To the wicked, everything serves as pretext.

We must always work, and a self-respecting artist must not fold his hands on the pretext that he is not in the mood. If…

— Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

Treacherous assassins, enemies of the people, and worthy of everyone's ridicule are those who, under the pretext of guiding future generations, teach them an…

— Jose Marti

“He said to himself, that this child had a right to know life before renouncing it, that to deprive her in advance, and in…

— Victor Hugo

Of all hostile feelings, envy is perhaps the hardest to be subdued, because hardly any one owns it even to himself, but looks out…

— Richard Whately

[Censors are] people with secret attractions to various temptations... They are defending themselves under the pretext of defending others, because at heart they fear…

— Ernest Jones

When observers look back 50 years from now, the arguments supporting Florida's ban on same-sex marriage, though just as sincerely held [as views of…

— Robert Lewis Hinkle

The tone and tendency of liberalism...is to attack the institutions of the country under the name of reform and to make war on the…

— Benjamin Disraeli

War always reaches the depths of horror because of idiots who perpetuate terror from generation to generation under the pretext of vengeance.

— Guy Sajer

I wrote a study about this question, The Lessons of October, which served as a pretext for my elimination from the government.

— Leon Trotsky

There is nothing an addict likes more, or that serves as better pretext for continuing his present way of life, than to place the…

— Theodore Dalrymple

There is no family in America without a clock, and consequently there is no fair pretext for the usual Sunday medley of dreadful sounds…

— Mark Twain

The enemy is only a pretext to test our strength

— Paulo Coelho

...the great movement of apostasy being organized in every country for the establishment of a One-World Church which shall have neither dogmas, nor hierarchy,…

— Pope Pius X

Often, the pretexts for starting a war are not real shortages of land, food or fuel, but rather perceptions - like fear, honor and…

— Victor Davis Hanson

Temporary deviations from fundamental principles are always more or less dangerous. When the first pretext fails, those who become interested in prolonging the evil…

— James Madison