Quotes about crime and criminals

"Many commit the same crime with a different destiny; one bears a cross as the price of his villainy, another wears a crown."

Juvenal, (Decimus Junius Juvenalis) on crime and criminals   

"Every society gets the kind of criminal it deserves. What is also true is that every community gets the kind of law enforcement it insists on."

Kennedy, John F. on crime and criminals   

"Squeeze human nature into the straitjacket of criminal justice and crime will appear."

Kraus, Karl on crime and criminals   

"If poverty is the mother of crime, lack of good sense is the father."

La Bruyere, Jean De on crime and criminals   

"There are crimes which become innocent and even glorious through their splendor, number and excess."

La Rochefoucauld, Francois De on crime and criminals   

"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."

Letterman, David on crime and criminals   

"He reminds me of the man who murdered both his parents, and then when the sentence was about to be pronounced, pleaded for mercy on the grounds that he was orphan."

Lincoln, Abraham on crime and criminals
4 fans of this quote   

"Not failure, but low aim, is crime."

Lowell, James Russell on crime and criminals   

"The common argument that crime is caused by poverty is a kind of slander on the poor."

Mencken, H. L. on crime and criminals   

"We may live without friends; we may live without books. But civilized men cannot live without cooks."

Meredith, Owen on crime and criminals   

"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."

Miller, Henry on crime and criminals   

"It is because they took the easy way out that rivers, and people, go crooked."

Peterson, Jill on crime and criminals   

"He who commits injustice is ever made more wretched than he who suffers it."

Plato on crime and criminals   

"A burglar who respects his art always takes his time before taking anything else."

Porter, O. Henry on crime and criminals   

"All criminals turn preachers under the gallows."

Proverb on crime and criminals   

"Great thieves punish little ones."

Proverb on crime and criminals   

"In times of trouble leniency becomes crime."

Proverb on crime and criminals   

"Set a thief to catch a thief."

Proverb, French on crime and criminals   

"Save a thief from the gallows and he will cut your throat."

Proverb, French on crime and criminals   

"Locks keep out only the honest."

Proverb, Jewish on crime and criminals   

"He has 63 ways of getting money, the most common and most honorable ones being stealing, thieving, and robbing."

Rabelais, Francois on crime and criminals   

"Small crimes always precedes great ones."

Racine, Jean on crime and criminals   

"All, all is theft, all is unceasing and rigorous competition in nature; the desire to make off with the substance of others is the foremost -- the most legitimate -- passion nature has bred into us and, without doubt, the most agreeable one."

Sade, Marquis De on crime and criminals   

"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."

Sade, Marquis De on crime and criminals   

"A person with predatory instincts who has not sufficient capital to form a corporation."

Scott, Howard on crime and criminals   

"Crime when it succeeds is called virtue."

Seneca on crime and criminals   

"He has committed the crime who profits by it."

Seneca on crime and criminals
3 fans of this quote   

"One crime has to be concealed by another."

Seneca on crime and criminals   

"He that is robbed, not wanting what is stolen, let him not know't, and he's not robbed at all"

Shakespeare, William on crime and criminals   

"The faults of the burglar are the qualities of the financier."

Shaw, George Bernard on crime and criminals   

"A crime persevered in a thousand centuries ceases to be a crime, and becomes a virtue. This is the law of custom, and custom supersedes all other forms of law."

Twain, Mark on crime and criminals   

"From a single crime know the nation."

Virgil on crime and criminals   

"Almost all crime is due to the repressed desire for aesthetic expression."

Waugh, Evelyn on crime and criminals   

"Crime and bad lives are the measure of a State's failure, all crime in the end is the crime of the community."

Wells, H.G. on crime and criminals   

"Today more Americans are imprisoned for drug offenses than for property crimes"

Will, George F. on crime and criminals   

"The greatest crime in the world is not developing your potential. When you do what you do best, you are helping not only yourself, but the world."

Williams, Roger on crime and criminals   

"The truth of the matter is that muggers are very interesting people."

Winner, Michael on crime and criminals