession, he preferred not to wait for the threats and extorted pledge that his natural craftiness scented. He ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... effective. If the copse indeed be empty no harm is done, beyond the abortive expenditure of a few rounds of ammunition: if it be occupied, the fruits of the manoeuvre are attractive. Cunning is matched against cunning, and the struggle for supremacy in the art of craftiness ...
— Aeroplanes and Dirigibles of War • Frederick A. Talbot
... far in uttering words so true, contradicts them a few pages after, and makes a number of statements which remind one of what the Apostle says, about handling the word of God deceitfully. One would be tempted to charge him with 'cunning craftiness,' only his craft is not very cunning. When religious teachers act so unfaithfully, they have no right to complain if people lose all confidence ...
— Modern Skepticism: A Journey Through the Land of Doubt and Back Again - A Life Story • Joseph Barker
... of an argument, regarded dispassionately; yet it shook me. With sudden craftiness I resolved to trap her ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti
... must! It is the truth. I felt that you cared—women are surer in such matters than men. I must conceal nothing from you—nothing of my craftiness. Women are crafty, you know. And suppose you fail? Ah, I do not mean failure—you cannot fail, now. You have put yourself forever beyond failure. But what I mean is, suppose you were compelled to leave St. John's, and I came to ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... now!" began the judge drowsily. The prosecuting attorney counselled of craftiness, at this juncture, foreseeing trouble if he insisted. "Take the witness," ...
— The Girl at the Halfway House • Emerson Hough
... friendliness toward the man whom he believed to be successfully wrecking his home might have appeared insuperable. In point of the actual it was made easy—even a thing of zest—by virtue of a lapse into that moral degeneracy which was no longer sane. The growth of craftiness for the forwarding of a single idea became uncanny in its purposeful efficiency and a morbid pleasure to its possessor. Eben seemed outwardly to have lain aside his strait-jacket of bigotry and to ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... exultation of the woman when she saw the triumph of her new friends over her own people. She was proud of this result of her craftiness and her skill. When, the engagement over, she scanned the field, looking at the dead and searching for Tyope among them in vain, her disappointment was fearful. Corpse after corpse she scrutinized, turning over the ghastly bodies, peering ...
— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier
... had been toying with a powder flask lying on 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 embryo of ...
— The Fifth of November - A Romance of the Stuarts • Charles S. Bentley
... not for the cause of these tears; he had not the courage to wage an open war with this brave, loving heart, and to subdue her love and despair with the two-edged sword of his state policy and craftiness. He did not wish to utter the word; he wanted to make her feel what an abyss was now open between them; all confidential and social intercourse was to be avoided, so that the empress might become conscious that love and fellowship of hearts had ...
— The Empress Josephine • Louise Muhlbach
... no longer children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, in craftiness, after ...
— Leaves of Life - For Daily Inspiration • Margaret Bird Steinmetz
... purpose—because Baumberger was not that kind of man. Oddly enough, he had a short, vivid, mental picture of him and the look on his face when he was playing the trout; it seemed to him that there was something of that same cruel craftiness now in his eyes and around his mouth. Good Indian felt for one instant as if he were that trout, and Baumberger was playing him skillfully. "He's trying to make me let go all holds and tip my hand," he thought, keenly reading ...
— Good Indian • B. M. Bower
... feelings toward his predecessor, and at the same time the people in general were exceedingly exasperated by the violence of the eunuchs, and especially by the rapacity of Eusebius, the chief officer of the imperial bed-chamber. Therefore he treated all with craftiness. With some he dissembled; others he attached to himself by conferring obligations upon them, led by a desire for vainglory; but to all he manifested how he stood toward the heathen religion. And first, in order to slander Constantius ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.
... cartoon which I believe will appeal much more strongly to the firing line than to Home. The Front distrusts politics, and especially the higher politics. That means the juggling and wire-pulling of the Chancelleries, and the Front has an uneasy conviction that at the subtleties and craftiness and cunning of the diplomatic game we cannot compete with "The Bosche." Hard knocks and straight fighting the Front does understand, and at that game are cheerfully confident of winning in ...
— Raemaekers' Cartoons - With Accompanying Notes by Well-known English Writers • Louis Raemaekers
... the agility, and the muscles that had coped with the mighty strength and cruel craftiness of Terkoz and Numa in the fastness of their savage jungle were not to be so easily subdued as these apaches of ...
— The Return of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... incident troubled her not a little. An English girl would probably have spoken out at once with the splendid honesty characteristic of her nation, but Gwenda, being a thorough Welshwoman, acted differently. With what detractors of the Celtic character would probably call "craftiness," but what we prefer to call "tact and tenderness," she determined not to ruffle the existing happy state of affairs by risking a misunderstanding with her lover, but would rather wait until, as a wife, she could bring the whole influence of her ...
— Garthowen - A Story of a Welsh Homestead • Allen Raine
... the land 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 ...
— Egyptian Tales, Second Series - Translated from the Papyri • W. M. Flinders Petrie
... sons of Hermes, rich in corn-land, well skilled in craftiness, Erytus and Echion, and with them on their departure their kinsman Aethalides went as the third; him near the streams of Amphrysus Eupolemeia bare, the daughter of Myrmidon, from Phthia; the two others were sprung from Antianeira, ...
— The Argonautica • Apollonius Rhodius
... surprise become craftiness and fear, distrust. I saw in her eyes the beginning of that hate which I believe has never, since ...
— The Blue Wall - A Story of Strangeness and Struggle • Richard Washburn Child
... cars, in 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 ...
— The Heart-Cry of Jesus • Byron J. Rees
... the General Assembly was in session contrary to his will and acting directly in violation of his decree, he was filled with wrath. Having sent Hamilton to use policy and craftiness, and thereby gain time, he mustered an army of nearly 50,000 men, with which to punish the Covenanters. He also sent a fleet to co-operate with the land forces. Absolute subjugation was determined. These ...
— Sketches of the Covenanters • J. C. McFeeters
... issued forth from his castle like a mighty giant just refreshed with wine. But when the two heroes met, then began a scene of warlike parade that beggars all description. The shrewd Risingh, who had grown grey much before his time, in consequence of his craftiness, saw at one glance the ruling passion of the great Van Poffenburgh, and humored him in all his ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... 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 taking ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17 • Robert Kerr
... means of advanced patrols both telegraphs and railways all over the district on which one hopes to act by surprise, and to repeat such active destruction again and again. In such enterprises there is a wide field for slimness and craftiness—qualities which might very well be combined ...
— Cavalry in Future Wars • Frederick von Bernhardi
... of this fine race is cunning. And hence I think it would have been through their craftiness, chiefly, that they would have felt the impulse to study, and the wish to advance. Craft is a cat's delight: craft they never can have too much of. So it would have been from one triumph of cunning to another that they would have marched. ...
— This Simian World • Clarence Day Jr.
... as "dishonesty, craftiness, handling the word of God [1] deceitfully." The Hebrew embodies the term "devil" in another term, serpent,—which the senses are supposed to take in,—and then defines this serpent as "more subtle than all the beasts of the field." Subsequently, ...
— Miscellaneous Writings, 1883-1896 • Mary Baker Eddy |
