“Scratch me and you will find the Nonconformist.”
1927. Quoted in Sir Charles Petrie, The Life and Letters of Sir Austen Chamberlain: Vol. II (Cassell, 1940), p. 321.
1920s
Help us to complete the source, original and additional information
Austen Chamberlain 12
British politician 1863–1937Related quotes
“If you scratch a Conservative, you find a Fascist.”
Speech to the London Young Liberal Federation in the National Liberal Club (5 January 1925), quoted in John Campbell, Lloyd George: The Goat in the Wilderness, 1922–1931 (1977), p. 109
Leader of the Liberal Party in the House of Commons
“Scratch the Christian and you find the pagan — spoiled.”
Children of the Ghetto (1892), bk. 2, ch. 6.
“Scratch any cynic and you will find a disappointed idealist.”
Variant: Inside every cynical person, there is a disappointed idealist.
“Scratch a pessimist and you find often a defender of privilege.”
As quoted in "Sayings of the Week" in The Observer [London] (17 December 1943)
“Scratch an Englishman and find a Protestant.”
Saint Joan : A Chronicle Play In Six Scenes And An Epilogue (1923)
1920s
"Address on Receiving Lord & Taylor Award" (4 May 1953) in Ideas and Opinions
1950s
“Why do you have to be a nonconformist like everybody else?”
“The sweeter the apple, the blacker the core. Scratch a lover and find a foe!”
Source: Enough Rope
“A narrow-minded nonconformist.”
Lord Northcliffe; quoted in The Oxford Companion to Children's Literature ISBN 0-19-211582-0, art. "Arthur Mee" p. 347.
About