Quotes & Sayings About Rogues

The truth has always been dangerous to the rule of the rogue, the exploiter, the robber. So the truth must be ruthlessly supressed. — Eugene V. Debs

You can be the rabbits - " She paused. "I mean the rogues. — Erin Hunter

She tried to break from his hold, and he tightened his grip. "You're safe. I killed the rogues."
The woman stilled and searched his face, the wildness still heavy in her blue eyes. "You're a wolf."
He smiled and nodded. "And you're a tiger."
"A white tiger."
To match her white-blond hair. "And a beautiful one. — Lia Davis

A wise nation should cultivate a political spirit that allows opponents to cooperate without fearing an automatic execution from their core supporters. Who knew that the real rogues in American politics would be the ones who dare to get along? — Jon Meacham

A process which makes one rogue cleverer than another. — Oscar Wilde

Since we have literally targeted our enemies, the Pentagon assumes that, sooner or later, rogues will take out our cities, presumably from spaceships. — Gore Vidal

Men, who are rogues individually, are in the mass very honorable people. — Charles De Secondat

On the contrary, he would come home and rail at both parties with great wrath - and plainly proved one day to the satisfaction of my wife, and three old ladies who were drinking tea with her, that the two parties were like two rogues, each tugging at the skirt of the nation; and that in the end they would tear the very coat off its back, and expose its nakedness. — Washington Irving

When rogues fall out, honest men get into their own. — Matthew Hale

Every honest man will suppose honest acts to flow from honest principles, and the rogues may rail without intermission. — Thomas Jefferson

Our rogue President, after selling face time ... — William Safire

Lawyers and rogues are vermin not easily rooted out of a rich soil. — Horace Walpole

There are benefits in the sense that there's still a certain level of confidence. But there are liabilities because you can coordinate and manipulate better as the instruments of oversight are more under your control. You don't have so many rogue operations. — Ted Gup

The last thing I would want is for Monbiot, Mann, Flannery, Jones, Hansen and the rest of the Climate rogues' gallery to be granted the mercy of quick release. Publicly humiliated? Yes please. Having all their crappy books remaindered? Definitely. Dragged away from their taxpayer funded troughs and their cushy sinecures, to be replaced by people who actually know what they're talking about? For sure. But hanging? Hell no. Hanging is far too good for such ineffable toerags. — James Delingpole

Rogues are preferable to imbeciles because sometimes they take a rest. — Alexandre Dumas

Why have two figures of such remarkable interest been so scanted by the annalists and historians, so overlooked by philosophers, poets, and priests? I think it may be that they were, to put it bluntly, too disreputable. They were too stubbornly independent to give allegiance to a single city and thus become subject matter for a civic epic. They were too often involved with demons and sorcerers to appeal to the staid philosopher and too shifty to please the sober historian. In short, they were rogues, and rogues have no place in the lists of kings and demigods and heroes. It may be that no poet shall ever write of them, alas! — Steven Saylor

If you want to know the age of the Earth - look upon the sea in a storm. But what storm can fully reveal the heart of a man? Between Suez and the China Sea are many nameless men who prefer to live and die unknown. This is the story of one such man. Among the great gallery of rogues and heroes thrown up on the beaches and ports - no man was more respected or more damned than - Lord Jim. — Joseph Conrad

Still, there was prosperity for a few; quick credits to be made in ore processing, local and deep-space transport, and usury. For the Tarkins, wealth came by providing security. Their climb to the top had been hard won. Among Eriadu's earliest pioneers, the ancestral Tarkins had had to function as their own police force and defenders, countering attacks first by the ferocious predators that thrived in Eriadu's forests and mountains, then by off-world rogues and scoundrels who preyed on the exposed populations of the struggling settlements. — James Luceno

experience has taught us that a surprisingly high percentage of all our recorded crime, especially burglary and other thefts, are committed by the people in the rogues gallery. We're not stereotyping them, they do that for themselves I'm afraid. — J.J. Salkeld

Avoid the politic, the factious fool,
The busy, buzzing, talking harden'd knave;
The quaint smooth rogue that sins against his reason,
Calls saucy loud sedition public zeal,
And mutiny the dictates of his spirit. — Thomas Otway

Comedy is a great slayer of rogues in power. — Michael Moore

There is a reason ladies swoon over rogues. They are dominant personalities," Jason said. "And they fall for soldiers because of the powerful image they put out. — Sarah M. Eden

If nothing is more powerful than an idea whose time has come, nothing is more harmful than an idea which is manipulated by motivated men. Rogues and crooks have ideas. So do ordinary folks. But intellectuals are meant to be a breed apart for the same reason rocks aren't gems. — Mohammad Badrul Ahsan

There ain't no law in Mexico. It's just a pack of rogues. — Cormac McCarthy

What's the matter, you dissentious rogues,
That rubbing the poor itch of your opinion
Make yourselves scabs? — William Shakespeare

Many a man would have turned rogue if he knew how. — William Hazlitt

No mercy for these enemies of the people, the enemies of socialism, the enemies of the working people! War to the death against the rich and their hangers-on, the bourgeois intellectuals; war on the rogues, the idlers and the rowdies! — Vladimir Lenin

We Draytons are many things: pirates, witches, rogues ... but nobody ever accused us of being ungrateful. A family has to have standards. Even in the Edge. — Ilona Andrews

We two alone will sing like birds i' th' cage.
When thou dost ask me blessing, I'll kneel down
And ask of thee forgiveness. So we'll live,
And pray, and sing, and tell old tales, and laugh
At gilded butterflies, and hear poor rogues
Talk of court news, and we'll talk with them too
Who loses and who wins, who's in, who's out
And take upon 's the mystery of things
As if we were God's spies. — William Shakespeare

The First Amendment applies to rogues and scoundrels. You don't lose your First Amendment rights because of a sleazy personality, or even for having committed a crime. Felons in jail are protected by the First Amendment. — Naomi Wolf

They were indeed what was known as 'old money', which meant that it had been made so long ago that the black deeds which had originally filled the coffers were now historically irrelevant. Funny, that: a brigand for a father was something you kept quiet about, but a slave-taking pirate for a great-great-great-grandfather was something to boast of over the port. Time turned the evil bastards into rogues, and rogue was a word with a twinkle in its eye and nothing to be ashamed of. — Terry Pratchett

There are two way of establishing a reputation, one to be praised by honest people and the other to be accused by rogues. It is best, however, to secure the first one, because it will always be accompanied by the latter. — Charles Caleb Colton

One rogue leads another. — Homer

Tuatha De do not walk the human realm alone. Actually, they don't walk alone much anywhere. Only the occasional rogue Fae will do so."
"Like yourself?"
"Yes Most of my kind have no fondness for solitude. Those who walk alone are not to be trusted."
"Really," she said dryly.
"Except for me," he amended, with a faint, insouciant grin. — Karen Marie Moning

For every inch that is not fool, is rogue. — John Dryden

Who calls a lawyer rogue, may find, too lateUpon one of these depends his whole estate. — George Crabbe

Nothing is more disgusting than the majority: because it consists of a few powerful predecessors, of rogues who adapt themselves, of weak who assimilate themselves, and the masses who imitate without knowing at all what they want. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

The danger of terrorists and rogue states is compounded by the proliferation of chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear weapons. — Joe Lieberman

All roads lead to another road for renegades, rebels, and rogues. — Tracy Lawrence

There are two modes of establishing our reputation; to be praised by honest men, and to be abused by rogues. — Charles Caleb Colton

If he was right, here was our quiet English house suddenly invaded by a devilish Indian Diamond - bringing after it a conspiracy of living rogues, set loose on us by the vengeance of a dead man. — Wilkie Collins

As long as you have a system that is based on the rational that if you are making money you are thereby making a contribution to society, these financial rogue practices will continue. — David Korten

Gentlemen," I said to my officers, "let's talk about discipline within our army, and let's consider our danger from no-account leaders. Unfortunately, such rogues sometimes find more followers than good leaders. Promising everyone a good time with plenty of instant rewards, these scoundrels can exert much more influence than virtuous men, who end up alone on steep, rocky paths. — Xenophon

Rogues are always found out in some way. Whoever is a wolf will act like a wolf, that is most certain. — Jean De La Fontaine

I think the greatest rogues are they who talk most of their honesty. — Anthony Trollope

Actors are rogues and vagabonds. Or they ought to be. — Helen Mirren

Yesterday from my office window I saw a crippled girl negotiating her way across the street, her shoulders squarely braced. At each jerky movement her hair flew back like an annunciatory angel, and I saw she was the only dancer on the street. — Elizabeth Smart

The rogue has everywhere the advantage. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

She swore vengeance on all men with dark hearts. — Lisa Papademetriou

The best safeguard against bad literature is a full experience of good; just as a real and affectionate acquaintance with honest people gives a better protection against rogues than a habitual distrust of everyone. — C.S. Lewis

Lysistrata: "Calonice, it's more than I can bear,
I am hot all over with blushes for our sex.
Men say we're slippery rogues--"

Calonice: "And aren't they right? — Aristophanes

Power will go to the hands of rascals, rogues, freebooters; all Indian leaders will be of low calibre & men of straw. They will have sweet tongues & silly hearts. They will fight amongst themselves for power & India will be lost in political squabbles. A day would come when even air & water would be taxed in India. — Winston Churchill

A wise man will find us to be rogues by our faces. — Jonathan Swift

Little rogues easily become great ones. — Benjamin Franklin

Violence has never prospered, you can't remake the world in a day. Anyone who promises to change everything for you all at once is either a fool or a rogue! — Emile Zola

The last thing I want to tell you is this: in a real revolution - not a simple dynastic change or a mere reform of institutions - in a real revolution the best characters do not come to the front. A violent revolution falls into the hands of narrow-minded fanatics and of tyrannical hypocrites at first. Afterwards comes the turn of all the pretentious intellectual failures of the time. Such are the chiefs and the leaders. You will notice that I have left out the mere rogues. The scrupulous and the just, the noble, humane, and devoted natures; the unselfish and the intelligent may begin a movement - but it passes away from them. They are not the leaders of a revolution. They are its victims: the victims of disgust, of disenchantment - often of remorse. Hopes grotesquely betrayed, ideals caricatured - that is the definition of revolutionary success. There have been in every revolution hearts broken by such successes. But enough of that. My meaning is that I don't want you to be a victim. — Joseph Conrad

An honest man will continue to be so though surrounded on all sides by rogues. — Charles Caleb Colton

I'm one of the
freaks, the faggots,
the geeks, the savages,
rogues, rebels, dissident devils,
artists, martyrs, infidels ...
do we sit still
under attack?
or do we start pushing back?
never back up
never back down
& FIGHT. — Otep Shamaya

Bear in mind North Korea has been the leading source, a leading source of nuclear technology and of missile delivery systems to some of the world's great rogues in Iran and Syria. — Robert McFarlane

Great rogues hang the little ones. — Cardinal Mazarin

Where the principle of difference [between political parties] is as substantial and as strongly pronounced as between the republicans and the monocrats of our country, I hold it as honorable to take a firm and decided part and as immoral to pursue a middle line, as between the parties of honest men and rogues, into which every country is divided. — Thomas Jefferson

His calumny is not only the greatest benefit a rogue can confer on us, but the only service he will perform for nothing. — Johann Kaspar Lavater

What is commonly called friendship is only a little more honor among rogues. — Henry David Thoreau

One of the strengths of the DC Universe has been the strength of the rogues' gallery. Often times they're as famous - if not more infamous - than our heroes. — Jim Lee

Though I'm a rogue in talking upon Painting & Love I can be serious and honest upon any subject thoroughly pleasing to me. — Thomas Gainsborough

If Independence is granted to India, power will go to the hands of rascals, rogues, freebooters; all Indian leaders will be of low calibre and men of straw. They will have sweet tongues and silly hearts. They will fight amongst themselves for power and India will be lost in political squabbles. A day would come when even air and water would be taxed in India. — Winston S. Churchill

Lycurgus, Numa, Moses, Jesus Christ, Mohammed, all these great rogues, all these great thought-tyrants, knew how to associate the divinities they fabricated with their own boundless ambition. — Marquis De Sade

My dear boy, a piece of advice. Read not so many books, and look a little more upon the Peggies. The little rogues are good for thee, O Marius! By continual flight and blushing thou shalt become a brute by Courfeyrac to Marius — Victor Hugo

That such a slave as this should wear a sword,
Who wears no honesty. Such smiling rogues as these,
Like rats, oft bite the holy cords atwain
Which are too intrinse t' unloose; smooth every passion
That in the natures of their lords rebel,
Being oil to the fire, snow to the colder moods,
Renege, affirm, and turn their halcyon beaks
With every gale and vary of their masters
Knowing naught, like dogs, but following. — William Shakespeare

O what fine thought we had because we thought that the worst rogues and rascals had died out. — William Butler Yeats

Patriotism is a myth conceived by those old rogues to draw us into the infernal game. Let them fight as they will, but we want no part of it. — Wilbur Smith

Thing to know about the Reaches....It's always trying to kill you. Even the empty places between the stars."
Asher Corsair, Allies and Enemies: Rogues — Amy J. Murphy

Rogues, would you live forever? — Frederick The Great

Actors have a magic gene within them - I think they're the finest descendants of rogues and vagabonds - and it's all too easily forgotten what the acting legacy is. — Julian Sands

When Philippa had first demanded his help in eluding Kate and travelling to St Mary's, he had indignantly refused. He was there now because he had discovered, to his astonishment, that she was desperate, and perfectly capable of going without him. Why she had got it into her young head she must see this man Crawford, Cheese-wame didn't know. But after pointing out bitterly that (a) he would lose his job; (b) the rogues in the Debatable would kill them, (c) that she would catch her death of cold and (d) that Kate would never speak to either of them again, he went, his belt filled with knives and her belongings as well as his own in the two saddlebags behind his powerful thighs, while Philippa rode sedately beside him on her smaller horse, green with excitement, with her father's pistol tied to her waist like a ship's log and banging against her thin knees. — Dorothy Dunnett

Rogues are prone to find things before they are lost. — Douglas William Jerrold

Indeed it is generally the case that men are readier to call rogues clever than simpletons honest, and are ashamed of being the second as they are proud of being the first. — Thucydides

Daisy Bowman, Lillian's young sister, had an out-sized personality that belied her small, slight frame. Idealistic and possessed of a decidedly whimsical bent, she devoured romantic novels populated with rogues and villains. However, Daisy's elfin facade concealed a shrewd intelligence that most people tended to overlook. She was fair-skinned and dark-haired, with eyes the color of spiced gingerbread... mischievous eyes with long, spiky lashes. — Lisa Kleypas

It is only rogues who feel the restraints of law. — J.G. Holland

In England, wit is at least a profession, if not an art. everything becomes professional there, and even the rogues of that islandare pedants. So are the "wits" there too. They introduce into reality absolute freedom whose reflection lends a romantic and piquant air to wit, and thus they live wittily; hence their talent for madness. They die for their principles. — Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

Does it seem that everything is extravagance in the world, or rather madness, when you watch the way things go? A crowd of rogues enjoy blessings they have won by sheer injustice, while more honest folks are miserable and die of hunger. — Aristophanes

After Death nothing is, and nothing, death,
The utmost limit of a gasp of breath.
Let the ambitious zealot lay aside
His hopes of heaven, whose faith is but his pride;
Let slavish souls lay by their fear
Nor be concerned which way nor where
After this life they shall be hurled.
Dead, we become the lumber of the world,
And to that mass of matter shall be swept
Where things destroyed with things unborn are kept.
Devouring time swallows us whole.
Impartial death confounds body and soul.
For Hell and the foul fiend that rules
God's everlasting fiery jails
(Devised by rogues, dreaded by fools),
With his grim, grisly dog that keeps the door,
Are senseless stories, idle tales,
Dreams, whimseys, and no more. — John Wilmot

With so much at stake in this election, both Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan should 'go rogue.' — Sarah Palin

The superstitious man is to the rogue what the slave is to the tyrant. — Voltaire

Men are as we have always known them, neither better nor worse from the hearts of rogues there springs a latent honesty, from the depths of honest men there emerges a brutish appetite - a thirst for extermination, a desire for blood. — Federica Montseny

Every industry, there are rogues and bad actors. There could be rogues and bad actors in journalism. Rogues and bad actors in medicine. Rogues and bad actors in the legal community. — Anthony Scaramucci

In the first ages they were wise men; in the middle age, madmen; in these latter ages, cunning men: in the earliest time they were honest; in the
middle time, rogues; in these last times, fools: at first they dealt with nature; then with the Devil; and now not with the Devil, or with nature either: in the first ages the magicians were wiser than the people; in the second age, wickeder than the people; and in our age, the people are both wiser and wickeder than the magicians. — Daniel Defoe

I have known men who have been sold and bought a hundred times, who have only got very fat and very comfortable in the process of exchange. — Ouida

A rogue is a roundabout fool. — Samuel Taylor Coleridge

I am bewitched with the rogue's company. If the rascal have not given me medicines to make me love him, I'll be hanged. — William Shakespeare

An honest man you may form of windle-straws, but to make a rogue you must have grist. — Friedrich Schiller

Rogues in rags are kept in countenance by rogues in ruffles. — Alexander Pope

I have several people among my acquaintances who might be described as 'fearsome rogues.' Did he give a name? — Pamela Belle

The Bible. That is what fools have written, what imbeciles commend, what rogues teach and young children are made to learn by heart. — Voltaire

Honesty was a cheat invented first To bind the hands of bold deserving rogues, That fools and cowards might sit safe in power, And lord it uncontroll'd above their betters. — Thomas Otway

I'll send a boy round to [the crazy farmer] Martin's and ask him to come by with a couple bottles."
"Get five or six," Bast said. "It's getting cold at night. Winter's coming."
The innkeeper smiled. "I'm sure Martin will be flattered. — Patrick Rothfuss

As there is a use in medicine for poisons, so the world cannot move without rogues. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

If I must consort with rogues [ ... ] I own I like them to be in the grand manner. — Georgette Heyer

Away, you mouldy rogue, away! — William Shakespeare

Nothing spoils lunch any quicker than a rogue meatball rampaging through your spaghetti. — Jim Davis