Larceny Quotes

• One man's larceny is another's just distribution of goods.

  Robert Bork

  Men, Goods, Distribution

  Robert H. Bork (2009). “The Tempting of America”, p.249, Simon and Schuster

  21 Copy quote

  Show source

• If there is any larceny in a man, golf will bring it out.

  Paul Gallico

  Golf, Men, Handicaps

  Paul Gallico (2015). “Farewell to Sport”, p.165, Open Road Media

  19 Copy quote

  Show source

• After watching the State of the Union address the other night [1994], I'm reminded of the old adage that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Only in this case, it's not flattery, but grand larceny: the intellectual theft of ideas that you and I recognize as our own. Speech delivery counts for little on the world stage unless you have convictions, and, yes, the vision to see beyond the front row seats.

  Ronald Reagan

  Leadership, Night, Ideas

  Remarks on the Occasion of 83rd Birthday Gala, delivered 3 February 1994

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• The man who is admired for the ingenuity of his larceny is almost always rediscovering some earlier form of fraud. The basic forms are all known, have all been practiced. The manners of capitalism improve. The morals may not.

  John Kenneth Galbraith

  Men, Investing, May

  "The Age of Uncertainty". Book by John Kenneth Galbraith, 1977.

  18 Copy quote

  Show source

• The enemy aggressor is always pursuing a course of larceny, murder, rapine, and barbarism. We are always moving forward with high mission, a destiny imposed by the deity to regenerate our victims while incidentally capturing their markets, to civilize savage and senile and paranoidal peoples while blundering accidentally into their oil wells or metal mines.

  John T. Flynn

  Peace, Moving, Destiny

  John T. Flynn (1944). “As We Go Marching”

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• What I have learned about corporate capitalism, roughly, is that it is an act of theft, by and large, through which a very few live very high off the work, invention, and creativity of very many others. It is the Grand Larceny of our particular time in history, the Grand Larceny in which a future of freedom which could have followed the collapse of feudalism was stolen from under our noses by a new bunch of bosses doing the same old things

  Karl Hess

  Creativity, Old Things, Boss

  Karl Hess (1975). “Dear America”, William Morrow &Company

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• There is a difference between jaywalking and grand larceny.

  Gaylord Perry

  Differences

  8 Copy quote

• The old doctrine that God wanted man to do something for him, and that he kept a watchful eye upon all the children of men; that he rewarded the virtuous and punished the wicked, is gradually fading from the mind. We know that some of the worst men have what the world calls success. We know that some of the best men lie upon the straw of failure. We know that honesty goes hungry, while larceny sits at the banquet. We know that the vicious have every physical comfort, while the virtuous are often clad in rags.

  Robert Green Ingersoll

  Children, Honesty, Lying

  Robert Green Ingersoll (1907). “The Works of Robert G.Ingersoll. [Dresden Ed.]”

  28 Copy quote

  Show source

• About a veteran player thrown out trying to steal second: There was larceny in his heart, but his legs were honest.

  Arthur Baer

  Honesty, Heart, Player

  4 Copy quote

• There is two types of Larceny, Petty and Grand. They are supposed to be the same in the eyes of the law, but judges always put a little extra on you for Petty, which is kind of a fine for stupidness.

  Will Rogers

  Eye, Law, Two

  Will Rogers, Bryan B. Sterling (1995). “Will Rogers Speaks: Over 1,000 Timeless Quotations for Public Speakers (writers, Politicians, Comedians, Browsers ...)”, M Evans & Company

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Hidden behind the facade of pompous jargon and noble affections, there is more sheer larceny per square foot on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange than any place else in the world.

  Richard Ney

  New York, Squares, Feet

  6 Copy quote

• We are all pirates at heart. There is not one of us who hasn't had a little larceny in his soul. And which one of us wouldn't soar if God had thought there was merit in the idea? So, when we see one of those great widespread pirates soaring across the grain of sea winds we thrill, and we long, and, if we are honest, we curse that we must be men every day. Why not one day a bird! There's an idea, now, one day out of seven a pirate in the sky. What puny power a man can attain by comparison. Compare a 747 with a bird and blush!

  Roger Caras

  Heart, Men, Wind

  Roger A. Caras (1971). “Birds in flight”, Westover Pub. Co

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• the writer must resist this temptation [to quote] and do his best with his own tools. It would be most convenient for us musicians if, arrived at a given emotional crisis in our work, we could simply stick in a few bars of Brahms or Schubert. Indeed many composers have no hesitation in so doing. But I have never heard the practice defended; possibly because that hideous symbol of petty larceny, the inverted comma, cannot well be worked into a musical score.

  Ethel Smyth

  Emotional, Practice, Temptation

  Ethel Smyth (1922). “Streaks of life”

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• Terrific. Now to win a larceny trial all we have to do is prove how the universe ends.

  Adam Schiff

  Winning, Trials, Ends

  7 Copy quote

• Catherine Land liked the beginnings of things. The pure white possibility of the empty room, the first kiss, the first swipe at larceny. And endings, she liked endings, too. The drama of the smashing glass, the dead bird, the tearful goodbye, the last awful word which could never be unsaid or unremembered.
  It was the middles that gave her pause. This, for all its forward momentum, this was a middle. The beginnings were sweet, the endings usually bitter, but the middles were only the tightrope you walked between the one and the other. No more than that.

  Robert Goolrick

  Goodbye, Sweet, Drama

  4 Copy quote

• Stealing a man's wife, that's nothing, but stealing his car, that's larceny.

  James M. Cain

  Men, Wife, Car

  James M. Cain (2010). “The Postman Always Rings Twice”, p.20, Hachette UK

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• I love songs about horses, railroads, land, Judgment Day, family, hard times, whiskey, courtship, marriage, adultery, separation, murder, war, prison, rambling, damnation, home, salvation, death, pride, humor, piety, rebellion, patriotism, larceny, determination, tragedy, rowdiness, heartbreak and love. And Mother. And God.

  Johnny Cash

  Love, Mother, Song

  119 Copy quote

• [Libertarians] don't denounce what the state does, they just object to who's doing it. This is why the people most victimized by the state display the least interest in libertarianism. Those on the receiving end of coercion don't quibble over their coercers' credentials. If you can't pay or don't want to, you don't much care if your deprivation is called larceny or taxation or restitution or rent. If you like to control your own time, you distinguish employment from enslavement only in degree and duration.

  Bob Black

  People, Receiving, Degrees

  10 Copy quote

• It is difficult for young people to live things down. We will tolerate vice, grand larceny and the quieter forms of murder in our contemporaries... but our children's friends must show a blank service record.

  F. Scott Fitzgerald

  Children, People, Vices

  F. Scott Fitzgerald, Jackson R. Bryer, John Richard Kuehl (1997). “The Basil and Josephine Stories”, p.285, Simon and Schuster

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• A majority of the crime in the downtown is property crime. There have been a few larcenies and burglaries, but robberies and assaults are not common in the downtown. There isn't usually any violent crime.

  Greg Smith

  Majority, Downtown, Common

  7 Copy quote

• The collection of taxes which are not absolutely required, which do not beyond reasonable doubt contribute to public welfare, is only a species of legalized larceny. Under this Republic the rewards of industry belong to those who earn them.

  Calvin Coolidge

  Doubt, Republic, Rewards

  10 Copy quote

• A man's idea in a game of cards is war, cruel, devastating, and pitiless. A lady's idea of it is a combination of larceny, embezzlement and burglary.

  Finley Peter Dunne

  War, Men, Games

  54 Copy quote