A Quote by Gilbert K. Chesterton

I have formed a very clear conception of patriotism. I have generally found it thrust into the foreground by some fellow who has something to hide in the background. I have seen a great deal of patriotism; and I have generally found it the last refuge of the scoundrel.

Gilbert K. Chesterton

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Gilbert K. Chesterton
English - Writer
May 29, 1874 - June 14, 1936

If patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel, it is not merely because evil deeds may be performed in the name of patriotism, but because patriotic fervor can obliterate moral distinctions altogether.

Ralph Barton Perry

Whether or not patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel, national security can be the last refuge of the tyrant.

Robert Walker, Baron Walker of Gestingthorpe

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.

George Galloway

Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel.

Samuel Johnson

Patriotism, red hot, is compatible with the existence of a neglect of national interests, a dishonesty, a cold indifference to the suffering of millions. Patriotism is largely pride, and very largely combativeness. Patriotism generally has a chip on its shoulder.

Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Patriotism is the last refuge to which a scoundrel clings.

Bob Dylan

Those who believe patriotism to be the last refuge of the scoundrel have underestimated compassion.

Emmett Tyrrell

What every Englishman thinks about patriotism, the last refuge of a scoundrel.

Coco Chanel

When Dr. Johnson defined patriotism as the last refuge of a scoundrel, he ignored the enormous possibilities of the word reform.

Roscoe Conkling

Patriotism is usually the refuge of the scoundrel. He is the man who talks the loudest.

Mark Twain

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

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 it is the first.

Ambrose Bierce

There is Ontario patriotism, Quebec patriotism, or Western patriotism; each based on the hope that it may swallow up the others, but there is no Canadian patriotism, and we can have no Canadian nation when we have no Canadian patriotism.

Henri Bourassa

There are these two kinds of patriotism. There's blind patriotism, unflagging patriotism. And then there's the patriotism that says I live in a democracy and it's very important for the health and the life of this democracy that it get better all the time, not get worse.

Norman Mailer

I think English film is very embarrassed by patriotism, generally.

Tom Hooper

We're being sold a brand new idea of patriotism. It never occurred to me that patriotism had to be advertised. Patriotism is something you deeply felt. You didn't have to wear it on your lapel or show it in your window or on a bumper sticker. That kind of patriotism does not appeal to me at all.

Sam Shepard

A Quote by Gilbert K. Chesterton

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