WIST Quotations

De Quincey, Thomas -- Essay (1839-11), “Second Paper on Murder Considered as One of the Fine Arts,” Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 46, No. 289

Dave — Mon, 05 Jan 2026 18:03:05 +0000

For if once a man indulges himself in murder, very soon he comes to think little of robbing; and from robbing he comes next to drinking and Sabbath-breaking, and from that to incivility and procrastination. Once begin upon this downward path, you never know where to stop. Many a man has dated his ruin from some murder or other that perhaps he thought little of the time.

Thomas De Quincey (1785–1859) English writer, essayist, literary critic
Essay (1839-11), “Second Paper on Murder Considered as One of the Fine Arts,” Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 46, No. 289
(Source)

Racine, Jean -- Phèdre [Phædra], Act 4, sc. 2, l. 1094ff (1677-01-01) [tr. Boswell (1897)]

Dave — Fri, 19 Dec 2025 05:54:19 +0000

HIPPOLYTUS: Great crimes are never single, they are link’d
To former faults. He who has once transgress’d
May violate at last all that men hold
Most sacred; vice, like virtue, has degrees
Of progress; innocence was never seen
To sink at once into the lowest depths
Of guilt.

[HIPPOLYTE: Quelques crimes toujours precedent les grands crimes.
Quiconque a pu franchir les bornes légitimes
Peut violer enfin les droits les plus sacrés ;
Ainsi que la vertu, le crime a ses degrés ;
Et jamais on n’a vu la timide innocence
Passer subitement à l’extrême licence.]

Jean Racine (1639–1699) French dramatist
Phèdre [Phædra], Act 4, sc. 2, l. 1094ff (1677-01-01) [tr. Boswell (1897)]
(Source)

(Source (French)). Other translations:

Crime, like virtue, hath degrees; one single day can not make a bad man just; nor can the good, in such short season, pass suddenly to utter baseness.
[tr. Heron (1858), 3.1]

Some crimes always precede great crimes; whoever has overstepped the legitimate limits, may at last violate the most sacred rights; thus, as well as virtue, crime has its degrees, and we have never seen timid innocence pass suddenly into extreme licentiousness.
[tr. Mongan (1885)]

Some lesser crimes always precede great sin.
He who hath once the bounds of right transgressed
May violate the most sacred laws at last;
But even as virtue, vice hath its degrees,
And modest innocence one never sees
Pass suddenly to wanton ways and lewd.
[tr. Lockert (1936)]

A man who can transgress the lawful boundaries
may violate the most sacred rights in the end.
Like virtue, crime has its gradations;
Never has timid innocence
suddenly become extreme depravity.
[Unk.]

Crime like virtue has its degrees; and timid innocence was never known to blossom suddenly into extreme license.
[Bartlett's]

Butcher, Jim -- Cold Days, ch. 27 (2012)

Dave — Tue, 02 Sep 2014 12:16:48 +0000

No one just starts giggling and wearing black and signs up to become a villainous monster. How the hell do you think it happens? It happens to people. Just people. They make questionable choices, for what might be very good reasons. They make choice after choice, and none of them is slaughtering roomfuls of saints, or murdering hundreds of baby seals, or rubber-room irrational. But it adds up. And then one day they look around and realized that they’re so far over the line that they can’t remember where it was.

Jim Butcher (b. 1971) American author
Cold Days, ch. 27 (2012)
(Source)

Jackson, Robert H. -- West Virginia Board of Education v. Barnette, 318-319 U.S. 624 (1943) [majority opinion]

Dave — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 10:14:10 +0000

Struggles to coerce uniformity of sentiment in support of some end thought essential to their time and country have been waged by many good, as well as by evil, men. Nationalism is a relatively recent phenomenon, but, at other times and places, the ends have been racial or territorial security, support of a dynasty or regime, and particular plans for saving souls. As first and moderate methods to attain unity have failed, those bent on its accomplishment must resort to an ever-increasing severity. […] Those who begin coercive elimination of dissent soon find themselves exterminating dissenters. Compulsory unification of opinion achieves only the unanimity of the graveyard.

Robert H. Jackson (1892–1954) US Supreme Court Justice (1941–54), lawyer, jurist, politician
West Virginia Board of Education v. Barnette, 318-319 U.S. 624 (1943) [majority opinion]
(Source)