C.N. Douglas, comp. Forty Thousand Quotations: Prose and Poetical. 1917. Theft
Stolen sweets are best.Colley Cibber.
1 Every true man’s apparel fits your thief.Shakespeare.
2 In limited professions there’s boundless theft.Shakespeare.
3 Let me tell you, Cassius, you yourself Are much condemn’d to have an itching palm.
Shakespeare.
4 O theft most base, that we have stolen what we do fear to keep!Shakespeare.
5 Thieves for their robbery have authority When judges steal themselves.
Shakespeare.
6 A plague upon it when thieves cannot be true one to another!Shakespeare.
7 No Indian prince has to his palace More followers than a thief to the gallows.
Butler.
8 What is dishonestly got vanishes in profligacy.Cicero.
9 Suspicion always haunts the guilty mind; the thief still fears each bush an officer.Shakespeare.
10 Well, well, be it so, thou strongest thief of all, For thou hast stolen my will, and made it thine.
Tennyson.
11 Kill a man’s family, and he may brook it, But keep your hands out of his breeches’ pocket.
Byron.
12 The robb’d that smiles steals something from the thief; He robs himself that spends a bootless grief.
Shakespeare.
13 He that is robb’d, not wanting what is stol’n, Let him not know ’t, and he’s not robb’d at all.
Shakespeare.
14 Whether we force the man’s property from him by pinching his stomach, or pinching his fingers, makes some difference anatomically; morally, none whatsoever.Ruskin.
15 Virtuosi have been long remarked to have little conscience in their favorite pursuits. A man will steal a rarity who would cut off his hand rather than take the money it is worth. Yet, in fact, the crime is the same.Horace Walpole.
16 Stolen sweets are always sweeter: Stolen kisses much completer; Stolen looks are nice in chapels: Stolen, stolen be your apples.
Thomas Randolph.
17 Nay, take my life and all, pardon not that; You take my house, when you do take the prop That doth sustain my house; you take my life, When you do take the means whereby I live.
Shakespeare.
18 Shun such as lounge through afternoons and eves, And on thy dial write—“Beware of thieves!” Felon of minutes, never taught to feel The worth of treasures which thy fingers steal; Pick my left pocket of its silver dime, But spare the right,—it holds my golden time.
O. W. Holmes.
19 Your thief looks Exactly like the rest, or rather better; ’Tis only at the bar, and in the dungeon, That wise men know your felon by his features.
Byron.
20
Who steals my purse steals trash; ’tis something, nothing; ’Twas mine, ’tis his, and has been slave to thousands; But he that filches from me my good name Robs me of that which not enriches him, And makes me poor indeed.
Shakespeare.
21 I’ll example you with thievery: The sun’s a thief, and with his great attraction Robs the vast sea: the moon’s an arrant thief, And her pale fire she snatches from the sun: The sea’s a thief, whose liquid surge resolves The moon into salt tears: the earth’s a thief, That feeds and breeds by a composture stolen From general excrement: each thing’s a thief.
Shakespeare.
22 Who, to patch up his fame—or fill his purse— Still pilfers wretched plans, and makes them worse; Like gypsies, lest the stolen brat be known, Defacing first, then claiming for his own.
Churchill.
23 Thou hast stolen both mine office and my name; The one ne’er got me credit, the other mickle blame.
Shakespeare.
24
