PATRIOTISM, n. Combustible rubbish ready to the torch of any one ambitious to illuminate his name. In Dr. Johnson's famous dictionary patriotism is defined as the last resort of a scoundrel. With all due respect to an enlightened but inferior lexicographer I beg to submit that it is the first. - Ambrose Bierce
Anybody who thinks of going to bed before 12 o'clock is a scoundrel. - Samuel Johnson
Every man over forty is a scoundrel. - George Bernard Shaw
A scoundrel will forever be a scoundrel, no matter which coat he wears. - Laura Moncur
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
A gentleman would have announced himself! I told him, pressing against the side of the tub. And a scoundrel would have joined you.-- Kit Marlowe to the witch Gillian (shortly before joining her in the tub!) - Karen Chance
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. - José Martí
A technical objection is the first refuge of a scoundrel. - Heywood Broun
Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel. - Samuel Johnson
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