Anya looked upon Nin admirably. Having him as a partner-in-crime—if only on this one occasion, which she hoped would only be the start of something more—was more revitalizing than the cheap thrills of a cookie-cutter shallow, superficial romance, where the top priority was how beautiful a person was on the outside.
There is nothing morally wrong with buying stolen goods, unless you know that they were stolen.
He went through the bills with the jaundiced eye of a China trader, asking himself not whether he had been stolen from, but where the theft had occurred. If he couldn’t find it, that would suggest his factor back home in Shanghai was either cleverer or more honest than he had thought, and Crane didn’t think he was particularly honest.
Fear is a lethal killer of dreams, the greatest cancer that has beset passion, and a ruthless thief of lives stolen and buried in the decay of lives squandered. Yet the greatest tragedy of all is that the fear that destroys us is rarely the monster it pretends to be, nor does it possess anything close to the power that we grant it. Therefore, it is only a killer, a cancer and a thief because we empower it to be so.
Here is a tragicomic reality of all the regimes: People work hard to feed their thief politicians, their thief kings and thief queens or their thief presidents! And therefore the tragicomic reality of all the times is this: There can exist no thieves without the support of people!
At that level through out the 18th century, another vision of admirable behavior persisted. The mob did not want the smooth conformable man, the slick hypocrite who could so politely maneuver his way into the rewards of high politics and high society. They wanted his very opposite, the clever thief. The man who thrived not by using the well oiled wheels of society but by opposing them and cheating them; by attending to the well-being of his own heroic self.
Leaders will love to be poor and see their people rich, than to be rich and see their people poor. This is their mission.
You don't necessarily need atomic bombs to destroy a nation. Politicians who value their pockets than the life of citizens always do that every day.
If the Pentateuch be true, religious persecution is a duty. The dungeons of the Inquisition were temples, and the clank of every chain upon the limbs of heresy was music in the ear of God. If the Pentateuch was inspired, every heretic should be destroyed; and every man who advocates a fact inconsistent with the sacred book, should be consumed by sword and flame.In the Old Testament no one is told to reason with a heretic, and not one word is said about relying upon argument, upon education, nor upon intellectual development—nothing except simple brute force. Is there to-day a christian who will say that four thousand years ago, it was the duty of a husband to kill his wife if she differed with him upon the subject of religion? Is there one who will now say that, under such circumstances, the wife ought to have been killed? Why should God be so jealous of the wooden idols of the heathen? Could he not compete with Baal? Was he envious of the success of the Egyptian magicians? Was it not possible for him to make such a convincing display of his power as to silence forever the voice of unbelief? Did this God have to resort to force to make converts? Was he so ignorant of the structure of the human mind as to believe all honest doubt a crime? If he wished to do away with the idolatry of the Canaanites, why did he not appear to them? Why did he not give them the tables of the law? Why did he only make known his will to a few wandering savages in the desert of Sinai? Will some theologian have the kindness to answer these questions? Will some minister, who now believes in religious liberty, and eloquently denounces the intolerance of Catholicism, explain these things; will he tell us why he worships an intolerant God? Is a god who will burn a soul forever in another world, better than a christian who burns the body for a few hours in this? Is there no intellectual liberty in heaven? Do the angels all discuss questions on the same side? Are all the investigators in perdition? Will the penitent thief, winged and crowned, laugh at the honest folks in hell? Will the agony of the damned increase or decrease the happiness of God? Will there be, in the universe, an eternal auto da fe?
It’s unfair to see managers buying brand new cars for themselves when the salaries of their workers still remain unpaid! Good leaders are not selfish thinkers!
If a politician obtained a great wealth after he has been elected, his being an immoral corrupt man is not a possibility but it is a self-evident reality!
Soup’s here,” Judd finally said after we watched each other for a few minutes. As I sipped the broth, Judd pretended to ignore me. I knew he wasn’t really watching television. His face was too perfectly stoic like he was working hard to make himself seem cold. “Do you want the rest?” I asked. Judd frowned at me. “If I wanted soup, I’d have ordered myself some. I’m not a dog begging for scraps.” Scowling at his ridiculous anger, I shrugged. “I don’t want to waste the rest. Can we put it in the mini fridge and I’ll eat it in the morning?” Judd’s frown eased. “Fuck it. I’ll eat it.” “No, it’s mine,” I said, standing up. “I offered and you got grumpy. Now, you can’t have it.” “I’ll just eat it after you go to sleep.” “I respect your honesty,” I said, setting the bowl into the little fridge next to the expensive treats. “It’s a rare quality in a thief.” Judd grinned.
I am against justice … whenever it is carried out by a mob.
Hair the color of lemons,'" Rudy read. His fingers touched the words. "You told him about me?"At first, Liesel could not talk. Perhaps it was the sudden bumpiness of love she felt for him. Or had she always loved him? It's likely. Restricted as she was from speaking, she wanted him to kiss her. She wanted him to drag her hand across and pull her over. It didn't matter where. Her mouth, her neck, her cheek. Her skin was empty for it, waiting.Years ago, when they'd raced on a muddy field, Rudy was a hastily assembled set of bones, with a jagged, rocky smile. In the trees this afternoon, he was a giver of bread and teddy bears. He was a triple Hitler Youth athletics champion. He was her best friend. And he was a month from his death.Of course I told him about you," Liesel said.
I am in all truthfulness attempting to be cheerful about this whole topic, though most people find themselves hindered in believing me, no matter my protestations. Please, trust me. I most definitely can be cheerful. I can be amiable. Agreeable. Affable. And that's only the A's. Just don't ask me to be nice. Nice has nothing to do with me.
She stood up and took the book from him, and as he smiled over his shoulder at some other kids, she threw it away and kicked him as hard as she could in the vicinity of the groin.Well, as you might imagine, Ludwig Schmeikl certainly buckled, and on the way down, he was punched in the ear. When he landed, he was set upon. When he was set upon, he was slapped and clawed and obliterated by a girl who was utterly consumed with rage. His skin was so warm and soft. Her knuckles and fingernails were so frighteningly tough, despite their smal
He loved his job. What was advertising, anyway, but a knowledge of people and of which buttons to push to nudge them into opening their wallets?It was, he often though, an accepted, creative, even expected twist on picking those wallets. For a man who had spent the first half of his life as a thief, it was the perfect career.
Having no applicable skills, in any possible area whatsoever, effectively makes me the master of redundancy. But that info is obsolete, like my insults dictionary, which I stole.
Hot, bright heat filled him like some ecstatic poison, and Hartan's pony shied in terror as a wordless howl burst from his throat. His dripping ears were flat to his skull, fire crackled in his brown eyes, his huge sword blurred in a whirring figure eight before him, and the brigand running at him gawked in sudden panic. The raider's feet skidded in mud as he tried to brake, but it was far too late. He was face-to-face with the worst nightmare of any Norfressan, a Horse Stealer hradani in the grip of the Rage, and a thunderbolt of steel split him from crown to navel.
The ring which you are holding, my friend, is identical to that one. I had it cut according to the model of the king's ring, and damascened in Spain. The original is still in the Escorial; it would have been pleasant to steal it, for I easily acquire the instincts of a thief when I am in a museum, and I always find objects which have a history - especially a tragic history - uniquely attractive. I am not an Englishman for nothing - but that which is easily enough accomplished in France is not at all practical in Spain: the museums there are very secure.
Not all generous hearts are gullible enough to be screwed by cold, calculating, business propaganda. A person who has an eye for what is right and the truth will immediately spot the cunning ways of a selfish "user and hungry grabber" who took initiative to grab the originality from other people they tried to profile, fake befriended and extracted favours." ~ Angelica Hopes, an excerpt from If I Could Tell You
Its Vermeer"Kat turned to the boy who lingered in the doorway. "It's stolen""What can I say?" Hale eased behind her and studied the painting over her shoulder. "I met a very nice man who bet me he had the best security system in Istanbul." His breath was warm on the back of her neck. "He was mistaken.
It was the first time I saw the look on the face of the people I robbed: it was ugly. I was the cause of such ugliness, and the only thing that made me feel was a cruel pleasure which, I thought, was bound to transfigure my own face, to make me resplendent. I was then 23 years old. From that moment on, I felt capable of advancing in cruelty.
You clumsy wench—Gods above! Are you trying to rob me, girl?” The nobleman seizes my wrist and yanks it from his pocket. My hand comes up with the pipe clenched in it. I stare at him, horrified.“I . . .”“I’ll have your head for this!” the man rages. “I’ll have you whipped!”***“I got the pipe,” I say, holding it up.He stares for a minute, blinking, and then bursts into laughter. A few curious deer stick their heads through the shrubs to see what the racket is. Aladdin doubles over, laughing loud enough to startle birds from the trees overhead, and after a moment, I start laughing too. I haven’t laughed this hard in a long, long while, and it feels wonderful. We sit on the grass and laugh until our faces are red and we’re out of breath.“You are the worst thief I have ever seen,” declares Aladdin.“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I got it, didn’t I?”“My grandmother could pick pockets better than that! Though that’s not quite fair; my grandmother was the best pickpocket in Parthenia. She taught me all her tricks. Drove my mother crazy.