“The devil is an optimist if he thinks he can make people meaner.”
Half-Truths and One-And-A-Half Truths (1976)
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Karl Kraus94
Czech playwright and publicist 1874–1936Related quotes
“If the devil cannot make us bad, he will make us busy.”
Corrie ten Boom (1892–1983) Dutch resistance hero and writer
James Lee Burke (1936) Novelist, short story writer
Source: In the Electric Mist With Confederate Dead
G. K. Chesterton book The Innocence of Father Brown
"People like frequent laughter," answered Father Brown, "but I don't think they like a permanent smile. Cheerfulness without humour is a very trying thing."
The Innocence of Father Brown (1911) The Three Tools of Death
The Father Brown Mystery Series (1910 - 1927)
“The Devil was sick,—the Devil a monk would be;
The Devil was well,—the devil a monk was he.”
Francois Rabelais book Gargantua and Pantagruel
Source: Gargantua and Pantagruel (1532–1564), Fourth Book (1548, 1552), Chapter 24.
John Dos Passos (1896–1970) novelist, playwright, poet, journalist, painter
Interview, Feb 3 1964, reproduced in Talks With Authors, ed. Charles F. Madden