In the discussion of these matters, and especially in the general moral denunciation of the Nazi crimes, it is almost always overlooked that the true moral issue did not arise with the behavior of the Nazis but of those who only “coordinated” themselves and did not act out of conviction. It is not too difficult to see and even to understand how someone may decide “to prove a villain” and, given the opportunity, to try out a reversal of the Decalogue, starting with the command: “Thou shalt kill” and ending with a precept: “Thou shalt lie.”
Quotations about:
criminal
Note not all quotations have been tagged, so Search may find additional quotes on this topic.
SECOND MURDERER: I am one, my liege,
Whom the vile blows and buffets of the world
Have so incensed that I am reckless what
I do to spite the world.FIRST MURDERER: And I another,
So weary with disasters, tugged with fortune,
That I would set my life on any chance,
To mend it, or be rid on ‘t.William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
Macbeth, Act 3, sc. 1, l. 121ff (3.1.121-128) (1606)
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A physician would not cure his patients more effectually if he were angry with them for being ill, and the criminal law is not more effective when it is inspired by anger against the criminal. The criminal presents a problem, psychological, educational, sociological, and economic; this difficult problem is not best handled in a state of blind rage. All arguments for corporal punishment spring from anger, not from scientific understanding. As men become more scientific, such barbaric practices will be no longer tolerated.
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
“On corporal punishment,” New York American (1932-09-07)
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Informer, libel-monger, cut-throat, knave,
Pander, to every loathsome vice a slave,
Vacerra, it is marvellous that you
With these resources are a pauper, too.[Et delator es et calumniator,
Et fraudator es et negotiator,
Et fellator es et lanista. Miror
Quare non habeas, Vacerra, nummos.]Martial (AD c.39-c.103) Spanish Roman poet, satirist, epigrammatist [Marcus Valerius Martialis]
Epigrams [Epigrammata], Book 11, epigram 66 (11.66) (AD 96) [tr. Pott & Wright (1921)]
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"To Vacerra." (Source (Latin)). Alternate translations:Thou art a slanderer and delator,
False dealer, pimp, and fornicator:
Where such rare parts and trades are found,
I wonder much, thy purse does not abound.
[tr. Killigrew (1695)]You an informer are; and a back-biter:
A common sharper; and a hackney writer:
A whore-master; and master of defence:
Jack of all trades; strange! that you want the pence!
[tr. Hay (1755), ep. 67]Vile informer, slander's child!
Dealer, who hast still beguil'd!
Shield of war, and soul of arms,
How hast thou no golden charms?
[tr. Elphinston (1782), 6.1.39]You are an informer, a calumniator, a forger, a secret agent, a slave to the unclean, and a trainer of gladiators. I wonder, Vacerra, why you have no money.
[tr. Bohn's Classical (1859)]You're a blackmailer, bruiser and liar,
A usurer, pimp and a cheat:
With methods so sound
I'm surprised that you've found
Gaining wealth an impossible feat.
[tr. Nixon (1911)]You are an informer and a backbiter, and you are a cheat and a pimp, and you are a foul rascal and a master of gladiators. I wonder why you are not rich, Vacerra.
[tr. Ker (1919)]You're an informer and tool of slander
And a notorious swindler and a pander
And a cock-sucker and a gangster and a ...
I can't make out, Vacerra, why you're poor.
[tr. Michie (1972)]You're an informer and a slanderer, a swindler and a dealer, a sucker and a trainer. I wonder why you don't have any money, Vacerra.
[tr. Shackleton Bailey (1993)]X is a sneak
and a liar,
And a fraud,
and a pimp,
And an arselicker who coaches others, and....
...I really can't work out why he isn't a Director yet.
[tr. Ynys-Mon (2015), "The Corporate Conundrum"]How can the slippery son of a bitch,
With all his vices, not be rich?
[tr. Wills (2007)]You're an informer, slanderer, cocksucker, swindler, panderer, and fight instructor. It seems funny, Vacerra, that you have no money.
[tr. McLean (2014)]You're an informer and a lying witness,
a defrauder and a middleman,
a cocksucker and a provocateur.
Vacerra, I can't understand why you're not rich.
[tr. Nisbet (2015)]
To describe someone as a “criminal” is both to mark that person with a terrifying permanent character trait and simultaneously to place the person outside the circle of “us.” They are criminals. We make mistakes.
Jason Stanley (b. 1969) American philosopher, epistemologist, academic
How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them, ch. 7 (2018)
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To think yourself incapable of crime is one failure of the imagination. To think yourself capable of all crimes is another.
James Richardson (b. 1950) American poet
Vectors: Aphorisms and Ten-Second Essays, #122 (2001)
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Oh, but I hate it more
when a traitor, caught red-handed,
tries to glorify his crimes.[μισῶ γε μέντοι χὤταν ἐν κακοῖσί τις
ἁλοὺς ἔπειτα τοῦτο καλλύνειν θέλῃ.]
Sophocles (496-406 BC) Greek tragic playwright
Antigone, l. 495ff [Creon] (441 BC) [tr. Fagles (1982), l. 552ff]
(Source)
Original Greek. Alternate translations:Howbeit, to me it is no less abhorrent,
When, caught in criminality, the culprit
Seeks with fine words to beautify his deed.
[tr. Donaldson (1848)]More hateful still the miscreant who seeks
When caught, to make a virtue of a crime.
[tr. Storr (1859)]But not less hateful
Seems it to me, when one that hath been caught
In wickedness would give it a brave show.
[tr. Campbell (1873)]But, truly, I detest it, too, when one who has been caught in treachery then seeks to make the crime a glory.
[tr. Jebb (1891)]I cannot bear to see the guilty stand
Convicted of their crimes, and yet pretend
To gloss them o'er with specious names of virtue.
[tr. Werner (1892)]But verily this, too, is hateful, -- when one who hath been caught in wickedness then seeks to make the crime a glory.
[tr. Jebb (1917)]But now much worse than this
Is brazen boasting of barefaced anarchy.
[tr. Fitts/Fitzgerald (1939), l. 390ff]The criminal who being caught still tries.
To make a fair excuse , is damned indeed.
[tr. Watling (1947), l. 414ff]I hate it too when someone caught in crime
then wants to make it seem a lovely thing.
[tr. Wyckoff (1954)]But this is worst of all: to be convicted
And then to glorify the name as virtue.
[tr. Kitto (1962)]But how I hate it when she's caught in the act, And the criminal still glories in her crime. [tr. Woodruff (2001)]I hate it when someone, caught in ugliness, afterwards wants to make it look pretty. [tr. Tyrell/Bennett (2002)]And there’s nothing I hate more than when someone is caught committing a crime and tries to hide it by embellishing it with sweet words.
[tr. Theodoridis (2004)]How I despise
a person caught committing evil acts
who then desires to glorify the crime.
[tr. Johnston (2005), l. 562ff]I, for my part, hate anyone caught in the act who tries to beautify his crimes thereupon.
[tr. Thomas (2005)]I hate it when someone is caught in the midst of their evil deeds and tries to gloss over them.
[tr. @sentantiq (2020)]
The trouble with Eichmann was precisely that so many were like him, and that the many were neither perverted nor sadistic, that they were, and still are, terribly and terrifyingly normal. From the viewpoint of our legal institutions and of our moral standards of judgment, this normality was much more terrifying than all the atrocities put together, for it implied — as had been said at Nuremberg over and over again by the defendants and their counsels — that this new type of criminal, who is in actual fact hostis generis humani, commits his crimes under circumstances that make it well-nigh impossible for him to know or to feel that he is doing wrong.
Hannah Arendt (1906-1975) German-American philosopher, political theorist
Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil, Epilogue (1963)
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Hostis humani generis (Latin for "enemy of humanity") was an admiralty legal term indicating that slavers, pirates, and terrorists were held beyond legal protection and were a legitimate target of any nation.
Continuous association with base men increases a disposition to crime.
[Φαύλων ὁμιλίη συνεχὴς ἕξιν κακίης συναύξει.]
Democritus (c. 460 BC - c. 370 BC) Greek philosopher
Frag. 184 (Diels) [tr. Freeman (1948)]
(Source)
Cited in Diels as "184. (194 N.)"; collected in Joannes Stobaeus (Stobaios) Anthologium II, 31, 90.
Alternate translations:
- "Frequent association with the wicked increases a disposition to vice." [tr. Barnes (1987)]
- "Associating with scoundrels frequently increases the possession of wickedness." [tr. @sententiq (2020), Fr. 234]
- "By associating with scoundrels, you will turn out a scoundrel"
- "Continuous association with the wicked increases bad character."
People are very romantic about these guys, but the only thing I’ve ever learned is that if you talk to gangsters long enough, you’ll find out they’re just as bad as respectable people.
Murray Kempton (1917-1997) American journalist.
In Ron Rosenbaum, The Secret Parts of Fortune, “The Connoisseur of Scoundrels” (2000)
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The more laws and orders are made prominent,
The more thieves and bandits there will be.Lao-tzu (604?-531? BC) Chinese philosopher, poet [also Lao-tse, Laozi]
Tao-te Ching, ch. 57 [tr. Wing-Tsit Chan]
For de little stealin’ dey gits you in jail soon or late. For de big stealin’ dey makes you Emperor and puts you in de Hall o’ Fame when you croaks.
Eugene O'Neill (1888-1953) Irish American playwright, Nobel laureate
The Emperor Jones, 1 (1921)
Of all the men embezzling from their employers with whom I have had contact, I can’t remember a dozen who smoked, drank or had any of the vices in which bonding companies are so interested.
Dashiell Hammett (1894-1961) American author, screenwriter, political activist
Interview with Helen Herbert Foster, “House Burglary Poor Trade,” Brooklyn Eagle Magazine (Oct 1929)
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ZOE: I know something ain’t right.
WASH: Sweetie, we’re crooks. If everything were right, we’d be in jail.
Joss Whedon (b. 1964) American screenwriter, author, producer [Joseph Hill Whedon]
Firefly, 1×01 “Serenity” (pilot) (20 Dec 2002)
Macavity, Macavity, there’s no one like Macavity,
There never was a Cat of such deceitfulness and suavity.
He always has an alibi, and one or two to spare;
At whatever time the deed took place — MACAVITY WASN’T THERE!T. S. Eliot (1888-1965) American-British poet, critic, playwright [Thomas Stearns Eliot]
Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats, “Macavity: The Mystery Cat” (1939)
It is more important that innocence be protected than it is that guilt be punished, for guilt and crimes are so frequent in this world that they cannot all be punished. But if innocence itself is brought to the bar and condemned, perhaps to die, then the citizen will say, “whether I do good or whether I do evil is immaterial, for innocence itself is no protection,” and if such an idea as that were to take hold in the mind of the citizen that would be the end of security whatsoever.
John Adams (1735-1826) American lawyer, Founding Father, statesman, US President (1797-1801)
(Attributed)
Cited in some cases as the closing argument while defending the British Soldiers accused of killing 5 colonists in the "Boston Massacre" (usually given as "Argument in Defense of the Soldiers in the Boston Massacre Trials" (Dec 1770)), but I did not find it in accounts of that defense.
My wife should be as much free from suspicion of a crime as she is from a crime itself.
[Meos tam suspicione quam crimine iudico carere oportere.]
Julius Caesar (100-44 BC) Roman general and statesman [Gaius Julius Caesar]
In Suetonius, Life of Caesar
Popularly, "Caesar’s wife must be above reproach" or "beyond reproach."
Caesar was called to be a witness against Clodius, who was charge with having defiled sacred rites and having an affair with Pompeia, Caesar's wife. Caesar said he had investigated and found out nothing to prove the Pompeia's fidelity. When asked why, then, he had divorced her, he gave this answer.
Alt. trans.: "I judge it necessary for my kin to be as free from suspicion as from the charge of wrongdoing."
Alt. trans.: "I wished my wife to be not so much as suspected." [in Plutarch, “Caesar,” Parallel Lives [tr. Dryden (1693)]].
The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons.
Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1821-1881) Russian novelist
(Attributed)
Sometimes cited to Dostoyevsky's The House of the Dead (1862) [tr. Garnett (1957)], which is a semi-autobiographical work about a Siberian prison camp, but the quotation cannot be found there.
See also Buck, Johnson.
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.
Hannah Arendt (1906-1975) German-American philosopher, political theorist
On Revolution, ch. 2, sec. 5 (1963)
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