Crime Quotes - Page 12

• Not failure, but low aim, is crime.

  James Russell Lowell

  Inspirational, Fear, Educational

  James Russell Lowell (1871). “The poetical works of James Russell Lowell”, p.382

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• One fault begets another; one crime renders another necessary.

  Robert Southey

  Guilt, Faults, Begets

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• Necessity, that great refuge and excuse for human frailty, breaks through all law; and he is not to be accounted in fault whose crime is not the effect of choice, but force.

  Blaise Pascal

  Law, Break Through, Choices

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• If suicide be supposed a crime, it is only cowardice can impel us to it. If it be no crime, both prudence and courage should engage us to rid ourselves at once of existence when it becomes a burden. It is the only way that we can then be useful to society, by setting an example which, if imitated, would preserve every one his chance for happiness in life, and would effectually free him from all danger or misery.

  David Hume

  Suicide, Example, Way

  David Hume (2006). “Essays: Moral, Political and Literary”, p.595, Cosimo, Inc.

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• In war, as in politics, no evil - even if it is permissible under the rules - is excusable unless it is absolutely necessary. Everything beyond that is a crime.

  Napoleon Bonaparte

  War, Power, Evil

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• The contagion of crime is like that of the plague. Criminals collected together corrupt each other. They are worse than ever when, at the termination of their punishment, they return to society.

  Napoleon Bonaparte

  Punishment, Evil, Together

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• Purposelessness is the fruitful mother of crime.

  Charles Henry Parkhurst

  Mother, Prison, Purposelessness

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• What clever man has ever needed to commit a crime? Crime is the last resort of political half-wits.

  Charles Maurice de Talleyrand

  Clever, Men, Political

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• Crimes lead into one another. They who are capable of being forgers, are capable of being incendiaries.

  Edmund Burke

  Prison, Capable

  "Correspondence of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke: Between the Year 1744 and the Period of His Decease, in 1797".

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• Every optimist moves along with progress and hastens it, while every pessimist would keep the worlds at a standstill. The consequence of pessimism in the life of a nation is the same as in the life of the individual. Pessimism kills the instinct that urges men to struggle against poverty, ignorance and crime, and dries up all the fountains of joy in the world.

  Helen Keller

  Struggle, Moving, Twilight

  Helen Keller (2012). “The World I Live In and Optimism: A Collection of Essays”, p.106, Courier Corporation

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• If some beggar steals a bridle he'll be hung by a man who's stolen a horse.

  Peire Cardenal

  Funny, Horse, Humor

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  When you are younger you get blamed for crimes you never committed and when you're older you begin to get credit for virtues you never possessed. It evens itself out.

  Casey Stengel

  Motivational, Birthday, Baseball

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• Toward no crimes have men shown themselves so cold- bloodedly cruel as in punishing differences of belief.

  James Russell Lowell

  Faith, Men, Differences

  "Literary Essays, vol. II". Book by James Russell Lowell, 1870-1890.

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• The USA has more people in prison that any other country, including countries with much larger populations. 13% of the population is black but 80% of the people in prison are black, mostly for soft crimes.

  Harry Belafonte

  Country, Usa, People

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• If little faults proceeding on distemper
  Shall not be winked at, how shall we stretch our eye
  When capital crimes, chewed, swallowed, and digested,
  Appear before us?

  William Shakespeare

  Forgiveness, Drinking, Eye

  William Shakespeare, Andrew Gurr (2005). “King Henry V”, p.108, Cambridge University Press

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• But many a crime deemed innocent on earth Is registered in Heaven; and these no doubt Have each their record, with a curse annex'd.

  William Cowper

  Heaven, Doubt, Records

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• About 25 years ago, I started out as a reporter covering politics. And that sort of just evolved into organized crime, because organized crime and politics were the same thing in Boston.

  Howie Carr

  Boston, Years, Covering

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• Growing old is like being increasingly penalized for a crime you haven't committed.

  Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

  Birthday, Growing Up, Getting Older

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• Every crime has, in the moment of its perpetration, Its own avenging angel-dark misgiving, An ominous sinking at the inmost heart.

  Samuel Taylor Coleridge

  Heart, Angel, Dark

  Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Henry Nelson Coleridge (1854). “The complete works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge: With an introductory essay upon his philosophical and theological opinions”, p.588

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• The idea that the sole aim of punishment is to prevent crime is obviously grounded upon the theory that crime can be prevented, which is almost as dubious as the notion that poverty can be prevented.

  H. L. Mencken

  Punishment, Ideas, Dubious

  H.L. Mencken (2013). “Minority Report”, p.265, Knopf

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• Murder is a horror, but an often necessary horror, never criminal, which it is essential to tolerate in a republican State. Is it or is it not a crime? If it is not, why make laws for its punishment? And if it is, by what barbarous logic do you, to punish it, duplicate it by another crime?

  Marquis de Sade

  Law, Punishment, Criminals

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• It is a crime to put a Roman citizen in chains, it is an enormity to flog one, sheer murder to slay one: what, then, shall I say of crucifixion? It is impossible to find the word for such an abomination.

  Marcus Tullius Cicero

  Citizens, Impossible, Murder

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• One murder made a villain, Millions a hero. Princes were privileged To kill, and numbers sanctified the crime.

  Beilby Porteus

  Hero, Numbers, Murder

  William Falconer, Thomas Day, Robert Blair, Robert Glynn, Beilby Porteus (1822). “The Poems of Falconer, Day, Blair, Glynn, and Porteus”, p.283

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