WIST Quotations

Frank, Anne -- Diary (1943-01-13) [tr. Massotty (1995)]

Dave — Sun, 20 Sep 2026 05:52:17 +0000

Terrible things are happening outside. At any time of night and day, poor helpless people are being dragged out of their homes. They’re allowed to take only a knapsack and a little cash with them, and even then, they’re robbed of these possessions on the way. Families are torn apart; men, women and children are separated. Children come home from school to find that their parents have disappeared. Women return from shopping to find their houses sealed, their families gone.

[Buiten is het verschrikkelijk. Dag en nacht worden die arme mensen weggesleept, met niets anders bij zich dan een rugzak en wat geld. Deze bezittingen worden hun onderweg ook nog ontnomen. De gezinnen worden uit elkaar gerukt, gesplitst in mannen, vrouwen en kinderen. Kinderen, die van school naar huis komen, vinden hun ouders niet meer. Vrouwen, die boodschappen doen, vinden bij haar thuiskomst haar huis verzegeld, haar familie verdwenen.]

Anne Frank (1929–1945) German-Dutch Jewish diarist
Diary (1943-01-13) [tr. Massotty (1995)]

(Source (Dutch)). Another translation:

It is terrible outside. Day and night mor of those poor miserable people are being dragged off, with nothing but a rucksack and a little money. On the way they are deprived even of these possessions. Families are torn apart, the men, women, and children all being separated. Children coming home from school find their parents have disappeared. Woemn return from shopping to find their homes shut up and their families gone.
[tr. Mooyaart-Doubleday (1951)]

Hicks, Seymour -- (Attributed)

Dave — Fri, 21 Nov 2025 20:59:22 +0000

You will recognize, my boy, the first sign of old age: it is when you go out into the streets of London and realize for the first time how young the policemen look.

Seymour Hicks (1871–1949) British actor, playwright, producer
(Attributed)

Quoted in C. R. D. Pulling, They Were Singing, ch. 7 (1952).

Orwell, George -- Essay (1947-03), “Lear, Tolstoy and the Fool,” Polemic Magazine, No. 7

Dave — Fri, 22 Aug 2025 15:50:31 +0000

There are people who are convinced of the wickedness both of armies and of police forces, but who are nevertheless much more intolerant and inquisitorial in outlook than the normal person who believes that it is necessary to use violence in certain circumstances. They will not say to somebody else, “Do this, that and the other or you will go to prison”, but they will, if they can, get inside his brain and dictate his thoughts for him in the minutest particulars.

George Orwell (1903–1950) English journalist, essayist, writer [pseud. of Eric Arthur Blair]
Essay (1947-03), “Lear, Tolstoy and the Fool,” Polemic Magazine, No. 7

Collected in Inside the Whale, and Other Essays (1962).

Chamfort, Nicolas -- Products of Perfected Civilization [Produits de la Civilisation Perfectionée], Part 1 “Maxims and Thoughts [Maximes et Pensées],” ch. 3, ¶ 198 (1795) [tr. Siniscalchi (1994)]

Dave — Mon, 13 Nov 2023 18:14:42 +0000

Sometimes when a person sees the roguery of poor people and the thievery of people in high positions, he is tempted to regard society as a forest full of robbers, the most dangerous of which are the policemen that are set up to stop the others.

[En voyant quelquefois les friponneries des petits et les brigandages des hommes en place, on est tenté de regarder la société comme un bois rempli de voleurs, dont les plus dangereux sont les archers, préposés pour arrêter les autres.]

Nicolas Chamfort (1741–1794) French writer, epigrammist (b. Nicolas-Sébastien Roch)
Products of Perfected Civilization [Produits de la Civilisation Perfectionée], Part 1 “Maxims and Thoughts [Maximes et Pensées],” ch. 3, ¶ 198 (1795) [tr. Siniscalchi (1994)]

(Source (French)). Other translations:

Seeing the rogueries of little men and the extortions of the great in office, one is tempted to look upon Society as a wood infested by robbers, the most dangerous being the constables sent to arrest the others.
[tr. Mathers (1926)]

At times, seeing the petty thieveries of the petty, and the robberies of those in office, one is tempted to regard society as a wood full of thieves, of which the most dangerous are the officers set there to arrest the others.
[tr. Merwin (1969)]

Sometimes, when one observes the rogueries perpetuated by petty people and the graft committed by men in office, one is tempted to think of society as a wood infested by thieves, of which the most dangerous are the archers, posted to prevent the others from escaping.
[tr. Pearson (1973)]

There are times when, seeing the nasty tricks people get up to, the gross frauds of high officers, you're tempted to think that you're in a wood infested by thieves, amongst whom the most dangerous are the police, whose purpose is supposed to be that of arresting them.
[tr. Parmée (2003), ¶ 152]

Russell, Bertrand -- “Back to Nature?,” New York American (1934-04-30)

Dave — Thu, 11 May 2023 15:30:55 +0000

I remember a man whom I knew when I was young, who was small, anaemic, and timid, but used to proclaim himself an anarchist. He never realised that his whole existence depended upon police protection, or that in a world without government he would be robbed of all his possessions and left to starve.

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) English mathematician and philosopher
“Back to Nature?,” New York American (1934-04-30)

Foglio, Phil -- Agatha H and the Voice of the Castle (2014) [with Kaja Foglio]

Dave — Tue, 18 Jan 2022 16:18:41 +0000

Those unfortunate enough to be dragged before one of the old Heterodynes were usually subjected to a version of what we today would call “Good Cop, Bad Cop.” However, considering the personalities involved, a more correct label would be “Bad Cop, Insanely Evil Cop.” This was never a fun experience, especially when both sides were played by different personalities manifesting within the same body — and neither of them were actually playing.

Phil Foglio (b. 1956) American writer, cartoonist
Agatha H and the Voice of the Castle (2014) [with Kaja Foglio]

Thoreau, Henry David -- Essay (1849-05), “Resistance to Civil Government [On the Duty of Civil Disobedience],” Æsthetic Papers, No. 1, Article 10

Dave — Mon, 12 Jul 2021 23:52:21 +0000

The mass of men serve the State thus, not as men mainly, but as machines, with their bodies. They are the standing army, and the militia, gaolers, constables, posse comitatus, etc. In most cases there is no free exercise whatever of the judgment or of the moral sense; but they put themselves on a level with wood and earth and stones; and wooden men can perhaps be manufactured that will serve the purpose as well. Such command no more respect than men of straw or a lump of dirt. They have the same sort of worth only as horses and dogs. Yet such as these even are commonly esteemed good citizens.

Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) American philosopher and writer
Essay (1849-05), “Resistance to Civil Government [On the Duty of Civil Disobedience],” Æsthetic Papers, No. 1, Article 10

Based on an 1848 lecture at the Concord Lyceum.

Sinclair, Upton -- Letter to the Louis D. Oaks, Los Angeles Chief of Police (17 May 1923)

Dave — Thu, 11 Jun 2020 21:42:55 +0000

I intend to do what little one man can do to awaken the public conscience, and in the meantime I am not frightened by your menaces. I am not a giant physically; I shrink from pain and filth and vermin and foul air, like any other man of refinement; also, I freely admit, when I see a line of a hundred policemen with drawn revolvers flung across a street to keep anyone from coming onto private property to hear my feeble voice, I am somewhat disturbed in my nerves. But I have a conscience and a religious faith, and I know that our liberties were not won without suffering, and may be lost again through our cowardice. I intend to do my duty to my country.

Upton Sinclair (1878–1968) American writer, journalist, activist, politician
Letter to the Louis D. Oaks, Los Angeles Chief of Police (17 May 1923)

Reprinted in his Autobiography (1962).

Lao-tzu -- Tao-te Ching, ch. 57 [tr. Wing-Tsit Chan]

Dave — Wed, 12 Apr 2017 13:55:53 +0000

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]

Aaronovitch, Ben -- Broken Homes (2013)

Dave — Wed, 06 Jan 2016 13:55:30 +0000

It’s a police mantra that all members of the public are guilty of something, but some members of the public are more guilty than others.

Ben Aaronovitch (b. 1964) British author
Broken Homes (2013)

See Orwell.

Aaronovitch, Ben -- Whispers Under Ground (2012)

Dave — Wed, 30 Dec 2015 17:06:27 +0000

“They’re brothers,” said Zach, and you had to admire him, if only for his persistence. But it didn’t matter, because in an interview a lie can almost be as good as the truth. That’s because all good lies contain as much truth as the liar thinks they can get away with. This truth accumulates, and because it’s easier to remember the truth than something you’ve made up, it remains consistent where the lies do not. All you have to do is keep asking variations on the same questions, until you can sort one from the other. That’s why helping the police with their inquiries can take you all day — if you’re lucky.

Ben Aaronovitch (b. 1964) British author
Whispers Under Ground (2012)

Moore, Ronald D. -- Battlestar Galactica, 1×02 “Water” [Adama] (2004)

Dave — Tue, 08 Dec 2015 14:27:50 +0000

There is a reason you separate military and the police. One fights the enemies of the state, the other serves and protects the people. When the military becomes both, then the enemies of the state tend to become the people.

Ronald D. Moore (b. 1964) American screenwriter, television producer
Battlestar Galactica, 1×02 “Water” [Adama] (2004)

Aaronovitch, Ben -- Moon Over Soho (2011)

Dave — Wed, 25 Nov 2015 16:40:31 +0000

Murder investigations start with the victim because usually in the first instance that’s all you’ve got. The study of the victim is called victimology because everything sounds better with an ology tacked on the end. To make sure that you make a proper fist of this, the police have developed the world’s most useless mnemonic: 5 x WH & H. Otherwise known as Who? What? Where? When? Why? & How? Next time you watch a real murder investigation on the TV and you see a group of serious-looking detectives standing around talking, remember that what they’re actually doing is trying to work out what sodding order the mnemonic is supposed to go in. Once they’ve sorted that out the exhausted officers will retire to the nearest watering hole for a drink and a bit of a breather.

Ben Aaronovitch (b. 1964) British author
Moon Over Soho (2011)

Aaronovitch, Ben -- Moon Over Soho (2011)

Dave — Wed, 04 Nov 2015 14:49:49 +0000

“Would you like me to arrest you?” I asked. That’s an old police trick: If you just warn people they often just ignore you, but if you ask them a question then they have to think about it. Once they start to think about the consequences they almost always calm down, unless they’re drunk of course, or stoned, or aged between fourteen and twenty-one, or Glaswegian.

Ben Aaronovitch (b. 1964) British author
Moon Over Soho (2011)

Aaronovitch, Ben -- Rivers of London [Midnight Riot] (2011)

Dave — Wed, 21 Oct 2015 14:05:39 +0000

Somebody was screaming and I had to check it wasn’t me. It could have been me. I certainly wanted to scream, but I remembered that right then and there Leslie and I were the only coppers on the scene and the public doesn’t like it when the police start screaming; it contributes to an impression of things not being conducive to public calm.

Ben Aaronovitch (b. 1964) British author
Rivers of London [Midnight Riot] (2011)

Aaronovitch, Ben -- Rivers of London [Midnight Riot] (2011)

Dave — Wed, 14 Oct 2015 13:55:15 +0000

If you ask any police officer what the worst part of the job is, they will always say breaking bad news to relatives, but this is not the truth. The worst part is staying in the room after you’ve broken the news, so that you’re forced to be there when someone’s life disintegrates around them. Some people say it doesn’t bother them — such people are not to be trusted.

Ben Aaronovitch (b. 1964) British author
Rivers of London [Midnight Riot] (2011)

Milligan, Spike -- The Goon Show, 9×12 “The Call of the West” (20 Jan 1959)

Dave — Thu, 02 Jul 2015 19:19:49 +0000

Are you going to come along quietly, or am I going to have to use ear plugs?

Terence Alan "Spike" Milligan (1918–2002) Anglo-Irish comedian, writer, actor
The Goon Show, 9×12 “The Call of the West” (20 Jan 1959)

Variant: "Are you going to come along quietly, or do you want musical accompaniment?"

Kennedy, Robert F. -- “On the Mindless Menace of Violence,” speech, City Club of Cleveland (5 Apr 1968)

Dave — Mon, 08 Dec 2014 13:06:43 +0000

What has violence ever accomplished? What has it ever created? No martyr’s cause has ever been stilled by an assassin’s bullet. No wrongs have ever been righted by riots and civil disorders. A sniper is only a coward, not a hero; and an uncontrolled, uncontrollable mob is only the voice of madness, not the voice of reason. Whenever any American’s life is taken by another American unnecessarily — whether it is done in the name of the law or in the defiance of the law, by one man or a gang, in cold blood or in passion, in an attack of violence or in response to violence — whenever we tear at the fabric of the life which another man has painfully and clumsily woven for himself and his children, the whole nation is degraded.

Robert Francis Kennedy (1925–1968) American politician
“On the Mindless Menace of Violence,” speech, City Club of Cleveland (5 Apr 1968)

Burgh, James -- Political Disquisitions, Book 1 “Of Government, briefly,” ch. 1 “Government by Laws and Sanctions, why necessary” (1774)

Dave — Thu, 23 Oct 2014 12:44:19 +0000

If there be, in any region of the universe, an order of moral agents living in society, whose reason is strong, whose passions and inclinations are moderate, and whose dispositions are turned to virtue, to such an order of happy beings, legislation, administration, and police, with the endlessly various and complicated apparatus of politics, must be in a great measure superfluous.

James Burgh (1714–1775) British politician and writer
Political Disquisitions, Book 1 “Of Government, briefly,” ch. 1 “Government by Laws and Sanctions, why necessary” (1774)

Kennedy, Robert F. -- The Pursuit of Justice, “Eradicating Free Enterprise in Organized Crime” (1964)

Dave — Mon, 06 Oct 2014 15:39:04 +0000

In the words of the old saying, every society gets the kind of criminal it deserves. What is equally true is that every community gets the kind of law enforcement it insists on.

Robert Francis Kennedy (1925–1968) American politician
The Pursuit of Justice, “Eradicating Free Enterprise in Organized Crime” (1964)

Stout, Rex -- On “The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes,” Invitation to Learning Radio Show, hosted by Mark Van Doren (Jan 1942)

Dave — Thu, 02 Jan 2014 20:25:45 +0000

I think the detective story is by far the best upholder of the democratic doctrine in literature. I mean, there couldn’t have been detective stories until there were democracies, because the very foundation of the detective story is the thesis that if you’re guilty you’ll get it in the neck and if you’re innocent you can’t possibly be harmed. No matter who you are. There was no such conception of justice until after 1830. There was no such thing as a policeman or a detective in the world before 1830, because the modern conception of the policeman and detective, namely, a man whose only function is to find out who did it and then get the evidence that will punish him, did not exist. … In Paris before the year 1800 — read the Dumas stories — there were gangs of people whose business was to go out and punish wrongdoers. But why? Because they had hurt De Marillac or Richelieu or the Duke or some Huguenot noble, not just because they had harmed society. It is only the modern policeman that is out to protect society.

Rex Stout (1886–1975) American writer
On “The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes,” Invitation to Learning Radio Show, hosted by Mark Van Doren (Jan 1942)

Transcribed in Mark Van Doren, The New Invitation to Learning: The Essence of the Great Books of All Times (1942).

Mill, John Stuart -- On Liberty, ch. 4 “Of the Limits to the Authority of Society Over the Individual” (1859)

Dave — Mon, 29 Jul 2013 16:58:32 +0000

It is not difficult to show, by abundant instances, that to extend the bounds of what may be called moral police, until it encroaches on the most unquestionably legitimate liberty of the individual, is one of the most universal of all human propensities.

John Stuart Mill (1806–1873) English philosopher and economist
On Liberty, ch. 4 “Of the Limits to the Authority of Society Over the Individual” (1859)

Vidal, Gore -- “The State of the Union”, Esquire (May 1975)

Dave — Tue, 06 Nov 2012 15:23:17 +0000

The period of Prohibition — called the noble experiment — brought on the greatest breakdown of law and order the United States has known until today. I think there is a lesson here. Do not regulate the private morals of people. Do not tell them what they can take or not take. Because if you do, they will become angry and antisocial and they will get what they want from criminals who are able to work in perfect freedom because they have paid off the police.

Gore Vidal (1925–2012) American novelist, dramatist, critic
“The State of the Union”, Esquire (May 1975)

Macaulay, Thomas Babington -- Southey’s Colloquies on Society (1830)

Dave — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 14:18:57 +0000

There is surely no contradiction in saying that a certain section of the community may be quite competent to protect the persons and property of the rest, yet quite unfit to direct our opinions, or to superintend our private habits.

Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800–1859) English writer and politician
Southey’s Colloquies on Society (1830)

~Other -- Paul Wiley

Dave — Sun, 01 Feb 2004 16:00:00 +0000

I have a theory that all traffic lights are secretly synchronized — you just have to drive fast enough. Testing this theory has lead me to develop a second theory: Most police officers are NOT men of science.

(Other Authors and Sources)
Paul Wiley