Literary notes about Unscrupulous (AI summary)
In literature, "unscrupulous" is a potent adjective used to cast characters or institutions as lacking moral principles and ethical restraint. Authors employ the term to highlight the nefarious nature of power and ambition—for instance, depicting corrupt governments and devious financiers who exploit others without remorse ([1], [2]). It also intensifies the portrayal of personal vice and opportunism, whether in the ruthless pursuit of self-interest or in relationships driven by manipulative desire ([3], [4]). This versatile descriptor thus serves as a critical tool for exposing and questioning the darker aspects of human behavior in both social and political contexts ([5], [6]).
- "An unscrupulous Government can do anything in France," replied the lady's son.
— from The Last Hope by Henry Seton Merriman - He sold to Joseph Suess-Oppenheimer, an unscrupulous financier, the exclusive privilege of keeping coffee houses in Württemberg.
— from All About Coffee by William H. Ukers - What am I to do with your IOU’s, you cunning, unscrupulous rogue?
— from The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoyevsky - Years ago you did a clever, unscrupulous thing; it turned out a great success.
— from An Ideal Husband by Oscar Wilde - or small movable forts and magazines, at the service of some unscrupulous man in power?
— from On the Duty of Civil Disobedience by Henry David Thoreau - And to obtain such advances nothing avails but unscrupulous ambition.
— from The City of God, Volume I by Bishop of Hippo Saint Augustine
