“I don’t know if you could prove that every theft is wrong; but I can prove to you that every theft is against the law, because I can arrest you every time.”

—  Karel Čapek

Sgt. Bartosek, in "Šlépeje" ["Footprints"] (1929) as translated by Norma Comrada, in Toward the Radical Center: A Karel Čapek Reader (1990), edited by Peter Kussi, p. 236
Context: Look, justice has to be as unquestioned as the multiplication tables. I don’t know if you could prove that every theft is wrong; but I can prove to you that every theft is against the law, because I can arrest you every time. If you scattered pearls in the street, then a policeman could give you a ticket for littering. But if you started performing miracles, we couldn’t stop you, unless we called it a public nuisance or unlawful public assembly. There must be some kind of breach of order for us to intervene.

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

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Karel Čapek 51
Czech writer 1890–1938

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