Nothing doth more hurt in a state than that cunning men pass for wise.

-Bacon, Francis,Viscount St Albans
  Essays, no.22,'Of Cunning'.

If a man write little, he had need have a great memory; if he confer little, hehad need have a present wit; and if he read little he had need have much cunning, to seem to know that he doth not.

-Bacon, Francis,Viscount St Albans
  Essays, no.50,'Of Studies'.

Search then the Ruling Passion:There, alone, The wild are constant and the cunning known; The fool consistent, and the false sincere; Priests, princes, women, no dissemblers here. This clue once found, unravels all the rest.

-Pope, Alexander
  Epistles to Several Persons,'To Lord Cobham', l.174^8.

   In youth, before I waxe'  d old, The blind boy,Venus' baby, For want of cunning made me bold, In bitter hive to grope for honey.

-Spenser, Edmund
  Amoretti,'Anacreontics', no.1.