Quotes on Scoundrels

Whenever A annoys or injures B on the pretense of saving or improving X, A is a scoundrel.

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.

He who would do good to another must do it in minute particulars.

Well, Page, I do wish the Devil had old Cooke, for I am sure I never was so tired of an old dull scoundrel in my life ... But the old-fellows say we must read to gain knowledge; and gain knowledge to make us happy and be admired. Mere jargon! Is there any such thing as happiness in this world? No.

Congress consists of one-third, more or less, scoundrels; two-thirds, more or less, idiots; and three-thirds, more or less, poltroons.

Hanging one scoundrel, it appears, does not deter the next. Well, what of it? The first one is at least disposed of.

Even the best intentioned of great men need a few scoundrels around them; there are some things you cannot ask an honest man to do.

If you keep on drinking rum, the world will soon be quit of a very dirty scoundrel!

I've looked that old scoundrel death in the eye many times but this time I think he has me on the ropes.

Force always attracts men of low morality, and I believe it to be an invariable rule that_x000D_ tyrants of genius are succeeded by scoundrels.

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.

Every man over forty is a scoundrel.

If Heaven had looked upon riches to be a valuable thing, it would not have given them to such a scoundrel.

Any number of scoundrels, having money enough to start with, can establish themselves as a 'government'; because, with money, they can hire soldiers, and with soldiers extort more money; and also compel general obedience to their will.

Pay attention to minute particulars. Take care of the little ones. Generalization and abstraction are the plea of the hypocrite, scoundrel, and knave.

But . . . I may as well say what I should not otherwise have said, that I always knew in my heart Walt Whitman’s mind to be more like my own than any other man’s living. As he is a very great scoundrel this is not a pleasant confession.

Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled.

Sir, he [Bolingbroke] was a scoundrel and a coward: a scoundrel for charging a blunderbuss against religion and morality; a coward, because he had not resolution to fire it off himself, but left half a crown to a beggarly Scotsman to draw the trigger at his death.

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.

It's not that we don't have enough scoundrels to curse; it's that we don't have enough good men to curse them.

I've always thought respectable people scoundrels, and I look anxiously at my face every morning for signs of my becoming a scoundrel.