Quotes & Sayings About Scoundrels

There was once a community of scoundrels, that is to say, they were not scoundrels, but ordinary people. — Franz Kafka

Society is older than government. But every persisting society implies the existence of government and laws; for a society without government and laws is at once overturned by its madmen and scoundrels and lapses into barbarism. — William Batchelder Greene

In revolutions authority remains with the greatest scoundrels. — Georges Jacques Danton

Louisiana was notorious as the last refuge of French whores and scoundrels. By — Ann Jones

My old man claimed that the more complicated the law the more opportunity for scoundrels. — Robert A. Heinlein

The window can be fixed, Katerina. I'm far more concerned about him. — Ally Carter

I suffer for my art and despise the witless moneyed scoundrels who praise it. — El Greco

Nothing so fretful, so despicable as a Scribbler, see what I am, and what a parcel of Scoundrels I have brought about my ears, and what language I have been obliged to treat them with to deal with them in their own way; - all this comes of Authorship. — Lord Byron

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. — Lysander Spooner

Those who say theory and practice are two unrelated realms are fools in one and scoundrels in the other. — Ayn Rand

Travelling men make wide detours just to be in the same room as her. That's the most that even the best of of them can hope for.
Molly Pratt, he says. Remind me, what's a heavenly creature like you doin in a dump like this?
Servin rotgut to scoundrels like you, she says. An if you call my place a dump again, I'll bar you. — Moira Young

They (ACS) lie like scoundrels. — Dean Burk

And no hope is greater than that of the Wookiees of Kashyyyk. Heroes of the Rebellion Han Solo and Chewbacca have gathered a team of smugglers and scoundrels to free Kashyyyk from its Imperial slavers once and for all. — Chuck Wendig

At present I do not feel that I have seen more than the fringe of poverty. Still, I can point to one or two things I have definitely learned by being hard up. I shall never again think that all tramps are drunken scoundrels, nor expect a beggar to be grateful when I give him a penny, nor be surprised if men out of work lack energy, nor subscribe to the Salvation Army, nor pawn my clothes, nor refuse a handbill, nor enjoy a meal at a smart restaurant. That is a beginning. — George Orwell

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

Human nature is a scoundrel's favorite explanation. — Mason Cooley

Scoundrels will be corrupt and unconcerned citizens apathetic under even the best constitution. — William Earl Maxwell

Nothing is more odious than the majority, for it consists of a few powerful leaders, a certain number of accommodating scoundrels and submissive weaklings, and a mass of men who trot after them without thinking, or knowing their own minds. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

We handed the most important belongings of our people
the railroads and the banks
to aliens who 2000 years ago had turned the temple into a house of usury. Back then there was a man who had the bravery to drive out these scoundrels with a whip! If today a national socialist is seen with such a temple-whip, he's thrown into jail. — Julius Streicher

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

Americans specially love superlatives. The phrases 'biggest in the world,' 'finest in the world,' are on all lips. Unless President Hayes is a strong man, they will soon come to boast that their government is composed of the 'biggest scoundrels' in the world. — Isabella Bird

Altogether bad,' the host concluded. 'As you will, but there's something not nice hidden in men who avoid wine, games, the society of charming women, table talk. Such people are either gravely ill or secretly hate everybody around them. True, there may be exceptions. Among persons sitting down with me at the banqueting table, there have been on occasion some extraordinary scoundrels! ... And so, let me hear your business. — Mikhail Bulgakov

I dare to think that it is this outsized reality, and not just its literary expression, that has deserved the attention of the Swedish Academy of Letters. A reality not of paper, but one that lives within us and determines each instant of our countless daily deaths, and that nourishes a source of insatiable creativity, full of sorrow and beauty, of which this roving and nostalgic Colombian is but one cipher more, singled out by fortune. Poets and beggars, musicians and prophets, warriors and scoundrels, all creatures of that unbridled reality, we have had to ask but little of imagination, for our crucial problem has been a lack of conventional means to render our lives believable. This, my friends, is the crux of our solitude. — Gabriel Garcia Marquez

My humble ... I don't drink ... '
'A shame! What about a game of dice, then? Or do have some other favourite game? Dominoes? Cards?
'I don't play games,' the already weary barman responded.
'Altogether bad,' the host concluded. 'As you will, but there's something noce nice hidden in men who avoid wine, games, the society of charming women, table talk. Such people are either gravely ill or secretly hate everybody around them. True, there may be exceptions. Among persons sitting down with me at the banqueting table, there have been on occasion some extraordinary scoundrels! Chapter 18 — Mikhail Bulgakov

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. — Gilbert K. Chesterton

An economist is a scoundrel who tells you the way things are rather than the way you want them to be. — William Nordhaus

I was only following orders," the Mayor mocks. "The refuge of scoundrels since the dawn of time. — Patrick Ness

What is noble, lyrical, tender in the upper level shown is also with the servants, scoundrels, and scamps, as in a distorting mirror. This contrast seems to me a most appealing musical theme
to show love in its noble and crude forms, romanticism and crass realism mixed as in everyday life. — Stefan Zweig

As for famous men who were not artists, I am beginning to be tired of them. Those poor little scoundrels who are called great men fill me with nothing but overwhelming horror. — Franz Liszt

It's very hard not to be a scoundrel nowadays. Everywhere there are pressures that work towards our personal and collective debasement. — Nelson Rodrigues

Life is very short, and it ought not to be spent crawling at the feet of miserable scoundrels. — Stendhal

Most men - it is my experience - are neither virtuous nor scoundrels, good-hearted nor bad-hearted. They are a little of one thing and a little of the other and nothing for any length of time: ignoble mediocrities. — Robert Graves

Whenever I see 'Dirty Rotten Scoundrels', a total comedy classic, I get the urge to feel the breeze of the south of France in the summer! — Gwyneth Paltrow

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

To be connected with the church is to be associated with scoundrels, warmongers, fakes, child-molesters, murderers, adulterers, and hypocrites of every description. It also, at the same time, identifies you with saints and the finest persons of heroic soul within every time, country, race, and gender. To be a member of the church is to carry the mantle of both the worst sin and the finest heroism of soul ... because the church always looks exactly as it looked at the original crucifixion, God hung among thieves. — Ronald Rolheiser

I don't care if we lose the company, miss. But I would care a great deal if we lost the boy. — Ally Carter

To be with another woman, that is French. To be caught, that is American. — Steve Martin

Despite the disreputable company it keeps, bismuth is harmless. In fact, it's medicinal: Doctors prescribe it to soothe ulcers, and it's the 'bis' in hot-pink Pepto-Bismol. Overall, it seems like the most out-of-place element on the periodic table, a gentleman among scoundrels. — Sam Kean

Remember too," I added, "that getting rid of scoundrels ends the danger of contamination for the rest of the army. Men are drawn closer to virtue when they see the dishonor that falls on misleaders. — Xenophon

The enemies of living life; outdated little liberals, afraid of their own independence; lackeys of thought, enemies of the person and freedom, decrepit preachers of carrion and rot! What do they have: gray heads, the golden mean, the most abject and philistine giftlessness, envious equality, equality without personal dignity, equality as understood by a lackey or a Frenchman of the year ninety-three ... And scoundrells, above all, scoundrels, scoundrels everywhere! — Fyodor Dostoevsky

I prefer to remake flops. Dirty Rotten Scoundrels was a remake of a flop, and The Quiet American is a remake of a flop. — Michael Caine

Everyone who does not agree with me is a traitor and a scoundrel. — George III

In time you will know this well: For time, and time alone, will show the just man, though scoundrels are discovered in a day. — Sophocles

a national government is bad enough, but this administration is the largest collection of scoundrels and morons in recent memory. — Jim Dodge

Religion is all-too-often a refuge for scoundrels. — Neal Boortz

Our history is every human history; a black and gory business, with more scoundrels than wise men at the lead, and more louts than both put together to cheer and follow. — Philip Wylie

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. — Jean De La Bruyere

That's really bad," concluded the host, "say what you will, but there's something evil lurking in men who avoid wine, games, the society of delightful women, table talk. Such people are either gravely ill or secretly hate those around them. True, exceptions are possible. Among those who have sat down with me at the banqueting table, there have sometimes been some astonishing scoundrels! And so, I'm listening to why you're here. — Mikhail Bulgakov

No matter that patriotism is too often the refuge of scoundrels. Dissent, rebellion, and all-around hell-raising remain the true duty of patriots. — Barbara Ehrenreich

Politics is the last resort of scoundrels. — Blase Bonpane

Dave Rudabaugh is an ignorant scoundrel! I disapprove of his very existence. I considered ending it myself on several occasions but self-control got the better of me. — Doc Holliday

What a fate: to be condemned to work for a firm where the slightest negligence at once gave rise to the gravest suspicion! Were all the employees nothing but a bunch of scoundrels, was there not among them one single loyal devoted man who, had he wasted only an hour or so of the firm's time in the morning, was so tormented by conscience as to be driven out of his mind and actually incapable of leaving his bed? — Franz Kafka

My anger mounted. "What about your son and me? What about us? How can you even think of leaving me alone here with our baby boy? Telemachus needs his father. What's going to happen to us if you leave? Who will help me raise him? Who will take care of us? You know as well as I do some of the men around here are nothing but a bunch of scoundrels. Mark my words, Odysseus. The second you're gone, they'll swarm in here like bees around honey. They'll take over the place. I won't be able to do a thing to stop them. — Tamara Agha-Jaffar

I often had no scruples about deceiving nitwits and scoundrels and fools when I found it necessary ... We avenge intelligence when we deceive a fool, and ... deceiving a fool is an exploit worthy of an intelligent man. What has infused my very blood with an unconquerable hatred of the whole tribe of fools from the day of my birth is that I become a fool myself when I am in their company. — Giacomo Casanova

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

What would become of the world without the Devil? Under all the different systems of religion that have guided or misguided the world for the last six thousand years, the Devil has been the grand scapegoat. He has had to bear the blame of every thing that has gone wrong. All the evil that gets committed is laid to his door, and he has, besides, the credit of hindering all the good that has never got done at all. If mankind were not thus one and all victims to the Devil, what an irredeemable set of scoundrels they would be obliged to confess themselves! — Geraldine Jewsbury

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

A minority group has 'arrived' only when it has the right to produce some fools and scoundrels without the entire group paying for it. — Carl T. Rowan

What scoundrels we would be if we did for ourselves what we are ready to do for Italy. — Camillo Benso, Count Of Cavour

The only people who are worth knowing are either saints, scoundrels or madmen; at least their conversation is always interesting. Sensible people are dull by definition, because they are always harping on to the same boring tune about everyday life. They form part of the crowd, the more intelligent part perhaps, but the crowd for all that, and I'm sick of them. — Joris-Karl Huysmans

I wish to Heaven these scoundrels were condemned to be squeezed to death in their own presses. I am told there are not less than a dozen of their papers now published in town, and no wonder that they are obliged to invent lies to find sale for their journals. — Walter Scott

Whereas scoundrels become reconciled after knifing one another, lovers break up irrevocably over a mere glance or word. — Honore De Balzac

It is considered in the Sto Plains that only scoundrels know the second verse of their national anthem, since anyone spending time memorizing that would be up to no good purpose. — Terry Pratchett

He's a scoundrel, young Brad Pitt, who led me, his elderly colleague, astray more than once. — Peter O'Toole

Has the art of politics no apparent utility? Does it appear to be unqualifiedly ratty, raffish, sordid, obscene, and low down, andits salient virtuosi a gang of unmitigated scoundrels? Then let us not forget its high capacity to soothe and tickle the midriff, its incomparable services as a maker of entertainment. — H.L. Mencken

Patriotism is the last refuge to which a scoundrel clings. — Bob Dylan

Angel? Angels didn't sit on the lap of wicked scoundrels-not unless they were the fallen kind. — Sabrina Jeffries

Poor Sonya! What a little gold-mine they've managed to get hold of there! And profit from! Oh yes, they draw their profits from it! And they've got used to it. They wept at first, but now they are used to it. Men are scoundrels, they can get used to anything! — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Do you believe,' said Candide, 'that men have always massacred each other as they do to-day, that they have always been liars, cheats, traitors, ingrates, brigands, idiots, thieves, scoundrels, gluttons, drunkards, misers, envious, ambitious, bloody-minded, calumniators, debauchees, fanatics, hypocrites, and fools?'
Do you believe,' said Martin, 'that hawks have always eaten pigeons when they have found them? — Voltaire

It is no great misfortune to oblige ungrateful people, but an unsupportable one to be forced to be under an obligation to a scoundrel. — Philip James Bailey

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. — Michael Crichton

This is why a tainted society has invented psychiatry to defend itself against the investigations of certain superior intellects whose faculties of divination would be troublesome.
No, van Gogh was not mad, but his paintings were bursts of Greek fire, atomic bombs, whose angle of vision would have been capable of seriously upsetting the spectral conformity of the
bourgeoisie.
In comparison with the lucidity of van Gogh, psychiatry is no better than a den of apes who are themselves obsessed and persecuted and who possess nothing to mitigate the most appalling states of anguish and human suffocation but a ridiculous terminology. To a man, this whole gang of pected scoundrels and patented quacks are all erotomaniacs. — Antonin Artaud

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. — H.L. Mencken

It is at the family fireside, often under the shelter of the law itself, that the real tragedies of life are acted; in these days traitors wear gloves, scoundrels cloak themselves in public esteem, and their victims die broken-hearted, but smiling to the last. What I have just related to you is almost an every-day occurrence; and yet you profess astonishment. — Emile Gaboriau

I am Diogenes the Dog. I nuzzle the kind, bark at the greedy and bite scoundrels. — Diogenes

But that is the way of life, and that was but one of the first times, among no few to come, that I was taught a useful lesson about how appearances trump truth, and how villains hide their vices behind masks of piety, honour, and decency. And that to denounce evildoers without proof, attack them with weapons, trust blindly in reason or justice, is often the fastest road toward one's own perdition, while the scoundrels who use influence or money as a shield remained untouched. — Arturo Perez-Reverte

I would like to raise them as I was. I would like for them to learn naturally, effortlessly, almost without knowing it, that the love of beautiful things, critical thinking, and intellectual honesty are the three essential virtues. This way, they will like things for themselves, will judge for themselves. This way, they will be real men, as there used to be, they won't be fooled by intellectual snobs and political scoundrels. They will know how to live above and outside of a century which is only getting deeper into infamy, lies, and stupidity. I love you my dears because I know that it is because of you that I possess some of these virtues that I wish for them to have. — Sean B. Carroll

General good is the plea of the scoundrel, hypocite, flatterer. — William Blake

What, then, is patriotism? "Patriotism, sir, is the last resort of scoundrels," said Dr. Johnson. Leo Tolstoy, the greatest anti-patriot of our times, defines patriotism as the principle that will justify the training of wholesale murderers; a trade that requires better equipment for the exercise of man-killing than the making of such necessities of life as shoes, clothing, and houses; a trade that guarantees better returns and greater glory than that of the average workingman. — Emma Goldman

Fahlberg is a scoundrel. It nauseates me to hear my name mentioned in the same breath with him. — Ira Remsen

Oh, Marigold!" Lymond spoke plaintively. "A silken tongue, a heart of cruelty. Don't berate us. We're only poor scoundrels - vagabonds - scraps of society; unlettered and untaught. — Dorothy Dunnett

They say that patriotism is the last refuge to which a scoundrel clings steal a little and they throw you in jail. Steal a lot and then they make you king. — Bob Dylan

It didn't make any more sense to me then than it does now, how life can pile troubles up on a man what don't deserve them, while letting some of the biggest jackasses and scoundrels alive waltz their way through long, untroubled existences. — Caleb Carr

We are good at stories. We hoard them, like an old woman in a room full of boxes, but now and then we pull out our best, and spread them out. We talk of the bad years when the cotton didn't open, and the day my cousin Wanda was washed in the Blood. We buff our beloved ancestors until they are smooth of sin, and give our scoundrels a hard shake, although sometimes we can't remember exactly which is who. — Rick Bragg

While the Zionists try to make the rest of the World believe that the national consciousness of the Jew finds its satisfaction in the creation of a Palestinian state, the Jews again slyly dupe the dumb Goyim. It doesn't even enter their heads to build up a Jewish state in Palestine for the purpose of living there; all they want is a central organisation for their international world swindler, endowed with its own sovereign rights and removed from the intervention of other states: a haven for convicted scoundrels and a university for budding crooks.
It is a sign of their rising confidence and sense of security that at a time when one section is still playing the German, French-man, or Englishman, the other with open effrontery comes out as the Jewish race. — Adolf Hitler

I'd wish the government took honest people into consideration, it shows enough consideration for scoundrels. — Franz Grillparzer

Make not, when you work a deed of shame, The scoundrel's plea, 'My forbears did the same. — Al-Ma'arri

Now answer me, sincerely, honestly, who lives past forty? I'll tell you who does: fools and scoundrels. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

General Biassou is a simple, vulnerable man without much knowledge, and he is easily led astray by the scoundrels surrounding him. He has sworn eternal hatred for me, and for some time now, he has been trying to destroy me using whatever means he can. — Toussaint Louverture

Fiction wouldn't be much fun without its fair share of scoundrels, and they have to live somewhere. — Jasper Fforde

Truth is irrelevant. What is relevant is whether or not they believe it."
The logic in the words grated. "The first rule of scoundrels? — Sarah MacLean

There are many occasions when the highest praise one can receive is the attack of some given scoundrel. — Theodore Roosevelt

The Peloponnesian War turns out to be no dry chronicle of abstract cause and effect. No, it is above all an intense, riveting, and timeless story of strong and weak men, of heroes and scoundrels and innocents too, all caught in the fateful circumstances of rebellion, plague, and war that always strip away the veneer of culture and show us for what we really are. — Thucydides

We begin as dupes and end as scoundrels. — Antoinette Du Ligier De La Garde Deshoulieres

So, to return to the title chapter, what is the point of learning statistics? To summarize huge quantities of data. To make better decisions. To answer important social questions. To recognize patterns that can refine how we do everything from selling diapers to catching criminals. To catch cheaters and prosecute criminals. To evaluate the effectiveness of policies, programs, drugs, medical procedures, and other innovations. And to spot the scoundrels who use these very same powerful tools for nefarious ends. — Charles Wheelan

You are a set of deceitful scoundrels! But bless you! I give in. I will take Gildor's advice. If the danger were not so dark, I should dance for joy. Even so, I cannot help feeling happy; happier than I have felt for a long time. — J.R.R. Tolkien

Honest men cannot be expected to anticipate the actions of scoundrels. — Mary Street

I could not help weeping with him - not over my own fate which, however clearly laid out, was just as sad as his, but over the injustices, the iniquities, and the crimes to which the exploited poor are always and everywhere subjected to, by a mob of scoundrels and trash who deck themselves out in many-colored robes, in helmet and plumed hats, in gold and silver embroideries, and take themselves titles of majesty, holiness, eminence, lordship, in order to fleece, bleed, and slaughter the poor. — Jean-Marie Deguignet

As Hobbes remarked, in war, force and fraud are the cardinal virtues, and he regarded international relations as always potentially a condition of war. Cavour, one of the creators of a united Italy in the nineteenth century, is reported as remarking: 'What scoundrels we would be if we had done for ourselves what we have done for our country. — Kenneth Minogue

I've always believed in the old-fashioned way: When you've got scoundrels in office, you vote 'em out. — Rush Limbaugh