“What a pity that he who steals a penny loaf should be hung, whilst he who steals thousands of the public money should be acquitted!”

— John Russell, 1st Earl Russell

Source: 1806 journal entry on the acquittal of Lord Melville for misappropriation of public funds, as quoted in Stuart J. Reid, Lord John Russell (1895), p.9

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update Jan. 10, 2022. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "What a pity that he who steals a penny loaf should be hung, whilst he who steals thousands of the public money should b…" by John Russell, 1st Earl Russell?

John Russell, 1st Earl Russell 14

leading Whig and Liberal politician who served as Prime Min… 1792–1878

David Gemmell book Stormrider

Source: Rigante series, Stormrider, Ch. 5

“Those who corrupt the public mind are just as evil as those who steal from the public purse.”

Adlai Stevenson (1900–1965) mid-20th-century Governor of Illinois and Ambassador to the UN

Speeches of Adlai Ewing Stevenson (1952), p. 99

“Steal five dollars and you're a common thief. Steal thousands and you're either the government or a hero.”

Terry Pratchett book Going Postal

Source: Going Postal

“I'm all for putting money back into the black community, who white people have been stealing from for years.”

Courtney Love (1964) American punk singer-songwriter, musician, actress, and artist

On race and the music industry, 24 Hours of Love MTV2 Special (21 September 2005)
1996–2005

“In its original literal sense, "moral relativism" is simply moral complexity. That is, anyone who agrees that stealing a loaf of bread to feed one's children is not the moral equivalent of, say, shoplifting a dress for the fun of it, is a relativist of sorts.”

Ellen Willis (1941–2006) writer, activist

"Our Mobsters, Ourselves", The Nation (2 April 2001) https://www.thenation.com/article/our-mobsters-ourselves/
Context: In its original literal sense, "moral relativism" is simply moral complexity. That is, anyone who agrees that stealing a loaf of bread to feed one's children is not the moral equivalent of, say, shoplifting a dress for the fun of it, is a relativist of sorts. But in recent years, conservatives bent on reinstating an essentially religious vocabulary of absolute good and evil as the only legitimate framework for discussing social values have redefined "relative" as "arbitrary." That conflation has been reinforced by social theorists and advocates of identity politics who argue that there is no universal morality, only the value systems of particular cultures and power structures. From this perspective, the psychoanalytic – and by extension the psychotherapeutic – worldview is not relativist at all. Its values are honesty, self-knowledge, assumption of responsibility for the whole of what one does, freedom from inherited codes of family, church, tribe in favor of a universal humanism: in other words, the values of the Enlightenment, as revised and expanded by Freud's critique of scientific rationalism for ignoring the power of unconscious desire.

“Any thief or criminal or robber who enters another country in order to steal should expect to be exposed to murder at any time. For the American forces to expect anything from me personally reflects a very narrow perception. Thousands of millions of Muslims are angry. The Americans should expect reactions from the Muslim world that are proportionate to the injustice they inflict.”

Osama bin Laden (1957–2011) founder of al-Qaeda

In response to the interviewer stating: 'What can the U.S. expect from you now?'
1990s, Time magazine interview (1998)

“He who doesn’t know how to be a servant should never be allowed to be a master; the interests of public life are alien to anyone who is unable to enjoy others’ successes, and such a person should never be entrusted with public affairs.”

Anton Chekhov (1860–1904) Russian dramatist, author and physician

Letter to A.N. Pleshcheev (October 25, 1888)
Letters

“He who made us would have been a pitiful bungler, if he had made the rules of our moral conduct a matter of science. For one man of science, there are thousands who are not. What would have become of them?”

Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) 3rd President of the United States of America

1780s, Letter to Peter Carr (1787)
Context: He who made us would have been a pitiful bungler, if he had made the rules of our moral conduct a matter of science. For one man of science, there are thousands who are not. What would have become of them? Man was destined for society. His morality, therefore, was to be formed to this object. He was endowed with a sense of right and wrong, merely relative to this.

“He who jumps for the moon and gets it not leaps higher than he who stoops for a penny in the mud.”

Howard Pyle book The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood

Source: The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood

“He did not feel that he was stealing, for the cleaver, the radio, the money, and the typewriter were all on the same level of value, all meant the same thing to him. They were the serious toys of the men who lived in the dead world of sunshine and rain he had left, the world that had condemned him, branded him guilty.”

Richard Wright (1908–1960) African-American writer

Eight Men (1961)

“What a pity that he who steals a penny loaf should be hung, whilst he who steals thousands of the public money should be acquitted!”

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

John Russell, 1st Earl Russell 14

Related quotes

Related topics