No matter that patriotism is too often the refuge of scoundrels. Dissent, rebellion, and all-around hell-raising remain the true duty of patriots.
Force always attracts men of low morality, and I believe it to be an invariable rule that tyrants of genius are succeeded by scoundrels.
The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all.
No scoundrel is so stupid as to not find a reason for his vile conduct.
Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel.
No great scoundrel is ever uninteresting.
My old man claimed that the more complicated the law the more opportunity for scoundrels.
If Heaven had looked upon riches to be a valuable thing, it would not have given them to such a scoundrel.
There are many occasions when the highest praise one can receive is the attack of some given scoundrel.
Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all others because you were born in it.
What contemptible scoundrel has stolen the cork to my lunch?
Guard against the impostures of pretended patriotism.
There are no morals in politics; there is only expedience. A scoundrel may be of use to us just because he is a scoundrel.
Some of the craftiest scoundrels that ever walked this earth . . . will gravely jot down in diaries the events of every day, and keep a regular debtor and creditor account with heaven, which shall always show a floating balance in their own favour.
One of the great attractions of patriotism - it fulfills our worst wishes. In the person of our nation we are able, vicariously, to bully and cheat. Bully and cheat, what's more, with a feeling that we are profoundly virtuous.
I've always thought respectable people scoundrels, and I look anxiously at my face every morning for signs of my becoming a scoundrel.
I don't know what a scoundrel is like, but I know what a respectable man is like, and it's enough to make one's flesh creep.
Truth made you a traitor as it often does in a time of scoundrels.
Every man over forty is a scoundrel.
In argument about moral problems, relativism is the first refuge of the scoundrel.
He who would do good to another must do it in Minute Particulars: general Good is the plea of the scoundrel, hypocrite, and flatterer, for Art and Science cannot exist but in minutely organized Particulars.
Religion is all-too-often a refuge for scoundrels.
I'd never painted anything before. I was quite content to take other people's work since I didn't care anyway about the subject matter. I approached subject matter as a scoundrel. I had nothing to say about it whatsoever. I only wanted to make these exciting paintings.
A child who does not think about what happens around him and is content with living without wondering whether he lives honestly is like a man who lives from a scoundrel's work and is on the road to being a scoundrel.
I'm an advocate of the great Dr. Johnson, the English man of letters who said that patriotism was the last refuge of the scoundrel.
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