Quotes about crime
page 16

“Critics generally come to be critics by reason not of their fitness for this but of their unfitness for anything else. Books should be tried by a judge and jury as though they were crimes, and counsel should be heard on both sides.”

Samuel Butler (1835–1902) novelist

Criticism
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912), Part VII - On the Making of Music, Pictures, and Books

Books

“It is a crime against humanity, while people are starving, to funnel massive amounts of crops through animals so we can eat animals when those crops should be feeding human beings.”

Bruce Friedrich (1969) Member of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals

Bruce Friedrich on Protein Alternatives and the Good Food Institute https://hearthisidea.com/episodes/bruce, Interview on the Hear This Idea podcast, 2021

People, Animals

“Too little payment for a crime, too much for an accident.”

Lois McMaster Bujold book The Hallowed Hunt

Source: World of the Five Gods series, The Hallowed Hunt (2005), Chapter 1 (p. 6)

“The source of every Crime, is some defect of the Understanding; or some error in Reasoning, or some sudden force of the Passions. Defect in the Understanding, is Ignorance; in Reasoning, Erroneous Opinion.”

Thomas Hobbes book Leviathan

The Second Part, Chapter 27, p. 152
Leviathan (1651)

Error, Understanding, Passion

“Once you asked me about crime nowadays - I said any such interest pathological - maybe prompted by the endless sickening television programmes of your time - never able to watch more than few minutes myself... disgusting!”

Arthur C. Clarke (1917–2008) British science fiction writer, science writer, inventor, undersea explorer, and television series host

Source: 1990s, 3001: The Final Odyssey (1997)

Time

“When several imperialist powers seek to plunder the weaker nations of the world, the result is an imperialist world war for the redistribution of colonies. And this crime, the most monstrous in world history, is committed by the bourgeoisie under the banner of “nationalism.””

Liu Shaoqi (1898–1969) 2nd President of the People's Republic of China (1898-1969)

Internationalism and Nationalism (1952) Source: "1.The Bourgeois-Nationalist Concept of the Nation" https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/liu-shaoqi/1952/internationalism_nationalism/ch01.htm

War, World, History

“The number one crime in any age: offending the money.”

Charles Stross Saturn's Children

Source: Saturn's Children (2008), Chapter 16, “Long-Lost Sibs” (p. 268)

Money, Age

“I do not believe that iron bars and brutal treatment have ever been cures for crime. And certainly I feel that in our great enlightened country, there is no reason for going back to middle ages and their form of torture for the criminal.”

Mary Harris Jones (1837–1930) Irish-born American labor and community organizer

Source: Autobiography of Mother Jones

Age, Feeling, Country

“A universal refusal to propagate the human species would be the greatest of conceivable crimes from a Utilitarian point of view.”

Henry Sidgwick book The Methods of Ethics

Source: The Methods of Ethics (1874), Book 4, chapter 5, section 3 (7th ed., 1907)

Universe

“The slave trade has another character; it is the very denial of every law, of all social order. Man-hunting constitutes a crime of high treason against humanity. It ought to be repressed wherever it can be reached, on land as well as by sea.”

Auguste, Baron Lambermont (1819–1905) Belgian politician

Source: New Africa; an essay on government civilization in new countries, and on the foundation, organization and administration of the Congo Free State, THE ORIENTAL SLAVE-TRADE, Page 132. https://archive.org/details/newafricaessayon00desciala/page/152/mode/2up Lambermont at the Berlin Conference.

Law, Sea

“The notion of a prison industrial complex insists on understandings of the punishment process that take into account economic and political structures and ideologies, rather than focusing myopically on the individual criminal conduct and efforts to "curb crime."”

Angela Davis Are Prisons Obsolete?

Source: Are Prisons Obsolete? (2003), Chapter Five

Understanding, Effort

“Could I interest you in everything?
All of the time?
A little bit of everything
All of the time
Apathy's a tragedy
And boredom is a crime
Anything and everything
All of the time”

Bo Burnham (1990) American comedian, musician, and actor

Source: "Welcome to the Internet" Inside (2021)

Time

“While "high Crimes and Misdemeanors" was a term of art dating to 1386, and had thus accumulated centuries of intellectual baggage, there's no reason to think the Framers had all that in mind.”

Laurence Tribe (1941) American lawyer and law school professor

To End a Presidency (2018)

Art, Thinking

“[I]mpeachment does not require proof of a crime... The argument that only criminal offenses are impeachable is deeply and profoundly wrong. It misunderstands the Constitution, U.S. history, and the nature of criminal law in important ways.”

Laurence Tribe (1941) American lawyer and law school professor

To End a Presidency (2018)

Law, Way, History, Nature

“The truth is, distributing intimate photos with the intent to publish them is a crime, and the perpetrator should be punished to the full extent of the law. I have notified Capitol Police, who are investigating it, and therefore will have no further comment on the matter.”

Katie Hill (politician) (1987) former U.S. Representative from California

Source: "Rep. Katie Hill threatens legal action after another conservative outlet publishes her nude photo" https://www.salon.com/2019/10/25/rep-katie-hill-threatens-legal-action-after-another-conservative-outlet-publishes-her-nude-photo/, Salon (October 25, 2019)

Truth, Law, Photo

“We are going to build a new era. Out with the death squads. Out with corruption. Out with drug trafficking and organized crime. No more poverty and misery. To victory! The people will always be united. Together, we are going to transform this country...”

Xiomara Castro (1959) First Lady of Honduras

speaking November 28, 2021 Quoted in “A Moment of Hope”: Xiomara Castro’s Likely Win in Honduran Election Ends Years of Right-Wing Rule After Coup https://www.democracynow.org/2021/11/30/xiomara_castro_first_woman_president_honduras, Democracy Now!, November 30, 2021

Death, People, Victory, Country

“Crime is an adaptive organism. Squeeze one niche and it moves into another.”

Alastair Reynolds book On the Steel Breeze

Source: On the Steel Breeze (2013), Chapter 26 (p. 283)

“There is no official anti-Semitism in Russia; anti-Semitism in Russia is a crime against the State.”

Chaim Weizmann (1874–1952) Zionist leader, 1st president of Israel

Source: The Jewish People and Palestine. London: Zionist Organization, 1939. p. 7

“There is too much attention
paid to him who shot at he
and to how he got away
but didn't quite.
Yes there's too much attention
So much so that we'll believe
he's not guilty of the crime which he's being tried
So forgive me when I tell you
I ain't got no place to go
I ain't got no one to talk to
got no one left to say hello”

Gilbert O'Sullivan (1946) Irish singer-songwriter

"Too Much Attention" (song) Song lyrics Source: Gilbert O'Sullivan, "Too Much Attention" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DR47R4uWdDo (song on YouTube)

Forgiveness

“A time came when the Catholics, having long relied on force, were compelled to appeal to opinion. That which had been defiantly acknowledged and defended required to be ingeniously explained away. The same motive which had justified the murder now prompted the lie. Men shrank from the conviction that the rulers and restorers of their Church had been murderers and abetters of murder, and that so much infamy had been coupled with so much zeal. They feared to say that the most monstrous of crimes had been solemnly approved at Rome, lest they should devote the Papacy to the execration of mankind. A swarm of facts were invented to meet the difficulty: The victims were insignificant in number; they were slain for no reason connected with religion; the Pope believed in the existence of the plot; the plot was a reality; the medal is fictitious; the massacre was a feint concerted with the Protestants themselves; the Pope rejoiced only when he heard that it was over. These things were repeated so often that they have been sometimes believed; and men have fallen into this way of speaking whose sincerity was unimpeachable, and who were not shaken in their religion by the errors or the vices of Popes. Möhler was pre-eminently such a man. In his lectures on the history of the Church, which were published only last year, he said that the Catholics, as such, took no part in the massacre; that no cardinal, bishop, or priest shared in the councils that prepared it; that Charles informed the Pope that a conspiracy had been discovered; and that Gregory made his thanksgiving only because the King's life was saved. Such things will cease to be written when men perceive that truth is the only merit that gives dignity and worth to history.”

John Dalberg-Acton, 1st Baron Acton (1834–1902) British politician and historian

Source: 1860s, The Massacre Of St. Bartholomew (1869)

Life, Men, Truth, Lie

“The worst criminals were not the men who did the deed. The crime of mobs and courtiers, infuriated by the lust of vengeance and of power, is not so strange a portent as the exultation of peaceful men, influenced by no present injury or momentary rage, but by the permanent and incurable perversion of moral sense wrought by a distorted piety.”

John Dalberg-Acton, 1st Baron Acton (1834–1902) British politician and historian

Source: 1860s, The Massacre Of St. Bartholomew (1869)

Men, Peace, Sense, Rage

“[I]f we lay at all too much stress on the need of warlike preparations for quelling the peace-breaker, we find ourselves on a very slippery slope. ... It is all a perpetuation of war, not a planting of peace: a hardening in old error, not a change of heart. One of the most advanced French advocates of the League once said to me that the true guarantee of peace in Europe was a strong French Army and a strong British Navy. The sort of man who thinks that is the sort of man who ought never to be allowed to touch international affairs. Remove that implication. Accept freely, and put into practice, the principles of genuine and equal Disarmament, and then your preparation for Sanctions is perfectly right. To put crushing Sanctions in the hands of two particular Powers, or of an alliance of certain highly armed Powers, would be a crime against humanity.”

Gilbert Murray (1866–1957) Anglo-Australian scholar

1920s, The Ordeal of This Generation: The War, the League and the Future (1929)
Source: "The Felt Need. The Three Principles of the Covenant: Conference, Law, Sanctions", pp. 88-89

War, Peace, Error, Thinking

“Patriotism means different things to different people. For me it entails citizen solidarity in promoting justice at home and resisting official lies, apologetics, euphemisms, crime and tyranny. Love of country requires a commitment to truth and readiness to counter «fake news » and skewed political «narratives.»”

Alfred de Zayas (1947) American United Nations official

Internationally, patriotism means averting harm from one’s country by pro-actively seeking dialogue and compromise, so as to contribute to peace and justice – pax et iustitia.
2021

Love, People, Truth, Justice

“Casual murder, casual suicide, casual crime. Why not? If alternate universes are a reality, then cause and effect are an illusion. The law of averages is a fraud. You can do anything, and one of you will, or did.”

Larry Niven book All the Myriad Ways

All the Myriad Ways (p. 79)
Short fiction, N-Space (1990)

Law, Fraud, Reality, Suicide

“America must offer meaningful opportunities for redemption and rehabilitation to empower those who have been incarcerated to become productive, law-abiding, members of society, and reduce crime and make our communities safer.”

Joe Biden (1942) 47th Vice President of the United States (in office from 2009 to 2017)

FACT SHEET: Biden-⁠Harris Administration Expands Second Chance Opportunities for Formerly Incarcerated Persons https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2022/04/26/fact-sheet-biden-harris-administration-expands-second-chance-opportunities-for-formerly-incarcerated-persons/ 2022, April 2022

Law, Communication

“Poverty corrupts the People’s behaviour and degrades its soul; it predisposes it to crime.”

Maximilien Robespierre (1758–1794) French revolutionary lawyer and politician

Robespierre: A Revolutionary life, p.43
Misc Quotes

People, Soul

“We don’t want to be manipulated by right-wing elitist billionaires or by left-wing guys that don’t understand our life on the ground that is living in fear of crime, that is living as a result of inflation that is killing us in many parts of the country. We need gas to go to work.”

Al Sharpton (1954) American Baptist minister, civil rights activist, and television/radio talk show host

“Democratic Outlook for 2022 Midterms” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ea8LKGL0xXo MSNBC (April 11, 2022)

Life, Fear, Guy, Understanding

“All men lie to you. When they tell you that they love you, it’s a lie… All men hate you, ladies, they hate you. Because you prevent men from thriving… This is why all the crimes committed in the world are women’s fault.”

Vladimir Zhirinovsky (1946–2022) Russian politician and political activist

"The Best of Vladimir Zhirinovsky, the Clown Prince of Russian Politics" in VICE https://www.vice.com/en/article/xd5q47/the-best-of-vladimir-zhirinovsky-russias-craziest-politician

Love, Women, Men, Hate