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.
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.
So they inwardly resolved that so long as they remained in the business, their piracies should not again be sullied with the crime of stealing.
— 1876 TheAdventures of Tom Sawyer, ch.13.
Don't worry about people stealing an idea. If it's original, you will have to ram it down their throats.
howard h. aiken— As quoted in Portraits in Silicon (1987) by Robert Slater
— Variant: Don't worry about people stealing your ideas. If your ideas are any good, you'll have to ram them down people's throats.As quoted in A Computer Science Reader : Selections from Abacus (1988) by Eric A. Weiss, p. 404
Prisoner, God has given you good abilities, instead of which you go about the country stealing ducks.
william arabin— Notes and Queries, clxx.310
I've often thought that my scruples about stealing books were the only thing that stood in the way of my being a really great scholar.
malcolm bradbury— Ch. 8 (Eating People is Wrong (1959))
Mother Goose is on the loose, stealing lines from Lenny Bruce.
lenny bruce— Phil Ochs' song 'The Harder They Fall'
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.)
He didn’t know if he had the right or not. Didn’t know if he was taking like a Red man, just what the land offered, or stealing like a White man, murdering whatever it pleased him to kill.
orson scott card— Chapter 4 (Red Prophet (1988))
There are no lower or higher or median moralities. There is only one morality, and it is precisely the one that was given to us during the time of Jesus Christ and that stops me, you and Barantsevich from stealing, offending others, lying etc.
Anton Chekhov— Letter to I.L. Leontev (March 22, 1890)
There was no getting around the stubborn fact that taking sweetmeats was only "hooking," while taking bacon and hams and such valuables was plain simple stealing and there was a command against that in the Bible. So they inwardly resolved that so long as they remained in the business, their piracies should not again be sullied with the crime of stealing.
mark twain— Ch. 13. (The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876))
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)
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
Howbeit, Paul succeeded in stealing the image of Christ crucified for the figure-head of his Salvationist vessel, with its Adam posing as the natural man, its doctrine of original sin, and its damnation avoidable only by faith in the sacrifice of the cross. In fact, no sooner had Jesus knocked over the dragon of superstition than Paul boldly set it on its legs again in the name of Jesus.
George Bernard Shaw— Preface, Paul.
It is easy for most of us to keep our hands from picking and stealing when picking and stealing plainly lead to prison diet and prison garments. But when silks and satins come of it, and with the silks and satins general respect, the net result of honesty does not seem to be so secure.
Anthony Trollope— Ch. 11 (The Prime Minister (1876))
You have frightened and daunted me. I will stop stealing at once.
jack vance— Chapter 3, section 2 (p. 394)
Just as a vagrant accused of stealing a carrot from a field stands before a comfortably seated judge who keeps up an elegant flow of queries, comments and witticisms while the accused is unable to stammer a word, so truth stands before an intelligence which is concerned with the elegant manipulation of opinions.
Simone Weil— p. 68 (Human Personality (1943))
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))
To keep my hands from picking and stealing.
— Book of Common Prayer, Catechism.
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.
— Motto of American Copyright League (written Nov. 20, 1885).
I sat with Doris, the Shepherd maiden; Her crook was laden with wreathèd flowers; I sat and wooed her through sunlight wheeling, And shadows stealing for hours and hours.
— Arthur James Munby, Pastoral.
Prisoner, God has given you good abilities, instead of which you go about the country stealing ducks.
— Notes and Queries, clxx.310 (Sourced)
Adultery is a meanness and a stealing, a taking away from someone what should be theirs, a great selfishness, and surrounded and guarded by lies lest it should be found out. And out of meanness and selfishness and lying flow love and joy and peace beyond anything that can be imagined.
rose macaulay— Rose Macaulay, The Towers of Trebizond (1956).
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
In yonder Grave a Druid liesWhere slowly winds the stealing Wave!The Year's best Sweets shall duteous riseTo deck its Poet's sylvan Grave!
william collins— line 1.
