Quotes about crime
page 3

James Eastland photo

“I would not be surprised if Martin Luther King and these agitators next desecrate the graves of Confederate soldiers and drag their remains through the streets in an effort to garner headlines. And what kind of person is participating in this march? Beatniks, frauds, and persons wanted to answer for crimes in other States.”

James Eastland (1904–1986) American politician

To the Senate about the Grenada, Mississippi civil rights movement, after activists put American flags on the place where a Confederate memorial stood. June 16, 1966
Congressional Records https://books.google.fr/books?id=TqUs5UlIPaUC&q=%22And+what+kind+of+person+is+participating+in+this%22&dq=%22And+what+kind+of+person+is+participating+in+this%22&hl=fr&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjw8NC1sb3kAhUgDmMBHbF7BogQ6AEIKzAA%7C
1960s

Henri Barbusse photo

“It would be a crime to exhibit the fine side of war, even if there were one!”

murmured one of the somber soldiers.
The first man continued. "They'll say those things to us by way of paying us with glory, and to pay themselves, too, for what they haven't done. But military glory — it isn't even true for us common soldiers. It's for some, but outside those elect the soldier's glory is a lie, like every other fine-looking thing in war. In reality, the soldier's sacrifice is obscurely concealed. The multitudes that make up the waves of attack have no reward. They run to hurl themselves into a frightful inglorious nothing. You cannot even heap up their names, their poor little names of nobodies."
Under Fire (1916), Ch. 24 - The Dawn

Voltaire photo

“The Eternal has his designs from all eternity. If prayer is in accord with his immutable wishes, it is quite useless to ask of him what he has resolved to do. If one prays to him to do the contrary of what he has resolved, it is praying that he be weak, frivolous, inconstant; it is believing that he is thus, it is to mock him. Either you ask him a just thing, in which case he must do it, the thing being done without your praying to him for it, and so to entreat him is then to distrust him; or the thing is unjust, and then you insult him. You are worthy or unworthy of the grace you implore: if worthy, he knows it better than you; if unworthy, you commit another crime by requesting what is undeserved.
In a word, we only pray to God because we have made him in our image. We treat him like a pasha, like a sultan whom one may provoke or appease.”

Voltaire (1694–1778) French writer, historian, and philosopher

"Prayers" (1770)
Questions sur l'Encyclopédie (1770–1774)
Original: (fr) L’Éternel a ses desseins de toute éternité. Si la prière est d’accord avec ses volontés immuables, il est très inutile de lui demander ce qu’il a résolu de faire. Si on le prie de faire le contraire de ce qu’il a résolu, c’est le prier d’être faible, léger, inconstant; c’est croire qu’il soit tel, c’est se moquer de lui. Ou vous lui demandez une chose juste; en ce cas il la doit, et elle se fera sans qu’on l’en prie; c’est même se défier de lui que lui faire instance ou la chose est injuste, et alors on l’outrage. Vous êtes digne ou indigne de la grâce que vous implorez: si digne, il le sait mieux que vous; si indigne, on commet un crime de plus en demandant ce qu’on ne mérite pas.
En un mot, nous ne faisons des prières à Dieu que parce que nous l’avons fait à notre image. Nous le traitons comme un bacha, comme un sultan qu’on peut irriter ou apaiser.

James Baldwin photo
Teal Swan photo
Tupac Shakur photo
Philipp Mainländer photo
Thomas Paine photo
Volodymyr Zelensky photo
George Bernard Shaw photo
Roger Ebert photo
Chuck Palahniuk photo
Harper Lee photo
Carl Sagan photo

“The fact is that far more crime and child abuse has been committed by zealots in the name of God, Jesus and Mohammed than has ever been committed in the name of Satan. Many people don’t like that statement, but few can argue with it.”

Source: From the book The Demon-Haunted World Sagan quoting from Kenneth V. Lanning, FBI Behavioral Science Research Unit, from an article Satanic, Occult and Ritualistic Crime in The Police Chief, Oct 1989 note: Misattributed

William Blake photo

“Children of the future Age
Reading this indignant page,
Know that in a former time
Love! sweet Love! was thought a crime.”

William Blake (1757–1827) English Romantic poet and artist

A Little Girl Lost, st. 1
1790s, Songs of Experience (1794)

Marilyn Monroe photo
Milton Friedman photo
Kim Harrison photo

“You're taking classes? That's great. Crime scene etiquette, perhaps?”

Kim Harrison (1966) Pseudonym

White Witch, Black Curse

Orson Scott Card photo
Nadezhda Mandelstam photo

“I decided it is better to scream. Silence is the real crime against humanity.”

Nadezhda Mandelstam (1899–1980) Russian writer and educator

Source: Hope Against Hope

Cassandra Clare photo
Dinesh D'Souza photo
Hélène Cixous photo
Azar Nafisi photo
Frederick Douglass photo

“For it is not light that is needed, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake. The feeling of the nation must be quickened; the conscience of the nation must be roused; the propriety of the nation must be startled; the hypocrisy of the nation must be exposed; and its crimes against God and man must be proclaimed and denounced.”

Frederick Douglass (1818–1895) American social reformer, orator, writer and statesman

1850s, What to the Slave is the Fourth of July? (1852)
Context: At a time like this, scorching irony, not convincing argument, is needed. O! had I the ability, and could reach the nation's ear, I would, to-day, pour out a fiery stream of biting ridicule, blasting reproach, withering sarcasm, and stern rebuke. For it is not light that is needed, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake. The feeling of the nation must be quickened; the conscience of the nation must be roused; the propriety of the nation must be startled; the hypocrisy of the nation must be exposed; and its crimes against God and man must be proclaimed and denounced.

Barbara Kingsolver photo
P.G. Wodehouse photo

“It is the bungled crime that brings remorse.”

Source: Love Among the Chickens

Deb Caletti photo
John Waters photo
Arthur Conan Doyle photo
Alice Hoffman photo

“… but now the worst crime was pretending to be something you were not.”

Alice Hoffman (1952) Novelist, young-adult writer, children's writer

Source: Incantation

Laurell K. Hamilton photo
Tom Robbins photo
Frank W. Abagnale photo

“What bothered me most was their lack of style. I learned early that class is universally admired. Almost any fault, sin or crime is considered more leniently if there's a touch of class involved.”

Frank W. Abagnale (1948) American security consultant, former confidence trickster, check forger, impostor, and escape artist

Source: Catch Me If You Can: The True Story of a Real Fake

Mario Puzo photo

“Behind every great fortune there is a crime.”

Variant: Behind every successful fortune there is a crime.
Source: The Godfather

Arthur Conan Doyle photo
Confucius photo

“Be not ashamed of mistakes and thus make them crimes.”

Confucius (-551–-479 BC) Chinese teacher, editor, politician, and philosopher
Orson Scott Card photo
Emma Goldman photo

“The strongest bulwark of authority is uniformity; the least divergence from it is the greatest crime.”

Emma Goldman (1868–1940) anarchist known for her political activism, writing, and speeches

"The Individual, Society and the State" (1940) http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/goldman/works/1940/individual.htm
Context: The strongest bulwark of authority is uniformity; the least divergence from it is the greatest crime. The wholesale mechanisation of modern life has increased uniformity a thousandfold. It is everywhere present, in habits, tastes, dress, thoughts and ideas. Its most concentrated dullness is "public opinion." Few have the courage to stand out against it. He who refuses to submit is at once labelled "queer," "different," and decried as a disturbing element in the comfortable stagnancy of modern life.

George Carlin photo

“Well, if crime fighters fight crime and fire fighters fight fires, what do freedom fighters fight?”

George Carlin (1937–2008) American stand-up comedian

Doin' It Again, Parental Advisory: Explicit Lyrics (1990)
Context: Smug, greedy, well-fed white people have invented a language to conceal their sins. It's as simple as that. The CIA doesn't kill anybody anymore, they neutralize people, or they depopulate the area. The government doesn't lie, it engages in disinformation. The Pentagon actually measures nuclear radiation in something they call sunshine units. Israeli murderers are called commandos, Arab commandos are called terrorists. Contra killers are called freedom fighters. Well, if crime fighters fight crime, and firefighters fight fires, what do freedom fighters fight?

Georges Bataille photo
Noam Chomsky photo
Arthur Conan Doyle photo
Alan Moore photo
Cory Doctorow photo

“There are certain crimes that are simply too cruel, too sadistic, too hideous to be forgiven.”

John E. Douglas (1945) Criminal profiler

Source: Journey Into Darkness

Pat Conroy photo
Bertolt Brecht photo

“As crimes pile up, they become invisible.”

Bertolt Brecht (1898–1956) German poet, playwright, theatre director
Paulo Coelho photo
Arthur Conan Doyle photo
David Brin photo
Hunter S. Thompson photo
Pat Conroy photo
Marilyn Manson photo
Pierre Teilhard De Chardin photo
E.M. Forster photo
Paul Tillich photo

“… history has shown that the most terrible crimes against love have been committed in the name of fanatically defended doctrines.”

Paul Tillich (1886–1965) German-American theologian and philosopher

Source: Dynamics of Faith

Bernhard Schlink photo
Anthony Powell photo

“Growing old's like being increasingly penalized for a crime you haven't committed.”

Temporary Kings (1973), ch. 1.
A Dance to the Music of Time (1951-1975)
Variant: Growing old's like being increasingly penalized for a crime you haven't committed.

Matt Groening photo
Hannah Arendt photo
Paulo Coelho photo
Noam Chomsky photo

“The new crimes that the US and Israel were committing in Gaza as 2009 opened do not fit easily into any standard category—except for the category of familiarity.”

Noam Chomsky (1928) american linguist, philosopher and activist

Source: Gaza in Crisis: Reflections on Israel's War Against the Palestinians

Wilkie Collins photo
Sarah Dessen photo
Alexandre Dumas photo
Jodi Picoult photo
Max Brooks photo
Alexandre Dumas photo
Woody Allen photo

“Organized crime in America takes in over forty billion dollars a year and spends very little on office supplies.”

Woody Allen (1935) American screenwriter, director, actor, comedian, author, playwright, and musician
Richelle Mead photo
Arthur Conan Doyle photo

“I think there are certain crimes which the law cannot touch, and which therefore, to some extent, justify private revenge.”

Arthur Conan Doyle (1859–1930) Scottish physician and author

Source: The Complete Sherlock Holmes

Edgar Rice Burroughs photo
Richard Dawkins photo
Hannah Arendt photo

“Only crime and the criminal, it is true, confront us with the perplexity of radical evil; but only the hypocrite is really rotten to the core.”

On Revolution (1963), ch. 2.
General sources
Context: What makes it so plausible to assume that hypocrisy is the vice of vices is that integrity can indeed exist under the cover of all other vices except this one. Only crime and the criminal, it is true, confront us with the perplexity of radical evil; but only the hypocrite is really rotten to the core.

Arthur Conan Doyle photo
Anthony Bourdain photo
Jane Austen photo
Libba Bray photo
Noam Chomsky photo

“For the powerful, crimes are those that others commit.”

Noam Chomsky (1928) american linguist, philosopher and activist

Source: Imperial Ambitions: Conversations on the Post-9/11 World

Agatha Christie photo
Carter G. Woodson photo

“The oppressor has always indoctrinated the weak with this interpretation of the crimes of the strong.”

Source: The Mis-Education of the Negro (1933), Chapter XVIII: The Study of the Negro<!-- p. 131 -->
Context: The chief reason why so many give such a little attention to the background of the Negro is the belief that this study is unimportant. They consider as history only such deeds as those of Mussolini who after building up an efficient war machine with the aid of other Europeans would now use it to murder unarmed and defenseless Africans who have restricted themselves exclusively to attending to their own business. If Mussolini succeeds in crushing Abyssinia he will be recorded in "history" among the Caesars, and volumes written in praise of the conqueror will find their way to the homes and libraries of thousands of miseducated Negroes. The oppressor has always indoctrinated the weak with this interpretation of the crimes of the strong.

Percy Bysshe Shelley photo

“Man has no right to kill his brother, it is no excuse that he does so in uniform. He only adds the infamy of servitude to the crime of murder.”

Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) English Romantic poet

Article 19
"Declaration of Rights" http://knarf.english.upenn.edu/PShelley/declarat.html (1812)

Richard Rohr photo

“The cross solved our problem by first revealing our real problem, our universal pattern of scapegoating and sacrificing others. The cross exposes forever the scene of our crime.”

Richard Rohr (1943) American spiritual writer, speaker, teacher, Catholic Franciscan priest

Source: Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life

Johnny Cash photo

“I wear the black for the poor and the beaten down,
Livin' in the hopeless, hungry side of town,
I wear it for the prisoner who has long paid for his crime,
But is there because he's a victim of the times.”

Johnny Cash (1932–2003) American singer-songwriter

Man in Black ·  First public performance (17 February 1971) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t51MHUENlAQ
Song lyrics, Man in Black (1971)
Source: The Essential Johnny Cash

Thomas Sowell photo
John Waters photo
Brian Andreas photo

“The clock is a conspiracy & a crime against humanity
and I would not own one
except I miss appointments without it.”

Brian Andreas (1956) American artist

Source: Story People: Selected Stories & Drawings of Brian Andreas

Charles Brockden Brown photo