How crooked?

Crooked as a Jesuit’s conscience...


Flashman and the Tiger, p.70, Harper Collins, paperback edition 2000.


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Fortunate critters

...I recognised her as one of those fortunate critters who (like yours truly) are simply without shame, and wouldn't know Conscience if they tripped over it in broad day.


Flashman and the Tiger, p.34, Harper Collins, paperback edition 2000.



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Distance always lends enlightenment

…if enough of the brutes had escaped the whole beastly business would have been to do again, with consequent loss of British and Sepoy lives. That’s something the moralists overlook (or more likely don’t give a dam about) when they cry: “Pity the beaten foe!” What they’re saying, in effect, is: “Kill our fellows tomorrow rather than the enemy today.” But they don’t care to have it put to them like that; they want their wars won clean and comfortable, with a clear conscience. (Their conscience being much more precious than their soldiers’ lives, you understand.) Well, that’s fine, if you’re sitting in the Liberal Club with a bellyful of port on top of your dinner, but if you rang the bell and it was answered not by a steward with a napkin but an Akali with a tulwar, you might change your mind. Distance always lends enlightenment to the view, I’ve noticed.


Flashman and the Mountain of Light, pp.344-5, Fontana Paperback edition, 1991.




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Foe of mankind

Conscience, you see? Note that; It’s a bigger foe of mankind than gunpowder.

Flashman and the Redskins, p.274, Pan Books edition, 1983.

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Victorian conscience

…Victorian conscience is beyond me, thank G-d. I know if anyone who’d done me a bad turn later turned out to be the Archangel Gabriel, I’d still hate the b-----d; but then I’m a scoundrel, you see, with no proper feelings.

Flashman's Lady, p.16, Pan edition, 1979.

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Ready-made from Cincinnati

‘No,’ says Lincoln. ‘He was a man of principle and conscience. His only mistake lay in his inability to perceive that I have both commodities also, but I didn’t buy mine ready-made from Cincinnati, and I don’t permit either to blind me to reality, I hope.

Flash For Freedom!, p.130, Pan edition, 8th printing, 1980.

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Flashman, Flashman quotes,Abraham Lincoln.

Strange talk

   ‘Your conscience is troubling you,’ says someone.
   ‘By thunder, there is no lack of people determined to make my conscience trouble me,’ says Lincoln. ‘as though I can’t tend my own conscience, they must be forever running pins into it. There was this gentleman the other day, a worthy man, too, and I was ill-advised enough to say to him much what I’ve said tonight: that nigras, while deserving our utmost compassion and assistance, were nevertheless, a nuisance. I said they were the rock on which our nation had been splitting for years, and that they could well assume, the proportions of a national catastrophe – through no fault of their own, of course. I believe I concluded by wishing the whole parcel of them back to Africa. He was shocked: “Strange talk this,” says he, “from the sponsor of a bill against slavery.” “I’d sponsor a bill to improve bad drains,” says I. “They’re a confounded nuisance, too.” A thoughtless remark, no doubt, and a faulty analogy, but I paid fro it. “Good God,” cries he, “you’ll not compare human souls with bad drains, surely.” “Not invariably,” says I, but I got no further, because he stalked off in a rage, having misunderstood me completely.’

Flash For Freedom!, p.129, Pan edition, 8th printing, 1980.

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Flashman, Flashman quotes,Abraham Lincoln.

A terrible thing

It is a terrible thing to have ideals and a conscience, to say nothing of professional pride.

Royal Flash, p.47, Pan edition, 8th printing, 1978.

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Flashman, Flashman quotes.