Quotessence
Home / Topics / Crime Quotes

Crime Quotes

Browse 4692 quotes about Crime.

Related topics

IfsPeopleMenCriminalsLawCommitCommittedThinkingWarWorldKnowsShouldPunishmentStatesWayHas BeensHumansCountryDoePrisonWantChildrenYearsMurderMayVictimBelieveViolenceEvilJusticeGovernmentHumanityWellsFirstsKindGuiltyProblemNeedsViolentDoneGunLongMeanFactsDrugPovertyPersonsRealMadePoliceVirtuePoliticalSinBookCitiesTryingFightingMindStoriesWar CrimesWould BeNovelRateSocialUseHateLittlesNamesViolent CrimesCasesCommunityGivingIndividualLooksMoralMatterCitizensCrimes Against HumanityFeelsFictionWritingFacesStillsCausesSaidLyingWhiteWorstCharacterDifferentEnoughTodayWholeBlackFunnyOrderOrganized CrimePoorSeemsForcemore

Crime Quotes

“From the very beginning, our state and national constitutions and laws have laid great emphasis on procedural and substantive safeguards designed to assure fair trials before impartial tribunals in which every defendant stands equal before the law. This noble ideal cannot be realized if the poor man charged with crime has to face his accusers without a lawyer to assist him.”

IfsMenStatesFacesLawJusticePoorCrimeEqualFairsIdealsConstitutionNobleLawyerTrialsEmphasisPoor ManTribunalsAccusersFair Trial
Author:Hugo Black
Create image

“Liberty, next to religion has been the motive of good deeds and the common pretext of crime, from the sowing of the seed at Athens, 2,460 years ago, until the ripened harvest was gathered by men of our race. It is the delicate fruit of a mature civilization; and scarcely a century has passed since nations, that knew the meaning of the term, resolved to be free. In every age its progress has been beset by its natural enemies, by ignorance and superstition, by lust of conquest and by love of ease, by the strong man's craving for power, and the poor man's craving for food.”

MenYearsHas BeensAgeNextStrongNationsTermNaturalPoorCommonRaceLibertyEnemyProgressCenturyCrimeIgnoranceCivilizationYears AgoFruitDeedsSeedsLustEaseMotiveMatureDelicateSuperstitionsHarvestConquestGood DeedsCravingPoor ManPretextStrong ManAthensSowingNatural Enemies
Author:Lord Acton
Create image

“It had long been true, and prisoners knew this better than anyone, that the poorer you were the more likely you were to end up in jail. This was not just because the poor committed more crimes. In fact, they did. The rich did not have to commit crimes to get what they wanted; the laws were on their side. But when the rich did commit crimes, they often were not prosecuted, and if they were they could get out on bail, hire clever lawyers, get better treatment from judges. Somehow, the jails ended up full of poor black people.”

PeopleIfsLongEndsFactsWantedLawSidesBlackPoorRichCrimeJudgingPrisonCommittedLawyerCleverCommitGet BetterTreatmentJailPrisonerBlack PeopleBail
Book:A People's History of the United States: 1492-Present
Create image

“By the Reagan era, the 'culture of poverty' had become a cornerstone of conservative ideology: poverty was caused not by low wages or a lack of jobs but by bad attitudes and faulty lifestyles. The poor were dissolute, promiscuous, prone to addiction and crime, unable to 'defer gratification' or possibly even set an alarm clock. The last thing they could be trusted with was money.”

JobsLastsCulturePoorAttitudePovertyCrimeLowsAddictionConservativeLifestyleIdeologyErasClockTrustedWagesGratificationAlarmsCornerstonesBad AttitudePromiscuousAlarm Clocks
Author:Barbara Ehrenreich
Create image

“While it is undeniable that many have been driven to immorality and crime by the need to survive, it is equally evident that the possession of a significant surplus of material goods has never been a guarantee against covetousness, rapacity and the infinite variety of vice and pain which spring from such passions. Indeed, it could be argued that the unrelenting compulsion of those who already have much to acquire even more has generated greater injustice, immorality and wretchedness than the cumulative effect of the struggles of the severely underprivileged to better their lot.”

NeedsHas BeensPainPassionPoorStruggleRichGreaterEffectsCrimeMaterialsSpringInfiniteInjusticeVicesPossessionDrivenSignificantVarietyAcquireGuaranteesGoodsEvidentCompulsionRich And PoorImmoralitySurplusCovetousnessWretchednessCumulativeUnrelentingUnderprivileged
Author:Aung San Suu Kyi
Create image

“Were all the pleasures in the world, even pure air, made solely for the rich? I think it is immoral - it is horrible! - that one man may own twenty millions of money, and another has to commit a crime to keep the life in his miserable body. And if I were wealthy, I'd be a spendthrift! It's the spendthrifts who are the real friends of the poor. Some of their money filters through to the very lowest classes.”

IfsThinkingMenWorldMayMadeRealBodyWealthPleasurePoorClassMillionsRichAirCrimePureTwentiesHorribleCommitMiserableWealthyOne ManLowestReal FriendsImmoralFiltersSpendthrift
Author:Ellen Buckingham Mathews
Create image

“Deep thinkers who look everywhere for the mysterious causes of poverty, ignorance, crime and war need look no further than their own mirrors. We are all born into this world poor and ignorant, and with thoroughly selfish and barbaric impulses. Those of us who turn out any other way do so largely through the efforts of others, who civilized us before we got big enough to do too much damage to the world or ourselves.”

WorldWayNeedsLooksWarEnoughBigsTurnsCausesBornPoorEffortPovertyToo MuchCrimeThis WorldIgnoranceMirrorsSelfishIgnorantMysteriousImpulseDamageCivilizedThinkerBarbaricCauses Of PovertyDeep Thinker
Book:Compassion Versus Guilt and Other Essays
Create image

“On the other side, the conservative party, composed of the most moderate, able, and cultivated part of the population, is timid, and merely defensive of property. It vindicates no right, it aspires to no real good, it brands no crime, it proposes no generous policy, it does not build, nor write, nor cherish the arts, nor foster religion, nor establish schools, nor encourage science, nor emancipate the slave, nor befriend the poor, or the Indian, or the immigrant.”

WritingDoeArtRealAbleSchoolPoliticsSidesPoorPartyCrimePolicyPropertySlavePopulationConservativeBrandsIndianGenerousImmigrantsCherishAspireModeratesProposeConservative Party
Author:Ralph Waldo Emerson
Create image

“It is very seldom that any one is in prison for an ordinary crime unless early in life he entered a path that almost invariably led to the prison gate. Most of the inmates are the children of the poor. In many instances they are either orphans or half-orphans; their homes were the streets and byways of big cities, and their paths naturally and inevitably took them to their final fate.”

ChildrenHomeBigsPoorCitiesHalfPathFateStreetsCrimeOrdinaryPrisonFinalsInstanceGatesOrphanBig CitiesInmates
Author:Lyndon B. Johnson
Create image

“As the data from the past decade clarify, there is no evidence that poverty causes crime but a great deal of evidence that crime causes poverty. By aligning themselves against the police, against commonsense tactics like stop and frisk, against metal detectors in public housing, against swift and certain punishment, and for a broad array of legal protections for accused criminals, liberals helped to aggrieve the lives of the poor and society as a whole.”

WholePastCertainCausesPoorDealsPovertyCrimeEvidencePoliceProtectionDecadesCriminalsPunishmentDataBroadsMetalsAccusedTacticsHousingPublic HousingMetal DetectorsStop And Frisk
Author:Mona Charen
Create image

“Note even Jonathan Swift would dare to write a satire in which politicians argued that - in a world where species are vanishing and more than a billion people are barely able to afford to eat - it would somehow be good for the planet to clear rain-forests to grow palm oil, or give up food-crop land to grow biofuels, solely so that people could burn fuel derived from carbohydrate rather than hydrocarbons in their cars, thus driving up the price of food for the poor. Ludicrous is too weak a word for this heinous crime.”

PeopleWorldGivingWritingAbleGrowsPoorClearLandCarCrimePlanetsPoliticianGiving UpRainWeakNotesSpeciesDareOilBe GoodBillionsDrivingForestsFuelSatirePalmsCropsVanishingCarbohydratesBiofuelsHydrocarbonsHeinous CrimesPalm Oil
Author:Matt Ridley
Create image

“Look, we understood we couldn't make it illegal to be young or poor or black in the United States, but we could criminalize their common pleasure. We understood that drugs were not the health problem we were making them out to be, but it was such a perfect issue for the Nixon White House that we couldn't resist it.”

LooksStatesProblemGovernmentAmericaYoungHouseBlackWhitePerfectPleasurePoorUnitedCommonUnited StatesIssuesSocietyCrimeHealthDrugUnderstoodResistanceUsaIllegalWhite HouseBlack PeopleBe YoungHealth Problems
Author:John Ehrlichman
Create image

“Barack Obama thinks this country is a crime. Obama thinks this country is a walking, living crime, the way it's treated poor people, minorities and so forth, and he wants to get even, he wants to get even with all those people that have engaged in this theft, discrimination, racism and be and so forth, he also wants to create a permanent underclass for the express purpose of making sure he's never out of office or the regime's party is never out of office.”

PeopleThinkingCountryPurposePoorPartyCrimeWalkingOfficeRacismDiscriminationBarackPoor People
Author:Rush Limbaugh
Create image

“In the Sixties, there was a big resistance to the Vietnam War. People began reinterpreting all American history as a series of misadventures and crimes and oppressions visited upon the innocent, the poor, the defenseless, the minorities, and so on. This created a new narrative in America. Let's call it, "America the inexcusable." And this narrative has been drummed into the minds of our young people. A whole generation of Americans has been taught that theirs is a bad country. And it's then very difficult for them to figure out how one can one be a good citizen in a bad country.”

PeopleMindWarCountryDifficultPoorCrimeInnocentOppressionSixtyAmerican HistoryVietnam WarGood Citizen
Author:Dinesh D'Souza
Create image

“I think there is a lot of crime caused by desperation, and it doesn't mean that people commit crime because they're poor, but certainly a lot of people who are poor commit crime and they might not if they weren't poor. You understand the difference there? That's not news, but it comes up when I hear people say poverty doesn't affect crime - that crime is still going down in America even though the economy is bad.”

PeopleThinkingMeanPoorPovertyEconomyCrimeCommitDesperation
Author:Peter Moskos
Create image

“Indeed, the sort of crimes and even the amount of delinquency that fill the prophets of Israel with dismay do not go beyond that which we regard as normal, as typical ingredients of social dynamics. To us a single act of injustice--cheating in business, exploitation of the poor--is slight; to the prophets, a disaster. To us injustice is injurious to the welfare of the people; to the prophets it is a deathblow to existence: to us, an episode; to them, a catastrophe, a threat to the world.”

PeopleWorldSocialPoorExistenceCrimeAmountNormalRegardThreatInjusticeIsraelDisasterWelfareProphetCheatingIngredientsEpisodesExploitationTypicalCatastropheDynamicsDismayDelinquency
Book:The Prophets
Create image

“You tell them what a happy ending consists of, which is always individual success. You tell them that nothing irrational exists in this world, which is a lie. You tell them that conflict only exists only to be neatly resolved, and that everyone who is poor wants to be rich, and everyone who is ill wants to get better, and everyone who gets involved in crime comes to a bad end, and that love should be pure. You tell them that despite all this they are special, that the world revolves around them.”

WorldWantShouldEndsLyingIndividualPoorRichSpecialCrimeThis WorldInvolvedPureConflictIllDespiteGet BetterIrrationalGet InvolvedHappy EndingsIndividual Success
Book:Our Tragic Universe
Create image

“America is the wealthiest nation on Earth, but its people are mainly poor, and poor Americans are urged to hate themselves... It is in fact a crime for an American to be poor, even though America is a nation of poor. Every other nation has folk traditions of men who were poor but extremely wise and virtuous, and therefore more estimable than anyone with power and gold. No such tales are told by American poor. They mock themselves and glorify their betters.”

PeopleMenFactsEarthAmericaHateNationsPoorWiseCrimeTraditionGoldFolksTalesVirtuousMockGlorifySlaughterhouse FiveSlaughterhouse 5Slaughter House 5Slaughter House Five
Author:Kurt Vonnegut
Create image