Quotes about crime
page 8

“Whenever someone must buy a license or pay a fee to exercise a right, then it is something less than a right. It is in fact a mere privilege, subject to the whim of petty bureaucrats. Fundamental rights are not abstract tokens that are given or sold by other men. They are in fact primary liberties bestowed upon us by God, our maker. Rights are not substantially secured by asking, "Mother may I?" of any government agency. Rights are more properly demanded or boldly seized and then conspicuously exercised regularly. This secures the liberties that have legitimately belonged to us since birth. If need be, lost rights can and must be restored through proscriptive use. If you live in a land where your rights have been marginalized into privileges, then it is either time to change your government, or to change your address. Much like a muscle that atrophies with disuse, any right that goes unexercised for many years devolves into a privilege, and eventually can even be redefined as a crime.”

James Wesley Rawles (1960) Survivalist-fiction author and blogger

http://www.survivalblog.com/2012/11/notes-from-jwr-551.html
How to Survive the End of the World as We Know It, Plume, New York (2009)

Men, God, Exercises, Birth

“Is it, in Heav'n, a crime to love too well?
To bear too tender, or too firm a heart,
To act a lover's or a Roman's part?
Is there no bright reversion in the sky,
For those who greatly think, or bravely die?”

Alexander Pope (1688–1744) eighteenth century English poet

Source: The Works of Mr. Alexander Pope (1717), Elegy to the Memory of an Unfortunate Lady, Line 6.

Love, Lovers, Thinking, Heart

“They want to know if Mr Cameron has bought into the Blairite, ever-expanding, ever more costly, interfering nanny state, or whether he has proposals to strengthen family life, restore discipline in schools, combat crime, deal with the now almost universally recognised dangers of multiculturalism and the unlimited immigration of unassimilable minorities, raise standards in schools and the NHS, and bring back home powers lost to Brussels.”

Norman Tebbit (1931) English politician

The Spectator, 29 July 2006.

Life, School, Family, Home

“Does not the whole history of socialism, particularly of French socialism, which is so rich in revolutionary striving, show us that when the working people themselves take power in their hands the ruling classes resort to unheard-of crimes and shootings if it is a matter of protecting their money-bags.”

Vladimir Lenin (1870–1924) Russian politician, led the October Revolution

"Report on the Activities of the Council of People’s Commissars" (24 January 1918); Collected Works, Vol. 26, pp. 459-61.
1910s

Money, People, History

“The King feels so strongly that, no matter the crime committed by anyone on whom the VC has been conferred, the decoration should not be forfeited. Even were a VC to be sentenced to be hanged for murder, he should be allowed to wear his VC on the scaffold.”

George V of the United Kingdom (1865–1936) King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions, and Emperor of India

Lord Stamfordham, private secretary to George V, on 26 July 1920. The original Royal Warrant involved an expulsion clause that allowed for a recipient's name to be erased from the official register in certain wholly discreditable circumstances and his pension cancelled. Eight were forfeited between 1861 and 1908. George V strongly opposed the concept of revoking a Victoria Cross, and directed Lord Stamfordham to express this view forcefully in a letter.
About

Feeling

“Whenever I meet Ukridge’s Aunt Julia I have the same curious illusion of having just committed some particularly unsavoury crime and—what is more—of having done it with swollen hands, enlarged feet, and trousers bagging at the knee on a morning when I had omitted to shave.”

P.G. Wodehouse (1881–1975) English author

Ukridge (1924)

“There is no scandal like rags, nor any crime so shameful as poverty.”

George Farquhar (1677–1707) Irish dramatist

The Beaux’ Stratagem (1707), Arch, Act i, Sc. 1.

“The movement has indeed been slow, and not such as man would have expected; but it has been analogous to the great movements of God in His providence and in His works. So, if we may credit the geologists, has this earth reached its present state. So have moved on the great empires. So retribution follows crime. So rise the tides. So grows the tree with long intervals of repose and apparent death. So comes on the spring, with battling elements and frequent reverses, with snowbanks and violets, and, if we had no experience, we might be doubtful what the end would be. But we know that back of all this, beyond these fluctuations, away in the serene heavens, the sun is moving steadily on; that these very agitations of the elements and seeming reverses, are not only the sign, but the result of his approach, and that the full warmth and radiance of the summer noontide are sure to come. So, O Divine Redeemer, Sun of Righteousness, come Thou! So will He come. It may be through clouds and darkness and tempest; but the heaven where He is, is serene; He is "traveling in the greatness of His strength; "and as surely as the throne of God abides, we know He shall yet reach the height and splendor of the highest noon, and that the light of millennial glory shall yet flood the earth.”

Mark Hopkins (educator) (1802–1887) American educationalist and theologian

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 418.

Death, God, Travel, Spring

“There is no such thing as morality—only varingly expedient conventions. What to one race is a crime, is virtue to another; crime in one era is virtue in another; even a crime in one class of society is at the same time and in the same society virtue in another class... It makes no difference whether people are called good or bad; we are all here; now; there is only one world in existence, and in it there prevail either expedient or inexpedient conditions for those who are alive.”

Halldór Laxness book The Atom Station

the organist
Atómstöðin (The Atom Station) (1948)

People, World, Time

“He is capable of any crime, from reviling the Classics to diverting water courses.”

Ernest Bramah book Kai Lung Unrolls His Mat

The Story of Lin Ho and the Treasure of Fang-Tso
Kai Lung Unrolls His Mat (1928)

Water

“We can look forward expectantly to a beautified, restored earth where there is complete peace, tranquility and safety. No crime. No storms. Only peace. What a hope!”

Paul P. Enns (1937) American theologian

Source: Heaven Revealed (Moody, 2011), p. 95

Peace, Hope

“Because federal hate crime laws criminalize thoughts, they are incompatible with a free society.”

Ron Paul (1935) American politician and physician

Unconstitutional Legislation Threatens Freedoms, May 7, 2007 freerepublic.com http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1830822/posts 2000s, 2006-2009

Hate, Law

“All things come to me in black and white like virtue and crime. Yes, black and white are the two elements which concern me. It is my fortune, or misfortune, that I can see neither all in black nor all in white... I cannot help realizing both, for only in the two, only in black and white, can I see God as a unity creating again and again a great and eternally changing terrestrial drama.”

Max Beckmann (1884–1950) German painter, draftsman, printmaker, sculptor and writer

Source: 1930s, On my Painting (1938), pp. 13-14

God, Change, Help

“Maithripala Sirisena: I must say very clearly there is no allegations regarding 'war crimes', there were war crime allegations during the early stages. But at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, mainly in the proposals presented in September, there were no war crime allegations against us. They contained allegations of Human Rights violations only. When you consider the facts surrounding the allegations of human rights violations, we're committed as a member of the UN to implementing the main points and proposals. But within that commitment, we will always act in accordance with the sovereignty of our country and in accordance with our constitution. For this work, we can obtain foreign technology in certain areas. In terms of people we definitely do not need outsiders. We have an unbiased independent judiciary in this country. We have a Criminal Investigation Department and other institutions that can carry out unbiased investigations in this regard.”

Maithripala Sirisena (1951) Sri Lankan politician, 7th President of Sri Lanka

Talk to Al Jazeera - Sri Lankan president: No allegations of war crimes https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udGmG-eqJ6o

War, People, Country

“What kind of mind would sacrifice millions for the sake of a few thousands, especially when it's been demonstrated beyond a shadow of a doubt that victim disarmament can't save even those thousands?
What kind of mind wants a return to mean streets and ever-soaring crime rates?
What kind of mind collaborates with agents of mass murder and genocide?
Make no mistake: you victim disarmament types are sick, sick people, in the words of T. D. Melrose, who'd rather see a woman raped in an alley and strangled with her own pantyhose than see her with a gun in her hand.”

L. Neil Smith (1946) American writer

"Murder by Gun Control".

People

“In a theological seminary, if a professor finds a fact inconsistent with the creed, he must keep it secret or deny it, or lose his place. Mental veracity is a crime, cowardice and hypocrisy are virtues.”

Robert G. Ingersoll (1833–1899) Union United States Army officer

The Truth (1896)

Secret

“Oh words, what crimes are committed in your name!”

Eugéne Ionesco (1909–1994) Romanian playwright

Jacques from Jacques or the Submission (1955)

“I, John Brown, am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land can never be purged away but with blood. I had, as I now think, vainly flattered myself that without very much bloodshed, it might be done.”

John Brown (abolitionist) (1800–1859) American abolitionist

This was written on a note that he had at his execution (2 December 1859), most sources say it was handed to the guard, but some dispute that and claim it was handed to a reporter accompaning him; as quoted in John Brown and his Men https://books.google.com/books?id=uiaYWp66b-cC&pg=PR1&dq=John+Brown+and+his+Men+%281894%29+by+Richard+Josiah+Hinton&hl=en&sa=X&ei=Uub_VN3CN5HbggTdxIK4Cw&ved=0CB4Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=John%20Brown%20and%20his%20Men%20(1894)%20by%20Richard%20Josiah%20Hinton&f=false (1894) by Richard Josiah Hinton, p. 398.

Thinking

“I haven't committed a crime. What I did was fail to comply with the law.”

David Dinkins (1927) former mayor of New York City

quoted by By Rudolf Melik in The Rise of the Project Workforce: Managing People and Projects in a Flat World (Page 57).

Law

“Mayor Giuliani is a strong and principled leader. I saw firsthand his leadership in helping transform a crime-ridden New York City into the safest large city in our nation, while increasing preparedness by opening the city’s first Office of Emergency Management. He has always shown uncompromising courage in the face of challenges. I am proud to lead First Responders across America who support Rudy for President.”

Howard Safir (1941)

A statement by Safir posted on JoinRudy2008.com, Rudy Giuliani's official presidential campaign website anouncing the creation of "First Responders for Rudy"
[Howard Safir, http://www.joinrudy2008.com/article/index/748, Rudy Giuliani Unveils National First Responders Coalition, Rudy Giuliani Presidential Committee, Inc., 2007-08-28, 2007-12-20]

Courage, Support, Strong, Help

“It's about time law enforcement got as organized as organized crime.”

Rudy Giuliani (1944–2001) American businessperson and politician, former mayor of New York City

Quoted in TIME Magazine, October 15, 1984. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,923697-8,00.html

Law, Time

“Murdering the people upon whom he also obtruded them, thus paying off former crimes committed against the liberties of one people, with crimes which he urges them to commit against the lives of another. In every stage of these repressions, we have petitioned for redress in the most humble terms, our repreated petitions have been answered only by repreated injury.”

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

Article No. 20 https://books.google.com/books?id=WbFznb7PSGsC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false 1770s, Declaration of Independence (1776), Earlier drafts

People

“I am, in my own homeland, convicted and imprisoned for the crime of being a human rights defender, a feminist and an opponent of the death penalty. [But] not only have my imprisonment and my recent 16-year sentence not made me feel any regret, they have actually strengthened my convictions and commitment to defending human rights more than ever before.”

Narges Mohammadi (1972) Iranian human rights activist

As quoted in Did Facebook censor an Arab Women’s Rights Group?l http://www.vocativ.com/tech/facebook/facebook-double-standard-why-these-women-had-their-pictures-taken-down/index.html (November 13, 2012), Vocativ.

Death, Penalty, Feeling

“Consumers can boycott goods and services that involve children in manufacturing products. Don't accept hospitality from eateries and from shops employing children. Have the courage to tell them that you refuse to take their services because they employ children, which is a crime. This will put psychological pressure on the industries too. Demand a guarantee from shops you visit that they don't employ children. Use social media to prevent exploitation.”

Kailash Satyarthi (1954) Indian children's rights activist

Times of India interview (2014)

Children, Courage

“He knew from his own experience in Singapore that the further up the ladder one got, the more the job was about politics and statistics than actually dealing with crime.”

Shamini Flint book Inspector Singh Investigates: A Most Peculiar Malaysian Murder

Inspector Singh Investigates: A Most Peculiar Malaysian Murder, Cap 2

“My job is to investigate whether or not a crime is committed, can be proved and should be charged. I'm not going to comment on what to make beyond that. You know, it's not my jurisdiction, not my job, not my judgment.”

Patrick Fitzgerald (1960) American lawyer

Fitzgerald News Conference from nytimes.com (October 28, 2005)

“Since lives and liberties depend upon clarity, not obfuscation, and reason, not hyperbole, let me take this opportunity today to be clear: Each action taken by the Department of Justice, as well as the war crimes commissions considered by the president and the Department of Defense, is carefully drawn to target a narrow class of individuals- terrorists. Our legal powers are targeted at terrorists. Our investigation is focused on terrorists. Our prevention strategy targets the terrorist threat.”

John Ashcroft (1942) American politician

Source: Never Again: Securing America and Restoring Justice (2006), p. 192

War, Justice, Dependency

“The great crime of our time, says Vonnegut, was to do too much good secretly, too much harm openly.”

Charles A. Reich book The Greening of America

Source: The Greening of America (1970), Chapter IV : Consciousness II, p. 78

Time

“So far as one understands a man, one is that man. The man of genius takes his place in the above argument as he who understands incomparably more other beings than the average man. Goethe is said to have said of himself that there was no vice or crime of which he could not trace the tendency in himself, and that at some period of his life he could not have understood fully. The genius, therefore, is a more complicated, more richly endowed, more varied man; and a man is the closer to being a genius the more men he has in his personality, and the more really and strongly he has these others within him.”

Otto Weininger book Sex and Character

Einen Menschen verstehen heißt also: auch er sein. Der geniale Mensch aber offenbarte sich an jenen Beispielen eben als der Mensch, welcher ungleich mehr Wesen versteht als der mittelmäßige. Goethe soll von sich gesagt haben, es gebe kein Laster und kein Verbrechen, zu dem er nicht die Anlage in sich verspürt, das er nicht in irgend einem Zeitpunkte seines Lebens vollauf verstanden habe. Der geniale Mensch ist also komplizierter, zusammengesetzter, reicher; und ein Mensch ist um so genialer zu nennen, je mehr Menschen er in sich vereinigt, und zwar, wie hinzugefügt werden muß, je lebendiger, mit je größerer Intensität er die anderen Menschen in sich hat.
Source: Sex and Character (1903), p. 106.

Life, Men, Understanding, Personality

“From the wild Irish slums of the 19th century Eastern seaboard, to the riot-torn suburbs of Los Angeles, there is one unmistakable lesson in American history; a community that allows a large number of men to grow up in broken families, dominated by women, never acquiring any stable relationship to male authority, never acquiring any set of rational expectations about the future -- that community asks for and gets chaos. Crime, violence, unrest, disorder -- most particularly the furious, unrestrained lashing out at the whole social structure -- that is not only to be expected; it is very near to inevitable. And it is richly deserved.”

Daniel Patrick Moynihan (1927–2003) American politician

The Negro Family: The Case for National Action (1965)

Women, Men, Family, Angels

“When it was all gone, the dream of floating toward bursting stars, and the flesh returned to hold my blood in its prosaic channels, when the room returned, the dirty sordid room, the vacant meaningless ceiling, the weary wasted world, I felt nothing but the old sense of guilt, the sense of crime and violation, the sin of destruction.”

John Fante book Ask the Dust

Source: Ask the Dust (1939), Chapter Sixteen

World, Dreams, Star, Sense

“The worst crime against working people is a company which fails to operate at a profit.”

Samuel Gompers (1850–1924) American Labor Leader[AFL]

Quoted in Rothschild, Michael. Bionomics: Economy as Business Ecosystem. Washington, D.C.: BeardBooks, 1990, p. 115.

People

“Distorting history is no less a crime than sedition.”

Yogi Adityanath (1972) Indian politician

Yogi Adityanath, quoted in The Indian Express, Secular word is the biggest lie, says Uttar Pradesh CM Yogi Adityanath, 14 November 2017. http://indianexpress.com/article/india/secular-word-is-the-biggest-lie-says-yogi-adityanath-uttar-pradesh-cm-raipur-4936367/

History

“U. S. News: You criticize the Miranda ruling, which gives suspects the right to have a lawyer present before police questioning. Shouldn't people, who may be innocent, have such protection?
Meese: Suspects who are innocent of a crime should. But the thing is, you don't have many suspects who are innocent of a crime. That's contradictory. If a person is innocent of a crime, then he is not a suspect.”

Edwin Meese III (1931) American presidential advisor

As quoted in "Justice under Reagan: Reagan seeks judges with 'traditional approach" (14 October 1985), U.S. News & World Report, p. 67
1980s

People, Question, Personality

“It is no crime to be ignorant of economics, which is, after all, a specialized discipline and one that most people consider to be a 'dismal science.' But it is totally irresponsible to have a loud and vociferous opinion on economic subjects while remaining in this state of ignorance.”

Murray N. Rothbard (1926–1995) American economist of the Austrian School, libertarian political theorist, and historian

The Death Wish of the Anarcho-Communists (1970) http://www.lewrockwell.com/rothbard/rothbard122.html.

People, Science

“As he lay on Wenlock Edge, with the sheep nibbling the grass close about him as they or their betters had nibbled the grass — or whatever there was to nibble — in the Silurian kingdom of Pteraspis, he seemed to have fallen on an evolution far more wonderful than that of fishes. He did not like it; he could not account for it; and he determined to stop it. Never since the days of his Limulus ancestry had any of his ascendants thought thus. Their modes of thought might be many, but their thought was one. Out of his millions of millions of ancestors, back to the Cambrian mollusks, every one had probably lived and died in the illusion of Truths which did not amuse him, and which had never changed. Henry Adams was the first in an infinite series to discover and admit to himself that he really did not care whether truth was, or was not, true. He did not even care that it should be proved true, unless the process were new and amusing. He was a Darwinian for fun.

From the beginning of history, this attitude had been branded as criminal — worse than crime — sacrilege! Society punished it ferociously and justly, in self-defence.”

Henry Adams (1838–1918) journalist, historian, academic, novelist

The Education of Henry Adams (1907)

Truth, History, Fish, Grass

“I have the responsibility to let the people know what happened to me, and did I commit the crime or if I didn’t, what is the real accusation? Why am I in this condition today? I think it reflects our human condition in this piece of land, and if I don’t bear some responsibility.... many, many people, their voice can never be heard.”

Ai Weiwei (1957) Chinese concept artist

2010-, You’re There but You’re Not Existing, 2012

People, Thinking

“I wanna say this to every man that has a mind, to all the intelligent life forms that exist on this planet Earth. I wish the British would say this to the Scottish Rites and the Masons and all the people with minds who have degrees of knowledge, and who are aware of courts, laws, United Nations, governments.
In the 40s, we had a war, and all of our economies went towards this war effort. The war ended on one level, but we wouldn't let it end on the other levels. We kept buying and selling this war. I'm not locked in the penitentiary for crimes, I'm locked in the Second World War. I'm locked in the Second World War with this decision to bring to the World Court - there must be a One World Court, or we're all gonna be devoured by crime.
Crime, and the definition of crime comes from Nuremberg, when the judges decided that they wanted to call Second World War a crime. Honor and war is not a crime. Crime is bad. When you go to war and you're a soldier, and you fight for your God and your country, that's not criminal. That's honorable. That's what you must do to be a man. If you don't fight for your God and your country, you're not worth anything. If you have no honor, then you're not worth petty's pigs.
Truth is, we've got to overturn this decision that you made in the Second World War, or the Second World War will never end. Degrees of the war was written in Switzerland, in Geneva, at conferences that were made by the men at the tables, clearly stated that anyone in uniform would be given the respect of their rank and their uniforms. Then when the United States and got all the Germans in handcuffs, they started breaking their own rules. And they've been breaking their own rules ever since. War is not a crime, but if you judge war as a crime in a court room, then turn around: If 2 + 3 = 5, and 3 + 2 = 5; if you say war is a crime, then crime becomes your war. I am, by all standards, a prisoner of war.
I've been a prisoner of war since 1944 in Juvenile Hall, for setting a school building on fire in Indianapolis, Indiana. I've been locked up 45 years trying to figure out why I got to be a criminal. It matters not whether I want to be; you've got to keep criminals going to keep the war going because that's your economy, your whole economy is based on the war. You've got to get your dollar bills off the war, you've got your silver market sterling off of the war, you've got to take your gold and your diamonds off of the war - You've got to overturn that decision, that hung 6000 men by the neck.
You killed 6000 soldiers for obeying orders. It's wrong. And the world has got to accept that's wrong. When you accept you're wrong, and you say you're sorry for all the things you've done, then that will be a note on that court, and we'll have some harmony going on this planet Earth, now.”

Charles Manson (1934–2017) American criminal and musician

Interview with Bill Murphy (1994) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XAjh_wOByoY

Life, Men, God, War

“When there is not enough religion in the pulpit to organize a crusade against sin; nor justice in the court house to promptly punish crime; nor manhood enough in the nation to put a sheltering arm about innocence and virtue----if it needs lynching to protect woman's dearest possession from the ravening human beasts----then I say lynch, a thousand times a week if necessary.”

Rebecca Latimer Felton (1835–1930) American politician

August 11, 1897

Religion, Justice, Time, Housing

“I don’t find it a coincidence that, over the last two years, we’ve seen this type of rise in violent crimes in the United States. When the Obama administration decided it was going to defend criminals over law enforcement, this is where it ends up. See, the Obama administration decided it was better to release criminals, since they view them as victims, and punish law enforcement.”

Allen West (politician) (1961) American politician; retired United States Army officer

2010s, I'd like to see MORE football player protests — NOT less (27 September 2017)

Law

“Car crime's low, the gun crime's lower,
The town hall band CD, it's a grower,
You never hear of folk getting knocked on the bonce,
Although there was a drive-by shouting once,
But there's a brass band everywhere,
And I don't drive so I don't care,
And as a nightingale sang in Berkeley Square,
What's Chatteris if you're not there?
For What Is Chatteris?, Achtung Bono”

Nigel Blackwell

2005
Lyrics

Cars

“H. W. Nevison of The Manchester Guardian recorded that in 1907 in East Bengal “priestly Mullahs went through the country preaching the revival of Islam and proclaiming to the villagers that the British Government was on the Mohammedan side, that the Law Courts had been specially suspended for three months and no penalty would be exacted for violence done to the Hindus, or for the loot of Hindu shops or the abduction of Hindu widows. A Red Pamphlet was everywhere circulated maintaining the same wild doctrine… In Comilla, Jamalpur and a few other places, rather serious riots occurred. A few lives were lost, temples desecrated, images broken, shops plundered, and many widows carried off. Some of the towns were deserted, the Hindu population took refuge in any pukka houses, women spent nights hidden in tanks, the crime known as ‘group-rape’ increased and throughout the country districts, there reigned a general terror, which still prevailed at the time of my visit.””

Sita Ram Goel (1921–2003) Indian activist

Muslim Separatism – Causes and Consequences (1987)
Source: H.W. Nevison, The New Spirit in India, London, 1908, p. 192 and 193. Sita Ram Goel: Muslim Separatism - Causes and Consequences.

Women, Law, Penalty, Time

“To the humanistic mind these penalties seem severe and unnecessary. In actuality, the penalties, together with the Biblical faith which motivated them, worked to reduce crime. Thus, when New England passed laws requiring the death penalty for incorrigible delinquents and for children who struck their parents, no executions were necessary: the law kept the children in line.”

Rousas John Rushdoony (1916–2001) American theologian

Source: Writings, The Institutes of Biblical Law (1973), p. 236

Death, Children, Faith, Law

“Our country is wallowing in a miasma of political and class conflict, of greed and special interest, with regard to budget deficits, inflation and rising unemployment, the threats of both a bloody war and a devastating recession. How did we get into this mess? Because the press, during the 1980s committed one of the greatest crimes of the 20th century. The media took a dive, caved in, and did not tell the American people the price they would eventually pay for Reaganomics.”

Carl Rowan (1925–2000) American journalist

while accepting the Allen H. Neuharth Award for Excellence in Journalism from the University of South Dakota in 1990.
Quoington Star article entitled "Has President Nixon Gone Crazy?"

War, People, Country

“I read a couple of good books and realized the ethical implications of eating meat and the countless other ways of abusing animals and nature. It made me cry. There simply is no need for us to consume animal products and we cause a lot of harm by doing so; that is the definition of crime. I couldn't be anything else but vegan after understanding that. … Those two things, bodybuilding and being vegan, are the two best things in my life. They define who I am, in body and spirit. That doesn't mean my life is all about my workout and eating, but I find my strength in life in those two aspects. Veganism is about love and respect to your environment, and bodybuilding is about love and respect to yourself.”

Alexander Dargatz (1977) German bodybuilder

“Alexander Dargatz,” interview with Vegan Bodybuilding & Fitness (2005) http://www.veganbodybuilding.com/?page=bio_alex.

Love, Life, Books, Way

“Relentless execution without knowing what to execute is a crime.”

Steve Blank (1953) American businessman

Source: The Startup Owner’s Manual (2012), p. 11.

“Libertarianism offers an alternative to coercive government that should appeal to peaceful, productive people everywhere.
No, a libertarian world isn't a perfect one. There will still be inequality, poverty, crime, corruption, man's inhumanity to man. But, unlike the theocratic visionaries, the pie-in-the-sky socialist utopians, or the starry-eyed Mr. Fixits of the New Deal and Great Society, libertarians don't promise you a rose garden. Karl Popper once said that attempts to create heaven on earth invariably produce hell. Libertarianism holds out, not the goal of a perfect society, but of a better and freer one. It promises a world in which more of the decisions will be made in the right way by the right person: you.”

David Boaz (1953) libertarian, author and editor

Libertarianism: A Primer (1997) Ch. 1 : The Coming Libertarian Age"; A Note on Labels: Why "Libertarian"? http://www.libertarianism.org/ex-3.html

People, World, Peace, Way

“Forty years on, Amnesty International has secured many victories. Its files are full of letters from former prisoners of conscience or torture victims thanking the organisation for making a difference. Torture is now banned by international agreement. Every year more countries reject the death penalty. The world will soon have an International Criminal Court that will be able to ensure that those accused of the worst crimes in the world will face justice. The Court's very existence will deter some crimes.
But the challenges are still great. Torture is banned but in two-thirds of the world's countries it is still being committed in secret. Too many governments still allow wrongful imprisonment, murder or "disappearance" to be carried out by their officials with impunity.
Those who today still feel a sense of impotence can do something: they can support Amnesty International. They can help it to stand up for freedom and justice.”

Peter Benenson (1921–2005) English human rights activist

Source: Amnesty International (2002) The Amnesty International Report. p. 22

Death, Secret, World, Justice

“I would, in a sense, certainly assist the Amir of Afghanistan if he waged war against the British Government. That is to say, I would openly tell my countrymen that it would be a crime to help a government which had lost the confidence of the nation to remain in power.”

Mahatma Gandhi (1869–1948) pre-eminent leader of Indian nationalism during British-ruled India

May 4, 1921. Gandhi commenting on the appeal to the Amir of Afghanistan to invade British India proposed by some Muslim leaders. Quoted from B.R. Ambedkar, Pakistan or The Partition of India (1946)
1920s

War, Confidence, Sense, Help

“Of the ten crimes which Biblical Hebrew law punished by stoning, nine have ceased to be offenses in modern society.”

Joseph Lewis (1889–1968) American activist

The Ten Commandments ("The Eighth Commandment")

Law

“Over the past year I've thought a lot about censorship, surveillance and regulation of the Internet. Is it necessary? Is it really so dangerous to allow individuals an ability to associate and communicate freely? Certainly there exists a criminal minority who take advantage of the freedom of the Internet, but no one is arguing that crimes shouldn't be prosecuted. This is about allowing the vast majority of people to communicate without state intervention. Despite all the dire warnings, the prophesies of doom and destruction that were foretold by the Pentagon, the US State Department, Hosni Mubarak, even English High Court Judge Eady, I look at the fallout from all that was published in 2010, all the breaches to establishment power that occurred through a networked citizenry- and the good clearly outweighs the bad. From the uprising in Iceland to the ousting of dictators in the Middle East, free speech has fundamentally changed the world for the good.”

Heather Brooke (1970) American journalist

Page 236.
The Revolution Will Be Digitised: Dispatches From the Information War, 1st Edition

People, World, Communication, Freedom

“The magnitude of crimes credited to Muslim monarchs by the medieval Muslim historians, was beyond measure. With a few exceptions, Muslim kings and commanders were monsters who stopped at no crime when it came to their Hindu subjects. But what strikes as more significant is the broad pattern of those crimes. The pattern is that of a jihãd in which the ghãzîs of Islam 1) invade infidel lands; 2) massacre as many infidel men, women, and children, particularly Brahmins, as they like after winning a victory; 3) capture the survivors to be sold as slaves; 4) plunder every place and person; 5) demolish idolatrous places of worship and build mosques in their places; and 6) defile idols which are flung into public squares or made into steps leading to mosques.”

Sita Ram Goel book The Story of Islamic Imperialism in India

The Story of Islamic Imperialism in India (1994)

Women, Men, Children, Victory

“Your virtue raises your glory above your crime.”

Pierre Corneille (1606–1684) French tragedian

Ta vertu met ta gloire au-dessus de ton crime.
Tulle, act V, scene iii.
Horace (1639)

“I live in the Managerial Age, in a world of "Admin." The greatest evil is not now done in those sordid "dens of crime" that Dickens loved to paint. It is not done even in concentration camps and labour camps. In those we see its final result. But it is conceived and ordered (moved, seconded, carried, and minuted) in clean, carpeted, warmed, and well-lighted offices, by quiet men with white collars and cut fingernails and smooth-shaven cheeks who do not need to raise their voice. Hence, naturally enough, my symbol for Hell is something like the bureaucracy of a police state or the offices of a thoroughly nasty business concern.”

Clive Staples Lewis book The Screwtape Letters

Preface
The Screwtape Letters (1942)

Love, Men, Age, World

“Of crimes injurious to the persons of private subjects, the most principal and important is the offense of taking away that life, which is the immediate gift of the great creator; and which therefore no man can be entitled to deprive himself or another of, but in some manner either expressly commanded in, or evidently deducible from, those laws which the creator has given us; the divine laws, I mean, of either nature or revelation.”

William Blackstone book Commentaries on the Laws of England

Book IV, ch. 14 http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/blackstone_bk4ch14.asp: Of Homicide. Commentaries on the Laws of England (1765–1769)

Life, Law, Nature, Personality

“Toward no crimes have men shown themselves so cold-bloodedly cruel as in punishing differences in belief.”

James Russell Lowell (1819–1891) American poet, critic, editor, and diplomat

Witchcraft
Literary Essays, vol. II (1870–1890)

Men

“I strongly challenge the sincerity and intent of the MILF: identify and surrender your men before the bar of justice. This is part of your commitment to the peace agreement. Now if you say they are not from your ranks but from the other armed groups, you are still duty-bound to identify and surrender these people who committed the crime.”

Francis Escudero (1969) Filipino politician

Escudero, F. [Francis]. (2015, February 12). Retrieved from Official Facebook Page of Francis Escudero https://www.facebook.com/senchizescudero/posts/10153064546355610/ 2015, Facebook

Men, People, Peace, Justice

“Heaven absolves all crimes committed to gain a throne
Once Heaven gives it to us.”

Pierre Corneille Cinna

Tous ces crimes d'État qu'on fait pour la couronne,
Le ciel nous en absout alors qu'il nous la donne.
Livie, act V, scene ii.
Cinna (1641)

“It is a crime against the State to be powerful enough to commit one.”

Pierre Corneille Nicomède

C'est un crime d'État que d'en pouvoir commettre.
Araspe, act II, scene i.
Nicomède (1651)

“I do not see that it is possible, nor can I discover that it would be right, for me now to withdraw from the cause in which I have so long taken so deep an interest. The work is great, and vast are the results depending upon it, and unhappily our laborers are not abundant…But conscious of the increasing hazard we run owing to the long continuance of monopolies, and beholding the appalling sufferings of multitudes of my fellow-creatures, and satisfied that all benevolence and charity and the teaching of religion and of schools fall short of much of their full effect owing to the degraded and impoverished condition of the people—I should feel myself guilty, as possessing abundance and leaving others to hunger, nakedness and immorality and deepest ignorance and crime, if I were to retire into domestic quiet and leave the struggle to be carried on entirely by others.”

John Bright (1811–1889) British Radical and Liberal statesman

Letter to his mother-in-law Mrs. Priestman (November 1842), quoted in G. M. Trevelyan, The Life of John Bright (London: Constable, 1913), pp. 102-103.
1840s

Hunger, People, School, Religion

“I tell you, guilt dwells nowhere but in the eyes of the accuser. This men know even as they deny it, which is why they so often make murder their absolution. The truth of crime lies not with the victim but with the witness.”

R. Scott Bakker book The Thousandfold Thought

HATATIAN, EXHORTATIONS
The Thousandfold Thought (2006)

Men, Truth

“Remarriage is or is not approved in shastra; I have no authority to speak on this subject. But I surely cannot go on without saying this much, that remarriage has helped a great deal in stopping crime in Fiji.”

Totaram Sanadhya (1876–1947) Fijian writer

My Twenty-One Years in the Fiji Islands (English translation by J.D. Kelly & U.K. Singh, Fiji Museum, 1991).

Help

“The danger does not lie with individuals, however criminal they may be. Far more, it lies in the ignorance of our entire society, which confirms these people in the lies that they were obliged to believe in childhood. Teachers, attorneys, doctors, social workers, priests, and other respected representatives of society protect parents from the mistreated child's every accusation and see to it that the truth about child abuse remains concealed. Even the child protection agencies insist that this crime, and this crime alone, should go unpunished.”

Alice Miller (1923–2010) Swiss psychologist

Breaking Down the Wall of Silence (Abbruch der Schweigemauer) (1990)

People, Truth, Lie, Parent

“There are crimes I don’t commit mainly because I don’t want to find out I could.”

James Richardson (1950) American poet

#124
Vectors: Aphorisms and Ten Second Essays (2001)

“It does seem quite ironic to me that the very people who have made no attempt to think for themselves, are always the most vocal in demanding respect for their "ideas". But some Muslims go further than this and claim that they're being victimized in British society. But I don't really believe that's true. I do think a lot of people are getting fed up of hearing about Muslims all the time, and wish that Muslims would just shut up and get on with their lives, instead of constantly belly-aching about nothing, but that's not the same as being victimized. But because we live in a liberal democracy and therefore have certain double standards to maintain, any criticism of Islam or of Muslims always draws the immediate accusation of Islamophobia, a dishonest word which seeks to portray legitimate comment as some kind of hate crime.”

Pat Condell (1949) Stand-up comedian, writer, and Internet personality

"The trouble with Islam" (16 March 2007) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HhN6CG1zCRc 2007

Hate, People, Democracy, Idea

“Today’s HUD head Henry Cisneros, whom Kemp praised and endorsed in Senate confirmation hearings in 1993, has used this program to great effect in Baltimore and Dallas, threatening to wreck whole suburbs with an immigration of crime and poverty.”

Jeffrey Tucker (1963) American writer

Source: "Jack Kemp, American Socialist" by Jeffrey Tucker, The Rothbard-Rockwell Report, September 1996, UNZ.org, 2016-05-22 http://www.unz.org/Pub/RothbardRockwellReport-1996sep-00001,

“Like other German theorists of the state, Carl Schmitt held to the idea that politics is always about violence; if we really and truly disagree with other people, we ought to treat them as enemies. Fish does not follow Schmitt this far. To be sure, he fills his books with examples of people who ought to, and usually do, hate each other: secular liberals dealing with religious fundamentalists; full-stop opponents of affirmative action confronting those who support it; defenders of speech codes and critics of hate-crime laws.”

Alan Wolfe (1942) American political scientist

The Future of Liberalism (2009), Ch. 5 : Mr. Schmitt Goes to Washington

Hate, People, Books, Law

“It was measured that the splinters of the Armenian nation that had managed to miraculously escape the Genocide would not be able to recover from the blow, would disappear in the whirlpools on five continents, lose their national identity, and aptitude to be a political factor. But we, as a nation and as a state, were able to reappear at the international arena to affirm that we continue our eternal journey and that we are determined not to allow for such a crime to ever happen again.”

Serzh Sargsyan (1954) Armenian politician, 3rd President of Armenia

President Serzh Sargsyan’s Address on the Commemoration of the 95th Anniversary of the Armenian Genocide http://www.president.am/events/news/eng/?day=24&month=04&year=2010&id=985 (April 24, 2010)

“The biggest hate crime against Muslims in America is the existence of the Council on American-Islamic Relations. If you're a Muslim American who wants to live in peace and freedom — and, presumably, that's why you're in America in the first place — these people are your worst enemy. They're parasites on your identity. They don't represent you — they claim ownership of you. Everything they do and say reflects back, badly, on you. Yet you are the only thing giving them a veneer of respectability. Without you, these fanatics would be standing on street corners shouting at people. They invoke the phony lie of Islamophobia in order to marginalize and ghettoize you and to make you feel like a victim, because their whole existence depends on you being a victim. They claim to challenge the stereotyping of Muslims — and how do they do it? By stereotyping Muslims as professional complainers and malcontents who always want special treatment; who can't take the slightest criticism; and who are aggressively litigious to the point of obsession. These people are the problem. They're not the solution.”

Pat Condell (1949) Stand-up comedian, writer, and Internet personality

"American Islamophobia" (11 January 2011) http://youtube.com/watch?v=6Ff3Qg6B_WY 2011

Hate, People, Lie, Peace

“Judges and prosecutors, lawyers and psychiatrists, all protest their passionate desire to know why a person accused of a crime did what he did. But their actions completely belie their words: their efforts are now directed toward letting everyone speak in court but the defendant himself -- especially if he is accused of a political or psychiatric crime.”

Thomas Szasz (1920–2012) Hungarian psychiatrist

"Law", p. 40.
The Second Sin (1973)

Effort, Passion, Personality

“But how is Mneme dreaded by the race,
Who scorn her warnings and despise her grace?
By her unveil'd each horrid crime appears,
Her awful hand a cup of wormwood bears.
Days, years mispent, O what a hell of woe!
Hers the worst tortures that our souls can know.”

Phillis Wheatley (1753–1784) American poet

"On Recollection" st. 2 lines 7-12, Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral (1773)

Soul, Hell, Appearance

“In our movement the two extremes come together: the Communists from the Left and the officers and students from the Right. These two have always been the most active elements, and it was the greatest crime that they used to oppose each other in street fights… Our party has already succeeded in uniting these two utter extremes within the ranks of our storm troops. They will form the core of the great German liberation movement, in which all without distinction will stand together when the day comes to say: ‘The Nation arises, the storm is breaking!”

Adolf Hitler (1889–1945) Führer and Reich Chancellor of Germany, Leader of the Nazi Party

As quoted in Der Fuehrer: Hitler’s Rise to Power, Konrad Heiden, Boston, MA, Beacon Press, 1969, p. 147, first published 1944. Part of Hitler’s quote also cited in Totalitarianism: Part Three of The Origins of Totalitarianism, Hannah Arendt, A Harvest Book, 1985, footnote, p. 7
1920s

Fight

“…I have committed numerous crimes, and know not with what punishments I may be seized…”

Aurangzeb (1618–1707) Sixth Mughal Emperor

To Kaum Buksh Also in Sources of Indian Traditions: Modern India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh https://books.google.com/books?id=w8qJAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA4 p. 4 Also in Imperial Identity in Mughal Empire: Memory and Dynastic Politics in Early Modern Central Asia https://books.google.com/books?id=7PS6PrH3rtkC&pg=PA134 p. 134 Also in The Rajpoot Tribes Vol.2 by Charles Metcalfe, p. 305 Quotes from late medieval histories

“A French writer has paid the English a very well deserved compliment. He says that they never commit a useless crime. When they hire a man to assassinate an Irish patriot, when they blow a Sepoy from the mouth of a cannon, when they produce a famine in one of their dependencies, they have always an ulterior motive.”

Patrick Pearse (1879–1916) Irish revolutionary, shot by the British Army in 1916

The Murder Machine

Motivation, Dependency

“All racist and anti-semitic attacks must be stamped out. However, the reality is that the great bulk of racist attacks in Europe today are on black people, Asians and Muslims — and they are the primary targets of the extreme right. For 20 years Israeli governments have attempted to portray anyone who forcefully criticises the policies of Israel as anti-semitic. The truth is the opposite: the same universal human values that recognise the Holocaust as the greatest racist crime of the 20th century require condemnation of the policies of successive Israeli governments — not on the absurd grounds that they are Nazi or equivalent to the Holocaust, but because ethnic cleansing, discrimination and terror are immoral.
They are also fuelling anger and violence across the world. For a mayor of London not to speak out against such injustice would not only be wrong — but would also ignore the threat it poses to the security of all Londoners.”

Ken Livingstone (1945) Mayor of London between 2000 and 2008

Commentary in The Guardian (4 March 2005)

People, Truth, World, Reality

“What ideas individuals may attach to the term "Millennium" I know not; but I know that society may be formed so as to exist without crime, without poverty, with health greatly improved, with little, if any misery, and with intelligence and happiness increased a hundredfold; and no obstacle whatsoever intervenes at this moment except ignorance to prevent such a state of society from becoming universal.”

Robert Owen (1771–1858) Welsh social reformer

Address to the Inhabitants of New Lanark (1816)

Happiness, Health, Intelligence, Idea

“The United States is an illegitimate country, just like Israel. It has no right to exist. That country belongs to the Red man, the American Indian… It's actually a shame to be a so-called American, because everybody living there is a usurper, an invader taking part in this crime, which is to rob the land, rob the country and kill all the American Indians.”

Bobby Fischer (1943–2008) American chess prodigy, chess player, and chess writer

Interview en-route to Iceland, March 24 2005 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QryuMf8qZ0g 2000s

Parting, Country

“There’s no such thing as a DDoS [distributed denial of service] ‘attack’,” Leiderman said. “A DDoS is a protest, it’s a digital sit it. It is no different than physically occupying a space. It’s not a crime, it’s speech.”

Jay Leiderman (1971) lawyer

As stated in, DDOS Attacks and Protest Speech. http://talkingpointsmemo.com/idealab/homeless-hacker-lawyer-ddos-isn-t-an-attack-it-s-a-digital-sit-in
Variant: There’s no such thing as a DDoS [distributed denial of service] ‘attack’,” Leiderman said. “A DDoS is a protest, it’s a digital sit it. It is no different than physically occupying a space. It’s not a crime, it’s speech.

“Some People are not to be persuaded to taste of any Creatures they have daily seen and been acquainted with, while they were alive; others extend their Scruple no further than to their own Poultry, and refuse to eat what they fed and took care of themselves; yet all of them will feed heartily and without Remorse on Beef, Mutton and Fowls when they are bought in the Market. In this Behaviour, methinks, there appears something like a Consciousness of Guilt, it looks as if they endeavor'd to save themselves from the Imputation of a Crime (which they know sticks somewhere) by removing the cause of it as far as they can from themselves; and I can discover in it some strong remains of Primitive Pity and Innocence, which all the arbitrary Power of Custom, and the violence of Luxury, have not yet been able to conquer.”

Bernard Mandeville book The Fable of the Bees

Remark P, pp. 188-9
The Fable of the Bees (1714)

People, Strong, Appearance

“The Administration says then, there are no downsides or upsides to treating terrorists like civilian criminal defendants.But a lot of us would beg to differ. For example, there are questions we would've liked this foreign terrorist to answer before he lawyered up and invoked our US constitutional right to remain silence. Our US constitutional rights. Our rights that you, sir [addressing veteran in audience], fought and were willing to die for to protect in our Constitution. The rights that my son, as an infantryman in the United States Army, is willing to die for. The protections provided — thanks to you, sir! — we're gonna bestow them on a terrorist who hates our Constitution?! And tries to destroy our Constitution and our country. This makes no sense because we have a choice in how we're going to deal with a terrorist — we don't have to go down that road.There are questions that we would have liked answered before he lawyered up, like, "Where exactly were you trained and by whom? You—you're braggin' about all these other terrorists just like you — uh, who are they? When and where will they try to strike next?" The events surrounding the Christmas Day plot reflect the kind of thinking that led to September 11th. That threat — the threat, then, as the U. S. S. Cole was attacked, our embassies were attacked, it was treated like an international crime spree, not like an act of war. We're seeing that mindset again settle into Washington. That scares me, for my children and for your children. Treating this like a mere law enforcement matter places our country at grave risk. Because that's not how radical Islamic extremists are looking at this. They know we're at war. And to win that war, we need a commander-in-chief, not a perfesser of law standing at the lectern!”

Sarah Palin (1964) American politician

National Tea Party Convention keynote speech, Nashville, Tennessee, , quoted in
regarding President Obama
2014

Hate, War, Children, Law

“Decency, security, and liberty alike demand that government officials shall be subjected to the same rules of conduct that are commands to the citizen. In a government of laws, existence of the government will be imperiled if it fails to observe the law scrupulously. Our government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or for ill, it teaches the whole people by its example. Crime is contagious. If the government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy. To declare that in the administration of the criminal law the end justifies the means -- to declare that the government may commit crimes in order to secure the conviction of a private criminal -- would bring terrible retribution. Against that pernicious doctrine this court should resolutely set its face.”

Louis Brandeis (1856–1941) American Supreme Court Justice

Dissenting, Olmstead v. United States, 277 U.S. 438 (1928).
Judicial opinions

People, Law, Teachers

“Benjamin Black is a craftsman and these are crafted works. I'm very proud of them. I think they're well made, but Banville is doing something else – he's trying to make a kind of poetry, I suppose. I'm a perfectionist. It's an illness but a good illness. It's a completely different method of writing. Banville writes with a fountain pen on paper in a manuscript book and Black works straight on to the screen. It could take me a whole morning to write a few sentences as Banville, but as Black I'd be very annoyed if I didn't have at least two or three pages done. This drives crime-writers crackers because they think I'm saying that their craft is not worth it. I'm simply saying it's a different thing. I don't know why they worry when I talk about speed; after all, Georges Simenon wrote his books in about 10 days.”

John Banville (1945) Irish writer

John Banville: Who cares whodunnit? (2013)

Books, Thinking, Speed

“Ugly. Is irrelevant. It is an immeasurable insult to a woman, and then supposedly the worst crime you can commit as a woman. But ugly, as beautiful, is an illusion. A matter of taste, a whim, an eye, a beholder, an opinion, a spin, light crossing the frame, paint, projection. The moment. Context.”

Margaret Cho (1968) American stand-up comedian

From Her Weblog

Beauty, Light, Painting

“Do you know that ages will pass and mankind will proclaim in its wisdom and science that there is no crime and, therefore no sin, but that there are only hungry people. "Feed them first and then demand virtue of them!" — that is what they will inscribe on their banner which they will raise against you and which will destroy your temple.”

Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1821–1881) Russian author

The Brothers Karamazov (1879–1880)

Wisdom, People, Age, Science

“Stifter tells us that people are not free, that they are slaves to the laws of Nature. So you have to commit violent deeds (if you don’t have anyone to do other kinds of deeds with), actions that ordinary people would call crimes but which we define as the norm, though of course it is our norm and no that of the rest.”

Elfriede Jelinek book Wonderful, Wonderful Times

55
Wonderful, Wonderful Times (1990)

People, Law, Nature

“This year we must continue to improve the quality of American life. Let us fulfill and improve the great health and education programs of last year, extending special opportunities to those who risk their lives in our armed forces. I urge the House of Representatives to complete action on three programs already passed by the Senate—the Teacher Corps, rent assistance, and home rule for the District of Columbia. In some of our urban areas we must help rebuild entire sections and neighborhoods containing, in some cases, as many as 100,000 people. Working together, private enterprise and government must press forward with the task of providing homes and shops, parks and hospitals, and all the other necessary parts of a flourishing community where our people can come to live the good life. I will offer other proposals to stimulate and to reward planning for the growth of entire metropolitan areas. Of all the reckless devastations of our national heritage, none is really more shameful than the continued poisoning of our rivers and our air. We must undertake a cooperative effort to end pollution in several river basins, making additional funds available to help draw the plans and construct the plants that are necessary to make the waters of our entire river systems clean, and make them a source of pleasure and beauty for all of our people. To attack and to overcome growing crime and lawlessness, I think we must have a stepped-up program to help modernize and strengthen our local police forces. Our people have a right to feel secure in their homes and on their streets—and that right just must be secured. Nor can we fail to arrest the destruction of life and property on our highways.”

Lyndon B. Johnson (1908–1973) American politician, 36th president of the United States (in office from 1963 to 1969)

1960s, State of the Union Address (1966)

Life, People, Health, Pleasure

“The brazen arms were working more quickly. They paused no longer. Every time that a child was placed in them the priests of Moloch spread out their hands upon him to burden him with the crimes of the people, vociferating: "They are not men but oxen!" and the multitude round about repeated: "Oxen! oxen!"”

Gustave Flaubert book Salammbô

The devout exclaimed: "Lord! Eat!"
Salammbô (1862), Ch. 13 : Moloch

Men, People, Time

“It was Lavrentiy Beria who told Stalin,‘show me the man, and I’ll find your crime.’ You can go through the federal criminal code and find crimes that virtually any businessman, any politician has committed. It is so easy to get a warrant. It is so easy to persuade a judge to give you a wiretap warrant. That simply doesn’t protect American citizens, and any civil libertarian who was exposed to what’s going on here today — if Hillary Clinton were the subject — would be taking exactly the opposite position.”

Alan M. Dershowitz (1938) American lawyer, author

Interview over Michael Cohen, MSNBC, May 3, 2018, hosted by Steve Kornacki. Christian Datoc, “Dershowitz Explodes: ‘I Don’t Want To Live In A Police State,” The Daily Caller, May 3, 2018 http://dailycaller.com/2018/05/03/dershowitz-i-dont-want-to-live-in-police-state/

“To put it in simple English, you break the law, you commit a crime, you do the time.”

Koila Nailatikau (1953) Fijian politician

On the government's proposed Reconciliation and Unity Commission, 26 July, 2005

Law, Time

“[the authors in Justice Belied made a] compelling case that this system is not only flawed but produces serious and systematic injustice. One major theme pressed in a number of chapters is that the international criminal justice system (ICJS) that has emerged in the age of tribunals and “humanitarian intervention” has replaced a real, if imperfect, system of international justice with one that misuses forms of justice to allow dominant powers to attack lesser countries without legal impediment. No tribunals have been established for Israel’s actions in Palestine or Kagame’s mass killings in the DRC. Numerous authors in Justice Belied stress the remarkable fact of the ICC’s [International Criminal Court] exclusive focus on Africans, with not a single case of charges brought against non-Africans. And within Africa itself the selectivity is notorious – U. S. clients Kagame and Museveni are exempt; U. S. targets Kenyatta, Taylor, and Gadaffi are charged. […] The system has worked poorly in service to justice, as the authors point out, but U. S. policy has had larger geopolitical and economic aims, and underwriting Kagame’s terror in Rwanda and the DRC and directing the ICC toward selected African targets while ignoring others served those aims. Many of the statutes and much political rhetoric accompanying the new ICJS proclaimed the aim of bringing peace and reconciliation. But this was blatant hypocrisy as the exclusion of aggression as a crime, the selectivity of application, the frequency of applied victor’s justice, and the manifold abuses of the judicial processes have made for war, hatred, and exacerbated conflict. The authors of Justice Belied do a remarkable job of spelling out these sorry conditions and calling for a dismantling of the new ICJS and return to the UN Charter and nation-based attention to dealing with injustice.”

Edward S. Herman (1925–2017) American journalist

Herman, review of Justice Belied: The Unbalanced Scales of International Criminal Justice, Z Magazine, January 2015.
2010s

War, Age, Peace, Justice

“No one can doubt that presumptions may be made in criminal as well as in civil cases. It is constantly the practice to act upon them, and I apprehend that more than one half of the persons convicted of crimes are convicted on presumptive evidence.”

Sir John Bayley, 1st Baronet (1763–1841) British judge

1 St. Tr. (N. S.) 131.
Trial of Sir Francis Burdett (King v. Burdett) (1820)

Personality

“"Maybe this crime belongs to the history of Jewish superstitions," murmmured Lönnrot.
"Like Christianity," the editor put in.”

Jorge Luis Borges book Ficciones

"Death and the Compass"
Ficciones (1944)

History

“You are suffering from the unrestricted imports of cheaper goods. You are suffering also from the unrestricted immigration of the people who make these goods. (Loud and prolonged cheers.)…The evils of immigration have increased during recent years. And behind those people who have already reached these shores, remember there are millions of the same kind who, under easily conceivable circumstances, might follow in their track, and might invade this country in a way and to an extent of which few people have at present any conception. The same causes that brought 10,000 and 20,000, and tens of thousands, may bring hundreds of thousands, or even millions. (Hear, hear.) If that would be an evil, surely he is a statesman who would deal with it in the beginning. (Hear, hear.)…When it began we were told it was so small that it would not matter to us. Now it has been growing with great rapidity, it has already affected a whole district, it is spreading into other parts of the country…Will you take it in time (hear, hear), or will you wait, hoping for something to turn up which will preserve you from what you all see to be the natural consequences of such an invasion? …it is a fact that when these aliens come here they are answerable for a larger amount of crime and disease and hopeless poverty than are proportionate to their numbers. (Cheers.) They come here—I do not blame them, I am speaking of the results—they come here and change the whole character of a district. (Cheers.) The speech, the nationality of whole streets has been altered; and British workmen have been driven by the fierce competition of famished men from trades which they previously followed. (Cheers.)…But the party of free importers is against any reform. How could they be otherwise?…they are perfectly consistent. If sweated goods are to be allowed in this country without restriction, why not the people who make them? Where is the difference? There is no difference either in the principle or in the results. It all comes to the same thing—less labour for the British working man.”

Joseph Chamberlain (1836–1914) British businessman, politician, and statesman

Cheers.
Speech in Limehouse in the East End of London (15 December 1904), quoted in ‘Mr. Chamberlain In The East-End.’, The Times (16 December 1904), p. 8.
1900s

Men, People, Disease, Hope

“Ronald Reagan claimed that the Russian language had no word for "freedom." (The word is "svoboda"; it's quite well attested in Russian literature)… said that intercontinental ballistic missiles (not that there are any non-ballistic missiles—a corruption of language that isn't his fault) could be recalled once launched… said that he sought a "Star Wars" defense only in order to share the technology with the tyrants of the U. S. S. R… professed to be annoyed when people called it "Star Wars," even though he had ended his speech on the subject with the lame quip, "May the force be with you"… used to alarm his Soviet counterparts by saying that surely they'd both unite against an invasion from Mars… used to alarm other constituencies by speaking freely about the "End Times" foreshadowed in the Bible. In the Oval Office, Ronald Reagan told Yitzhak Shamir and Simon Wiesenthal, on two separate occasions, that he himself had assisted personally at the liberation of the Nazi death camps.There was more to Ronald Reagan than that. Reagan announced that apartheid South Africa had "stood beside us in every war we've ever fought," when the South African leadership had been on the other side in the most recent world war… allowed Alexander Haig to greenlight the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982, fired him when that went too far and led to mayhem in Beirut, then ran away from Lebanon altogether when the Marine barracks were bombed, and then unbelievably accused Tip O'Neill and the Democrats of "scuttling.".. sold heavy weapons to the Iranian mullahs and lied about it, saying that all the weapons he hadn't sold them (and hadn't traded for hostages in any case) would, all the same, have fit on a small truck… then diverted the profits of this criminal trade to an illegal war in Nicaragua and lied unceasingly about that, too… then modestly let his underlings maintain that he was too dense to understand the connection between the two impeachable crimes. He then switched without any apparent strain to a policy of backing Saddam Hussein against Iran. (If Margaret Thatcher's intelligence services had not bugged Oliver North in London and become infuriated because all European nations were boycotting Iran at Reagan's request, we might still not know about this.) One could go on… This was a man never short of a cheap jibe or the sort of falsehood that would, however laughable, buy him some time.”

Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) British American author and journalist

2000s, 2004

Death, War, People, World

“Crimes, like Virtues, are their own Rewards.”

George Farquhar (1677–1707) Irish dramatist

The Inconstant (1702), Ori, Act iv, Sc. 2.

“(1) Every year, in this nation of more than a quarter billion individuals, a few thousand (three quarters of them suicides) are killed with firearms, while millions of Americans successfully use personal weapons to save themselves and others from injury or death. Guns save many, many times more lives than they take.
(2) In every jurisdiction that has made it even microscopically easier for individuals to carry weapons, violent crime rates have plummeted by double-digit percentages. Vermont, where no permission of any kind is required to carry a gun, is named in many respectable surveys as the safest state to live in.
(3) More telling and urgent, every episode of genocidal mass murder in history has been preceded by a period of intense disarming of the civil population, usually with 'public safety' or 'national security' as an excuse. According to Amnesty International — hardly a gang of right wing crazies — in the 20th century alone (in events entirely separate from war), governments have slaughtered more than a hundred million people, usually their own citizens.”

L. Neil Smith (1946) American writer

"Murder by Gun Control" http://www.ncc-1776.org/tle2000/libe68-20000331-07.html 31 March 2000.

Death, War, People, History

“The original resolution condemned the Moplas wholesale for the killing of Hindus and burning of Hindu homes and the forcible conversion to Islam. The Hindu members themselves proposed amendments till it was reduced to condemning only certain individuals who had been guilty of the above crimes. But some of the Moslem leaders could not bear this even. Maulana Fakir and other Maulanas, of course, opposed the resolution and there was no wonder. But I was surprised, an out-and-out Nationalist like Maulana Hasrat Mohani opposed the resolution on the ground that the Mopla country no longer remained Dar-ul-Aman but became Dar-ul-Harab and they suspected the Hindus of collusion with the British enemies of the Moplas. Therefore, the Moplas were right in presenting the Quran or sword to the Hindus. And if the Hindus became Mussalmans to save themselves from death, it was a voluntary change of faith and not forcible conversion—Well, even the harmless resolution condemning some of the Moplas was not unanimously passed but had to be accepted by a majority of votes only.”

Swami Shraddhanand (1856–1926) Indian monk and philosopher

Swami Shraddhanand in the Liberator of 26 August 1926. [Shraddanand, Swami, 26 August 1926, The Liberator]

Death, Faith, Home, Change

“O Liberty, how many crimes are committed in thy name!”

Marie-Jeanne Roland de la Platière (1754–1793) French revolutionary

On being led to her execution, sometimes stated to have been directed at a specific statue of Liberty, in Memoirs, Appendix; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919), and in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922); used by Thomas Babington Macaulay, Essay on Mirabeau. Variants: O liberté, comme on t'a jouée! O Liberty, how thou hast been played with! As quoted in Letters Containing a Sketch of the Politics of France (1795) by Helen Maria Williams, Vol. 1, p. 201 http://books.google.de/books?id=FTkuAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA201

“3135. Every one is for denying, extenuating, or throwing the Blame on others, and never will confess a Fault, and take it upon himself; but this, instead of getting it excused and pardoned aggravates it, and makes it worse, and angers the Party concerned, and so it doth Mischief instead of Good. I advise therefore (unless it be a furious, unforgiving Person, and the Thing be a Crime that must not be owned) frankly to own it, to shew how thou wast brought into it, and wish thou hadst not done it. It's likely this ingenuous dealing and throwing thyself upon his Kindness, may work upon his good Nature, and so the storm may pass off without more Mischief; but this must be managed artfully in a middle Way between Sneaking and Arrogancy.”

Thomas Fuller (writer) (1654–1734) British physician, preacher, and intellectual

Introductio ad prudentiam: Part II (1727)

Way, Nature, Personality, Anger

“Innocence is very far from finding as much protection as crime.”

François de La Rochefoucauld book Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims

Il s'en faut bien que l'innocence ne trouve autant de protection que le crime.
Maxim 465.
Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims (1665–1678)

Quotes about crime page 8

Quotes about crime
page 8