He who profits by a crime commits it
—Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca) (c.4 BCE–65 CE) Roman Stoic Philosopher, Statesman, Tragedian
As there is a use in medicine for poisons, so the world cannot move without rogues.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
In the old days villains had moustaches and kicked the dog. Audiences are smarter today. They don’t want their villain to be thrown at them with green limelight on his face. They want an ordinary human being with failings.
—Alfred Hitchcock (1899–1980) British-born American Film Director, Film Producer
Singularity is almost invariably a clue. The more featureless and commonplace a crime is, the more difficult is it to bring it home.
—Arthur Conan Doyle (1859–1930) Scottish Writer
Don’t steal. The government hates competition.
—Anonymous
Crime is a product of social excess
—Vladimir Lenin (1870–1924) Russian Revolutionary Leader
The villainy you teach me I will execute ; and it shall go hard but I will better the instruction.
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616) British Playwright
If you share your friend’s crime, you make it your own.
—Publilius Syrus (fl.85–43 BCE) Syrian-born Roman Latin Writer
Poverty is the parent of revolution and crime.
—Aristotle (384BCE–322BCE) Ancient Greek Philosopher, Scholar
Crime is terribly revealing. Try and vary your methods as you will, your tastes, your habits, your attitude of mind, and your soul is revealed by your actions.
—Agatha Christie (1890–1976) British Novelist, Short-Story Writer, Playwright
Heaven will permit no man to secure happiness by crime.
—Vittorio Alfieri (1749–1803) Italian Poet, Dramatist
Great thieves punish little ones.
—Common Proverb
Almost all crime is due to the repressed desire for aesthetic expression.
—Evelyn Waugh (1903–66) British Novelist, Essayist, Biographer
There are crimes which become innocent and even glorious through their splendor, number and excess.
—Francois de La Rochefoucauld (1613–80) French Writer
All criminals turn preachers under the gallows.
—Common Proverb
Society often forgives the criminal; it never forgives the dreamer.
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish Poet, Playwright
Successful crimes alone are justified.
—John Dryden (1631–1700) English Poet, Literary Critic, Playwright
It is no secret that organized crime in America takes in over forty billion dollars a year. This is quite a profitable sum, especially when one considers that the Mafia spends very little for office supplies.
—Woody Allen (b.1935) American Film Actor, Director
Life is a sheet of paper white, Whereon each one of us may write His word or two, and then comes night. Greatly begin! Though thou have time But for a line, be that sublime—Not failure, but low aim, is crime.
—James Russell Lowell (1819–91) American Poet, Critic
Set a thief to catch a thief.
—Common Proverb
From a single crime know the nation.
—Virgil (70–19 BCE) Roman Poet
We are the people our parents warned us about.
—Jimmy Buffett (b.1946) American Musician, Author
I have known a vast quantity of nonsense talked about bad men not looking you in the face. Don’t trust that conventional idea. Dishonesty will stare honesty out of countenance any day in the week, if there is anything to be got by it.
—Charles Dickens (1812–70) English Novelist
It is certain that stealing nourishes courage, strength, skill, tact, in a word, all the virtues useful to a republican system and consequently to our own. Lay partiality aside, and answer me: is theft, whose effect is to distribute wealth more evenly, to be branded as a wrong in our day, under our government which aims at equality? Plainly, the answer is no.
—Marquis de Sade (1740–1814) French Political leader, Revolutionary, Novelist, Poet, Critic
The study of crime begins with the knowledge of oneself. All that you despise, all that you loathe, all that you reject, all that you condemn and seek to convert by punishment springs from you.
—Henry Miller (1891–1980) American Novelist
One crime is everything; two nothing.
—Dorothee Luzy Dotinville (1747–1830) French Dancer, Actress
A burglar who respects his art always takes his time before taking anything else.
—O. Henry (William Sydney Porter) (1862–1910) American Writer of Short Stories
Poverty may be the mother of crime, but lack of good sense is the father
—Jean de La Bruyere (1645–96) French Satiric Moralist, Author
He that is robbed, not wanting what is stolen, him not know t, and he’s not robbed at all.
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616) British Playwright
Those who are themselves incapable of great crimes, are ever backward to suspect others.
—Francois de La Rochefoucauld (1613–80) French Writer
The world of crime is a last refuge of the authentic, uncorrupted, spontaneous event.
—Daniel J. Boorstin (1914–2004) American Historian, Academic, Attorney, Writer
Fear follows crime, and is its punishment.
—Voltaire (1694–1778) French Philosopher, Author
There is a new billboard outside Time Square. It keeps an up-to minute count of gun-related crimes in New York. Some goofball is going to shoot someone just to see the numbers move.
—David Letterman (b.1947) American TV Personality, Comedian
He 63 ways of getting money, the most common, most honorable ones being staling, thieving, and robbing.
—Francois Rabelais (1494–1553) French Humanist, Satirist
One crime has to be concealed by another.
—Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca) (c.4 BCE–65 CE) Roman Stoic Philosopher, Statesman, Tragedian
The man who is admired for the ingenuity of his larceny is almost always rediscovering some earlier form of fraud. The basic forms are all known, have all been practiced. The manners of capitalism improve. The morals may not.
—John Kenneth Galbraith (1908–2006) Canadian-Born American Economist
Life is nothing but a competition to be the criminal rather than the victim.
—Bertrand A. Russell (1872–1970) British Philosopher, Mathematician, Social Critic
Small crimes always precede great ones. Never have we seen timid innocence pass suddenly to extreme licentiousness.
—Jean Racine (1639–1699) French Dramatist
The secret of a great success for which you are at a loss to account is a crime that has never been found out, because it was properly executed.
—Honore de Balzac (1799–1850) French Novelist
Slums may well be breeding-grounds of crime, but middle-class suburbs are incubators of apathy and delirium.
—Cyril Connolly (1903–74) British Literary Critic, Writer
The common argument that crime is caused by poverty is a kind of slander on the poor.
—H. L. Mencken (1880–1956) American Journalist, Literary Critic
All crime is a kind of disease and should be treated as such.
—Mohandas K. Gandhi (1869–1948) Indian Hindu Political leader
Crimes, like virtues, are their own rewards.
—George Farquhar (1677–1707) Irish Dramatist
Crime, like disease, is not interesting; it is something to be done away with by general consent, and that is all about it.
—Anonymous
He who commits injustice is ever made more wretched than he who suffers it.
—Plato (428 BCE–347 BCE) Ancient Greek Philosopher, Mathematician, Educator
The faults of the burglar are the qualities of the financier.
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish Playwright
Growing old is like being increasingly penalized for a crime you haven’t committed.
—Anthony Powell (1905–2000) English Novelist, Memoirist
Crime generally punishes itself.
—Oliver Goldsmith (1730–74) Irish Novelist, Playwright, Poet
The lyricism of marginality may find inspiration in the image of the “outlaw,” the great social nomad, who prowls on the confines of a docile, frightened order.
—Michel Foucault (1926–84) French Philosopher, Critic, Historian
Capital punishment is as fundamentally wrong as a cure for crime as charity is wrong as a cure for poverty.
—Henry Ford (1863–1947) American Businessperson, Engineer