Stealing Quotes
More Stealing Quotes
Coffee was only a way of stealing time that should by rights belong to your slightly older self.
terry pratchett— Terry Pratchett, Thud! (Sourced)
Duluth! The word fell upon my ear with a peculiar and indescribable charm, like the gentle murmur of a low fountain stealing forth in the midst of roses, or the soft sweet accent of an angel’s whisper in the bright, joyous dream of sleeping innocence. ’T was the name for which my soul had panted for years, as the hart panteth for the water-brooks.
j(ames) proctor knott— Speech on the St. Croix and Bayfield Railroad Bill, Jan. 27, 1871; Knott made this satirical speech, sometimes titled as Duluth! or The Untold Delights of Duluth, while serving in the United States House of Representatives; the speech lampooned Western boosterism by portraying Duluth, Minnesota, in fantastical and glowing language.
Don't worry about people stealing an idea. If it's original, you will have to ram it down their throats.
— As quoted in A Computer Science Reader : Selections from Abacus (1988) by Eric A. Weiss, p. 404
To keep my hands from picking and stealing, and my tongue from evil-speaking, lying, and slandering.
— Catechism.
Men are not hanged for stealing horses, but that horses may not be stolen.
Halifax, George Savile, 1st Marquis of— c.1687 Political Thoughts and Reflections,'Of Punishment'.
Pray for the grace of accuracy Vermeer gave to the sun's illumination stealing like the tide across a map to his girl solid with yearning.
— 1977 Day by Day,'Epilogue'.
Severe and terrible punishments are enacted against theft, when it would be much better to enable every man to earn his own living, instead of being driven to the awful necessity of stealing and then dying for it.
— 1516 Utopia (English translation1556), bk.1.
Mother Goose is on the loose, stealing lines from Lenny Bruce.
lenny bruce— Phil Ochs' song 'The Harder They Fall'
"For it is very hard, my lord," said a convicted felon at the bar to the late excellent judge Burnet, "to hang a poor man for stealing a horse." "You are not to be hanged sir," answered my ever-honored and beloved friend, "for stealing a horse, but you are to be hanged that horses may not be stolen."
Henry Fielding— The Journal of a Voyage to Lisbon (1754), Introduction
I say you call yourself Goldstein, Silverstein, and Rubinstein because you're stealing all the gold and silver and rubies all over the earth — and it's true, because of your thieving and stealing and roguing, and lying all over the face of the planet earth.
khalid abdul muhammad— Speech in Baltimore (19 February 1994), quoted in New York Times (28 February 1994) "Islamic Figure In New Tirade Against Jews"
Men are not hang'd for stealing Horses, but that Horses may not be stolen.
savile, george, 1st marquess of halifax— Of Punishment
There is one law for rich and poor alike, which prevents them equally from stealing bread and sleeping under bridges.
jo walton— Chapter 18
— Cf. Anatole France, Le Lys Rouge [The Red Lily] (1894), ch. 7: La majestueuse égalité des lois, qui interdit au riche comme au pauvre de coucher sous les ponts, de mendier dans les rues et de voler du pain. (The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread.)
Thou breeze, That mak'st an organ of the mighty sea, Obedient to thy wilful phantasies, Provoke him not to scorn; but soft and low, As pious maid awakes her aged sire, On tiptoe stealing, whisper in his ear The tidings of the young god's victory.
hartley coleridge— Sylphs. (Prometheus)
Symbols have a trick of stealing the show away from the thing they stand for.
henry s. haskins— p. 99 (Meditations in Wall Street (1940))
We have always been shameless about stealing great ideas.
steve jobs— Triumph of the Nerds (1996)
In vain we call old notions fudge, And bend our conscience to our dealing; The Ten Commandments will not budge, And stealing will continue stealing.
james russell lowell— International Copyright (20 November 1885).
In vain we call old notions fudge, And bend our conscience to our dealing; The Ten Commandments will not budge, And stealing will continue stealing.
james russell lowell— Motto of the American Copyright League. (Written Nov. 20, 1885).
I have committed many sins in my life. But stealing money from the government, from the people, is not one of them.
Ferdinand Edralin Marcos— in an interview on ABC
To [Henry] James's intimates, however, these elaborate hesitancies, far from being an obstacle, were like a cobweb bridge flung from his mind to theirs, an invisible passage over which one knew that silver-footed ironies, veiled jokes, tiptoe malices, were stealing to explode a huge laugh at one's feet.
edith wharton— Ch. 8 (A Backward Glance (1934))
A tailor, though a man of upright dealing, True but for lying, honest but for stealing, Did fall one day extremely sick by chance And on the sudden was in wondrous trance.
— Sir John Harrington, Of a Precise Tailor.
All stealing is comparative. If you come to absolutes, pray who does not steal?
ralph waldo emerson— Ralph Waldo Emerson, Essays, Second Series (1844), ‘Experience’.
The Friar preached against stealing, and had a goose in his sleeve.
George Herbert— George Herbert, Jacula Prudentum (1651).
If something is stolen from you, don't go to the police. They're not interested. Don't go to a psychologist either, because he's interested in only one thing: that it was really you who did the stealing.
Karl Kraus— (1874-1936), Half-Truths and One-and-a-Half Truths (1990). Translated by Harry Zohn.
To keep my hands from picking and stealing.
— Book of Common Prayer, Catechism.
It is stern work , it is perilous work, to thrust your hand in the sun And pull out a spark of immortal flame to warm the hearts of men: But Prometheus, torn by the claws and beaks whose task is never done, Would be tortured another eternity to go stealing fire again.
— Joyce Kilmer in "The Proud Poet" in Main Street and Other Poems (1917)
It is stern work, it is perilous work, to thrust your hand in the sun And pull out a spark of immortal flame to warm the hearts of men: But Prometheus , torn by the claws and beaks whose task is never done, Would be tortured another eternity to go stealing fire again.
— Joyce Kilmer in "The Proud Poet" in Main Street and Other Poems (1917).
Give a child the habit of sacredly regarding the truth of carefully respecting the property of others of scrupulously abstaining from all acts of improvidence which can involve him in distress, and he will just as likely think of rushing into the element in which he cannot breathe, as of lying or cheating or stealing.
— Henry Brougham, 1st Baron Brougham and Vaux]], p. 295.
