“As it is in the proverb, played Cretan against Cretan.”

Joe Higgins on badgering Bertie Ahern in the Dáil. Irish Independent http://www.independent.ie/opinion/analysis/in-berties-last-chance-saloon-cowen-moves-at-his-own-pace-1301140.html

Keeping the Rabble in Line, January 14, 1993 (note: Reagan's role was edited http://www.zcommunications.org/zspace/noamchomsky to "would be reading their ads on TV") http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Chomsky/ChomOdon_Divide.html.
Quotes 1990s, 1990-1994
Context: Naturally, any conqueror is going to play one group against another. For example, I think about 90% of the forces that the British used to control India were Indians. [... ] It was true when the American forces conquered the Philippines, killing a couple hundred thousand people. They were being helped by Philippine tribes, exploiting conflicts among local groups. There were plenty who were going to side with the conquerors. But forget the Third World, just take a look at the Nazi conquest of nice, civilized Western Europe, places like Belgium and Holland and France. Who was rounding up the Jews? Local people, often. In France they were rounding them up faster than the Nazis could handle them. The Nazis also used Jews to control Jews. If the United States was conquered by the Russians, Ronald Reagan, George Bush, Elliott Abrams and the rest of them would probably be working for the invaders, sending people off to concentration camps. They're the right personality types.

canular refers to hoaxes, humorous deceptions.
The Paris Review interview (1984)
Context: You know, the Cathars believed that the world was not created by God but by a demon who had stolen a few technological secrets from Him and made this world — which is why it doesn’t work. I don’t share this heresy. I’m too afraid! But I put it in a play called This Extraordinary Brothel, in which the protagonist doesn’t talk at all. There is a revolution, everybody kills everybody else, and he doesn’t understand. But at the very end, he speaks for the first time. He points his finger towards the sky and shakes it at God, saying, “You rogue! You little rogue!” and he bursts out laughing. He understands that the world is an enormous farce, a canular played by God against man, and that he has to play God’s game and laugh about it.

"Emotions", p. 36.
The Second Sin (1973)

Schwitters (1921) in: Abstract Art, Anna Moszynska, Thames and Hudson, London 1990, p. 68-69.
1920s

Klopp before second leg clash against Juventus in the Champions League.

Source: The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962), VI. Anomaly and the Emergence of Scientific Discoveries, p. 64 (2012 ed.)

the risk avoiders
Part II, Chapter 8, Third Party Intervention, p. 118.
The Art and Science of Negotiation (1982)