
“Set a thief to catch a thief.”
Epigram 43; translation by Robert Allason Furness, from Poems of Callimachus (1931), p. 103
Epigrams
A Way to be Free, the Autobiography of Robert LeFevre (1999) in the “Epilogue”
“Set a thief to catch a thief.”
Epigram 43; translation by Robert Allason Furness, from Poems of Callimachus (1931), p. 103
Epigrams
“4106. Set a Thief to catch a Thief.”
Introductio ad prudentiam: Part II (1727), Gnomologia (1732)
“Once a thief, always a thief, only now I steal from the enemy.”
Sharpe (Novel Series), Sharpe's Escape (2003)
Context: Until two days ago,' she went on suddenly, 'I thought that my life depended on other people. On employers. Now I think it depends on me. You taught me that. But I still need money.'
'Money's easy,' said Sharpe dismissively.
'That is not the conventional wisdom,' Sarah said drily.
'Steal the stuff,' Sharpe said.
'You were really a thief?'
'Still am. Once a thief, always a thief, only now I steal from the enemy. And some day I'll have enough to stop me from doing it and then I'll have to stop others from thieving from me.'
'You have a simple view of life.'
'You're born, you survive, you die,' Sharpe said. 'What's hard about that?
“Even if he was a thief, he was my thief. I could not push him away anymore.”
Source: Dragonswood
“For a brief time I was here; and for a brief time I mattered.”
His entire afterword to The Essential Ellison (1987)
Also quoted in the death announcement made by his publicist (28 June 2018).
Television broadcast (October 1964), after winning the general election, quoted in David Butler, Coalitions in British Politics (Macmillan, London, 1978), p. 99.
Prime Minister