STEALING QUOTES II
quotations about stealing
No Indian prince has to his palace
More followers than a thief to the gallows.
SAMUEL BUTLER
Hudibras
The Friar preached against stealing, and had a goose in his sleeve.
GEORGE HERBERT
Jacula Prudentum
Everybody steals from everybody, that's Hollywood.
JON FAVREAU
Swingers
Stealing is always wrong, but stealing paintings in an elaborate way is a little like stealing bread to feed your family. It's stealing bread to feed the world's daydreams about becoming an art thief.
BEN MATHIS-LILLEY
"Uzbekistan Art Thieves Replaced Twenty-Plus Paintings With Fakes Over the Course of 15 Years", Slate, December 12, 2014
Theft is punished by Thy law, O Lord, and the law written in the hearts of men, which iniquity itself effaces not. For what thief will abide a thief? not even a rich thief, one stealing through want. Yet I lusted to thieve, and did it, compelled by no hunger, nor poverty, but through a cloyedness of well-doing, and a pamperedness of iniquity. For I stole that, of which I had enough, and much better. Nor cared I to enjoy what I stole, but joyed in the theft and sin itself.
ST. AUGUSTINE
Confessions
The world thinks that a thief is a dirty, disreputable looking object, next door to a tramp in appearance. But this idea is far from being true. Every grafter of any standing in the profession is very careful about his clothes. He is always neat, clean, and as fashionable as his income will permit. Otherwise he would not be permitted to attend large political gatherings, to sit on the platform, for instance, and would be handicapped generally in his crooked dealings with mankind.
HUTCHINS HAPGOOD
The Autobiography of a Thief
It's not considered stealing
Unless you're getting caught
GREEN DAY
"Shoplifter"
From my perspective, stealing is also an attempt to rewrite or get outside those laws that create a sense of normalcy in society. A society that allows certain children access to the healthiest foods, that underpays and therefore undermines the work of certain people, and that holds competition and economic inequality as givens, rather than culturally constructed ways of life. It comes over me when I think about the endless turnover of paper, the endless struggle we all undergo every day, just to get dinner on the table.
AMANDA MONTEI
"Kleptomania and a mother's love: The five-finger discount is my personal rebellion against inequality", Salon, February 4, 2017
Property is theft!
PIERRE-JOSEPH PROUDHON
What is Property?
Men kill for many reasons, they steal but for one--greed.
SHARON KAY PENMAN
Falls the Shadow
Some persons look at stealing as a profession; it is a job where they spend time to refine the skills needed to maintain a constant level of success in their endeavours. They do not spend too long in one place. They are always scouting out new locations. They are precise and logical in their actions. Many are often charismatic and engage their victims without them being suspicious. Other thieves are not so industrious; they do not hold this criminal act in such high esteem. The amateur thief is more of an opportunist; he or she only engages in the activity when they are least likely to be caught.
DENISE N. FYFFE
Thieves in the Workplace
I will take your lands and all that lays beneath
The dust of cold flowers, prison of dark of ashes
I will slaughter your kind who descend from belief
I am the spirit of greed, a lord of theft
I'll burn all your books and the problems they make
If you can see me I can see you
If you can see me.
DAVID BOWIE
"If You Can See Me"
Mornings before daylight I slipped into cornfields and borrowed a watermelon, or a mushmelon, or a punkin, or some new corn, or things of that kind. Pap always said it warn't no harm to borrow things if you was meaning to pay them back some time; but the widow said it warn't anything but a soft name for stealing, and no decent body would do it.
MARK TWAIN
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
In the natural world, stealing is a necessary and frequent strategy for survival. Every animal group includes opportunists that snatch others' fresh kills, pilfer nesting materials or swipe prospective mates from distracted rivals.
MINDY WEISBERGER
"Gene Thieves: Female Salamanders Hijack DNA from Multiple Males", Live Science, June 28, 2017
Hey, hey, everybody stealing my ha, ha
Everybody taking my hey, hey
Everybody stealing my ho
Ho, ho, everybody taking my hey, hey
Everybody stealing my ya, ya
Everybody taking my ho
EDWARD SHARPE
"Free Stuff"
He who steals must steal no longer; but rather he must labor, performing with his own hands what is good, so that he will have something to share with one who has need.
BIBLE
Ephesians 4:28
You see, it is my passionately held belief that the right to possess property is at best a contingent one. When disparities become too great, a superior right, that to life, outweighs the right to property. Ergo, the very poor have the right to steal from the very rich.
MOHSIN HAMID
Moth Smoke
Let's just preface this by saying that stealing is bad. Don't do it. Ever. But if you had to for some nonexistent reason, do it in style.
SAMMY NICKALLS
"This Is the Most Creative Way to Steal an ATM, Ever", Esquire, December 29, 2016
The hands and fingers have a good deal to do with stealing; and the history of many a man's life is written by his ten fingers.
MIGUEL DE CERVANTES
attributed, Day's Collacon
Whoever steals an ox or a sheep and slaughters it or sells it must pay back five head of cattle for the ox and four sheep for the sheep. If a thief is caught breaking in at night and is struck a fatal blow, the defender is not guilty of bloodshed; but if it happens after sunrise, the defender is guilty of bloodshed. Anyone who steals must certainly make restitution, but if they have nothing, they must be sold to pay for their theft.
BIBLE
Exodus 22:1-3