Criminal Quotes

“The so-calledparadox of freedomis the argument that freedom in the sense of absence of any constraining control must lead to very great restraint, since it makes the bully free to enslave the meek. The idea is, in a slightly different form, and with very different tendency, clearly expressed inPlato.

Less well known is theparadox of tolerance:Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them.— In this formulation, I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would certainly be unwise. But we should claim therightto suppress them if necessary even by force; for it may easily turn out that they are not prepared to meet us on the level of rational argument, but begin by denouncing all argument; they may forbid their followers to listen to rational argument, because it is deceptive, and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols.We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant. We should claim that any movement preaching intolerance places itself outside the law, and we should consider incitement to intolerance and persecution as criminal, in the same way as we should consider incitement to murder, or to kidnapping, or to the revival of the slave trade, as criminal.”
― Karl Raimund Popper, The Open Society and Its Enemies

“Criminals should be punished, not fed pastries.”
― Lemony Snicket, The Blank Book

“Every society has the criminals it deserves.”
― Emma Goldman, Red Emma Speaks: Selected Writings & Speeches

“If you violate laws of God, you're a sinner.
If you violate laws of men, you're a criminal.
If you violate your own laws, you're pathetic.”
― Toba Beta, Master of Stupidity

“... in practice the standard for what constitutes rape is set not at the level of women's experience of violation but just above the level of coercion acceptable to men.”
― Judith Lewis Herman

“One thing we should not forget: if we don’t guard against those trying to sell justifications for letting the gory constructions of their criminal instincts run wild and concoct pretexts for their malicious acts, we might miss out on the moments they are stealing the appropriate junctures, impersonate a god and usurp the spirit of religious beliefs. ( “No longer in the middle?” )”
― Erik Pevernagie

“A president cannot defend a nation if he is not held accountable to its laws.”
― DaShanne Stokes

“So I was still guilty. And if I was not guilty because one cannot be guilty of betraying a criminal, then I was guilty of having loved a criminal.”
― Bernhard Schlink, The Reader

“Our crime against criminals lies in the fact that we treat them like rascals.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, Human, All Too Human: A Book for Free Spirits

“Law without reason is criminal.”
― Criss Jami, Healology

“I mean, the ones on trial are not like me in any way: they're a different kind of human being. They live in a different world, they think different thoughts, and their actions are nothing like mine. Between the world they live in and the world I live in there's this thick, high wall. At least, that's how I saw it at first....I became a lot less sure of myself. In other words, I started seeing it like this: that there really was no such thing as a wall separating their world from mine. Or if there was such a wall, it was probably a flimsy one made of papier-mache. The second I leaned on it, I'd probably fall right through and end up on the other side. Or maybe it's that the other side has already managed to sneak its way inside of us, and we just haven't noticed.”
― Haruki Murakami, After Dark

“We call our country home of the brave and land of the free, but it's not. We give a false portrayal of freedom. We're not free — if we were, we'd allow people their freedom. Prohibiting something doesn't make it go away. Prostitution is criminal, and bad things happen because it's run illegally by dirt-bags who are criminals. If it's legal, then the girls could have health checks, unions, benefits, anything any other worker gets, and it would be far better.”
― Jesse Ventura

“I'm not working-class: I come from the criminal classes.”
― Peter O'Toole

“No man owns me. All man can do is practice the timeless, criminal art of threatening to separate my soul from her physical host.”
― Tiffany Madison

“If the bulk of the public were really convinced of the illegitimacy of the State, if it were convinced that the State is nothing more nor less than a bandit gang writ large, then the State would soon collapse to take on no more status or breadth of existence than another Mafia gang.”
― Murray N. Rothbard, The Ethics of Liberty

“If the law can be broken it will. Anyone who breaks the law is a risk. You can break the law. So you see, I have to take you in for questioning. This produce stand has an ominous future.”
― Benson Bruno, A Story that Talks About Talking is Like Chatter to Chattering Teeth, and Every Set of Dentures can Attest to the Fact that No...

“The notion that a vast gulf exists between" criminals "and those of us who have never served time in prison is a fiction created by the racial ideology that birthed mass incarceration, namely that there is something fundamentally wrong and morally inferior about" them. "The reality, though, is that all of us have done wrong. As noted earlier, studies suggest that most Americans violate drug laws in their lifetime. Indeed, most of us break the law not once but repeatedly throughout our lives. Yet only some of us will be arrested, charged, convicted of a crime, branded a criminal or a felon, and ushered into a permanent undercaste. Who becomes a social pariah and excommunicated from civil society and who trots off to college bears scant relationship to the morality of the crimes committed. Who is more blameworthy: the young black kid who hustles on the street corner, selling weed to help his momma pay rent? Or the college kid who deals drugs out of his dorm room so that he'll have cash to finance his spring break? Who should we fear? The kid in the 'hood who joined a gang and now carries a gun for security, because his neighborhood is frightening and unsafe? Or the suburban high school student who has a drinking problem but keeps getting behind the wheel? Our racially biased system of mass incarceration exploits the fact that all people break the law and make mistakes at various points in their lives with varying degrees of justification. Screwing up-failing to live by one's highest ideals and values-is part of what makes us human.”
― Michelle Alexander

“Time to do what he did best - plot dastardly acts.”
― Eoin Colfer, Artemis Fowl

“You can't spend his money if you're dead.'
'I'll acquire expensive habits in the afterlife.”
― Leigh Bardugo, Six of Crows

“When the guy with asthma finally came in from the fire escape, Parker rabbit-punched him and took his gun away.”
― Richard Stark, The Mourner

“You know, I always liked that about you, Janet. You think like a criminal.”
― Starr Ambrose, Thieves Like Us

“Ignorance, when voluntary, is criminal, and a man may be properly charged with that evil which he neglected or refused to learn how to prevent.”
― Samuel Johnson, The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia

“Hidden away behind the closed doors of aristocratic and bourgeois privilege, concealed under those ultra-respectable masks of black frock coat and veil, the green glow of corruption flickers into sight, steadies, and spreads everywhere, fostered by Lorrain's horrified and complicitous gaze. This decadent detective is at one with the criminal he pursues, acknowledging openly that the representation of corruption is one of the most pleasurable forms that corruption can take. In this enterprise, art is the mask that both exposes and conceals culpability.”
― Jennifer Birkett

“A fish might more easily live on the apex of a rock than a man accustomed to crime live a life of virtue. ( “The Story of Prince Barkiarokh” )”
― William Beckford, The Episodes of Vathek

“...the sole aim of Okinawa Karate is to teach A person to handle violence and violent individuals; whether it is tactile, mental or spiritual”
― Soke Behzad Ahmadi, KARATE POWER Lethal power of Fajin

“In these electric times the criminal receives a cosmopolitan reputation. It is a privilege he shares with few other artists.”
― Israel Zangwill, The Big Bow Mystery

“Here, in Lorrain's poisoned little jewel of a tale ( “The Man Who Made Wax Heads” ) the consummate achievement of decadent art is caught in miniature. The genius of the artist entangles perpetrators and victims in a sticky web of perverse delights, in which exploitation becomes collusion, the ripples of guilt spread outward, and the real criminal slips away. In the end, responsibility is lodged firmly with the consumer, forced – he must confess – by his own perverse desires, to buy into the values of this particularly black market.”
― Jennifer Birkett

“During my stay in the United States, I witnessed the spontaneous formation of committees in a country for the pursuit and prosecution of a man who had committed a great crime. In Europe, a criminal is an unhappy man who is struggling for his life against the agents of power, whilst the people are merely a spectator of the conflict: in America, he is looked upon as an enemy of the human race, and the whole of mankind is against him.”
― Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America

“Just because you're not committing a crime now, by going where you go, by seeing who you see, doesn't mean that another government, another set of people with another set of priorities, won't come along and call you a criminal one day. The players change, the rules change, that's an inevitability…”
― Veronica Roth, Poster Girl

“We are free to be, with consequences, which makes us either criminals or slaves.”
― Deanna L. Lawlis