Thievery Quotes

“No thief, however skillful, can rob one of knowledge, and that is why knowledge is the best and safest treasure to acquire.”
― L. Frank Baum, The Lost Princess of Oz

“So far Kat has been through all the Wa's she could think of, but Hale hadn't admitted to being Walter or Ward or Washington. He'd firmly denied both Warren and Waverly. Watson had prompted him to do a very bad Sherlock Holmes impersonation throughout a good portion of a train ride to Edinburgh, Scotland. And Wayne seemed so wrong she hadn't even tried.

Hale was Hale. And not knowing what the W's stood for had become a constant reminder to Kat that, in life, there are some things that can be given but never stolen.

Of course, that didn't stop her from trying.”
― Ally Carter, Heist Society

“Shake paws, count your claws,
You steal mine, I'll borrow yours.
Watch my whiskers, check both ears.
Robber foxes have no fears.”
― Brian Jacques

“Even the longest con was never more than an assortment of moments that were in themselves very very short.”
― Ally Carter, Uncommon Criminals

“The thief, as will become apparent, was a special type of thief. This thief was an artist of theft. Other thieves merely stole everything that was not nailed down, but this thief stole the nails as well.”
― Terry Pratchett, Sourcery

“The petty thief is imprisoned but the big thief becomes a feudal lord.”
― Zhuangzi, The Complete Works of Chuang Tzu

“If there were such a thing as an inter-city thieving contest, Ankh-Morpork would bring home the trophy and probably everyone’s wallets.”
― Terry Pratchett, Snuff

“Our leaders know we’re turning into a giant ghetto and they are taking every last hubcap they can get their hands on before the rest of us wake up and realize what’s happened.”
― Matt Taibbi, Griftopia: Bubble Machines, Vampire Squids, and the Long Con That Is Breaking America

“Anya looked upon Nin admirably. Having him as a partner-in-crime—if only on this one occasion, which she hoped would only be the start of something more—was more revitalizing than the cheap thrills of a cookie-cutter shallow, superficial romance, where the top priority was how beautiful a person was on the outside.”
― Jess C Scott, The Other Side of Life

“This story is the ultimate example of American’s biggest political problem. We no longer have the attention span to deal with any twenty-first century crisis. We live in an economy that is immensely complex and we are completely at the mercy of the small group of people who understand it – who incidentally often happen to be the same people who built these wildly complex economic systems. We have to trust these people to do the right thing, but we can’t, because, well, they’re scum. Which is kind of a big problem, when you think about it.”
― Matt Taibbi, Griftopia: Bubble Machines, Vampire Squids, and the Long Con That Is Breaking America

“The new America, instead, is fast becoming a vast ghetto in which all of us, conservatives and progressives, are being bled dry by a relatively tiny oligarchy of extremely clever financial criminals and their castrato henchmen in government, whose job is to be good actors on TV and put on a good show.”
― Matt Taibbi, Griftopia: Bubble Machines, Vampire Squids, and the Long Con That Is Breaking America

“The mistake our politicians so often make with these industry leaders is in thinking they are interested in, or respectful of, the power of government. All they want is to keep stealing. If you can offer them the government’s seal of approval on that, they’ll take it. But if you can’t, well, they’ll take that too.”
― Matt Taibbi, Griftopia: Bubble Machines, Vampire Squids, and the Long Con That Is Breaking America

“Farming is backbreaking work, but at least it is honest labor. This killing isn’t honest. It is thievery… the thievery of men’s lives, and no right-minded person should aspire to it.”
― Christopher Paolini, Brisingr

“It would be an instructive exercise for the skeptical reader to try to frame a definition of taxation which does not also include theft. Like the robber, the State demands money at the equivalent of gunpoint; if the taxpayer refuses to pay, his assets are seized by force, and if he should resist such depredation, he will be arrested or shot if he should continue to resist.”
― murray rothbard

“There really are two Americas, one for the grifter class and one for everybody else. In everybody-else land, the world of small businesses and wage-earning employees, the government is something to be avoided, an overwhelming, all-powerful entity whose attentions usually presage some kind of financial setback, if not complete ruin. In the grifter world, however, government is a slavish lapdog that the financial companies that will be the major players in this book use as a tool for making money.”
― Matt Taibbi, Griftopia: Bubble Machines, Vampire Squids, and the Long Con That Is Breaking America

“Having no applicable skills, in any possible area whatsoever, effectively makes me the master of redundancy. But that info is obsolete, like my insults dictionary, which I stole.”
― Will Advise, Nothing is here...

“Stolen oranges also have Vitamin C. Likewise, a stolen salmon, too, has omega-3 fatty acids.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana

“He who steals a belt buckle pays with his life; he who steals a state gets to be a feudal lord.”
― Zhuangzi

“Well, what was it to be a thief? He met the question at last, face to face, wiping the clammy drops of sweat from his forehead. God made this money - the fresh air, too - for his children's use. He never made the difference between poor and rich.”
― Rebecca Harding Davis, Life in the Iron Mills and Other Stories

“Mathias remembered that once when he was a boy, he'd gone up to a pile of red apples that lay in the market cart, in the market near Stolberg where his father often took him. He'd always loved apples, and he couldn't resist the temptation of grabbing one out of the pile. He chose the closest, a splendid red piece of fruit that he would never forget because of his overwhelming desire to take it and hide it in the folds of his clothing. A moment after Mathias reached out and snatched it, the pile slid and applies tumbled down all around him. The farmer, who knew his father, would have been satisfied with an apology. But his father, a successful craftsman who was well-known and respected in the town, had insisted on purchasing an entire basketful of apples, because of the trouble Mathias had caused. Mathias got the worst scolding his father had ever given him. Not because of the money, but for the small act of petty thievery, which an upright man like his father would never tolerate. He shouldered his punishment, and in the end was only allowed to eat as single apple from the basket. He spent the night thinking about the pile. He had to remove only one and the whole thing had come down. He wondered if the same thing might happen with any tower, no matter how majestic and imposing it might seem, were someone to remove the right stone from the base.

The thought stayed with him throughout his life. Venice now seemed a lot like that pile of apples. If three murders truly represented an irresistible opportunity, then which nobleman would have seized it, knowing that such a thing would cause La Serenissima and everything it represented to come crashing down?”
― Riccardo Bruni, The Lion and the Rose

“There is a right way to do things and a wrong way, if you're going to run a hotel in a smugglers' town.”
― Kate Milford, Greenglass House

“The seven black priests—" Fafhrd muttered.
"The six," the Mouser corrected. "We killed one of them last night."
"Well, the six then," Fafhrd conceded. "They seem angry with us."
"As why shouldn't they be?" the Mouser demanded. "We stole their idol's only eye. Such an act annoys priests tremendously."
It seemed to have more eyes than that one," Fafhrd asserted thoughtfully, "if only it had opened them."
"Thank Aarth it didn't!" the Mouser hissed. "And 'ware that dart!"
Fafhrd hit the dirt—or rather the rock—instantly, and the black dart skirred on the ice ahead.
"I think they're unreasonably angry," Fafhrd asserted, scrambling to his feet.
"Priests always are," the Mouser said philosophically, with a sidewise shudder at the dart's black-crusted point.”
― Fritz Leiber, Swords Against Death

“I flow like a butter in the nailed pan I stole. I also kept the nail, to polish and use as a means of teleportation.”
― Will Advise, Nothing is here...

“I cannot live without you. For to attempt to do so would be to rob both of us of each other, and that is thievery of the greatest sort.”
― Craig D. Lounsbrough

“Thievery pays for the tools, and the work shows me the mind of God. Stealing is a lot like alchemy, you know. In each, we each try to find what is beautiful and hidden and make it ours.”
― Richard Kadrey, Sandman Slim

“Thieving has deep roots among these people. Back when I was traveling in Russia I was robbed of nearly everything that could be stolen, especially during the first part of my stay: my purse, briefcase, coat, gloves, alarm clock, even the stockings I'd hung in the bathroom to dry. One time I was in an office with three people who worked there. I bent down for a moment to open a drawer and look for a photo, and when I turned back again I saw that someone had taken my pair of scissors.”
― Anonymous, A Woman in Berlin: Eight Weeks in the Conquered City: A Diary

“He could easily slip and pull the trigger and accidently shoot me in the eye. A grating pain struck my shoulder blade from behind. I dropped to my knees in the thick mud, ankles and feet shaking. My confidence disappeared. The three lads were there, powerful as bulls, with wind coming from the largest one’s nostrils. He stood above me, laughing as he put me to the ground with his big, wooden stave.”
― Steven Keith Hunter, Relish In the Tread

“it strikes me that the whole world runs on theft of one kind or another.”
― Chris Priestley, Mister Creecher