Theft

Theft is the illegal taking of another person's property without that person's permission or consent. The word is also used as an informal shorthand term for some crimes against property, such as burglary, embezzlement, larceny, looting, robbery, shoplifting and fraud. In some jurisdictions, theft is considered to be synonymous with larceny; in others, theft has replaced larceny. Someone who carries out an act of or makes a career of theft is known as a thief. The act of theft is known by terms such as stealing, thieving, and filching.

Sourced

• To live
  On means not yours—be brave in silks and laces,
  Gallant in steeds; splendid in banquets; all
  Not yours. Given, uninherited, unpaid for;
  This is to be a trickster; and to filch
  Men's art and labour, which to them is wealth,
  Life, daily bread;—quitting all scores with "friend,
  You're troublesome!"
  Why this, forgive me,
  Is what, when done with a less dainty grace,
  Plain folks call "Theft."
  • Edward Bulwer-Lytton, Richelieu (1839), Act I, scene 2.

• No Indian prince has to his palace
  More followers than a thief to the gallows.
  • Samuel Butler, Hudibras, Part II (1664), Canto I, line 273.

• Kill a man's family, and he may brook it,
  But keep your hands out of his breeches' pocket.
  • Lord Byron, Don Juan (1818-24), Canto X, Stanza 79.

• Thieves respect property; they merely wish the property to become their property that they may more perfectly respect it.
  • G. K. Chesterton, as quoted in The Man Who Was Thursday (1908).

• Stolen sweets are best.
  • Colley Cibber, The Rival Fools (1709), Act I.

• There is a passion for hunting something deeply implanted in the human breast.
  • Charles Dickens, Oliver Twist, (1838), Chapter 10; referring to chasing pickpockets on the streets of London.

• All stealing is comparative. If you come to absolutes, pray who does not steal?
  • Ralph Waldo Emerson, Essays, Second Series (1844), ‘Experience’.

• The Friar preached against stealing, and had a goose in his sleeve.
  • George Herbert, Jacula Prudentum (1651).

• If something is stolen from you, don't go to the police. They're not interested. Don't go to a psychologist either, because he's interested in only one thing: that it was really you who did the stealing.
  • Karl Kraus (1874-1936), Half-Truths and One-and-a-Half Truths (1990). Translated by Harry Zohn.

• Thou hast stolen both mine office and my name;
  The one ne'er got me credit, the other mickle blame.
  • William Shakespeare, The Comedy of Errors, Act III, scene 1, line 44.

• A cutpurse of the empire and the rule,
  That from a shelf the precious diadem stole,
  And put it in his pocket!
  • William Shakespeare, Hamlet (1600-02), Act III, scene 4, line 99.

• A plague upon it when thieves cannot be true one to another!
  • William Shakespeare, Henry IV, Part I (c. 1597), Act II, scene 2, line 29.

• Let me tell you, Cassius, you yourself
  Are much condemn'd to have an itching palm.
  • William Shakespeare, Julius Cæsar (1599), Act IV, scene 3, line 9.

• The robb'd that smiles steals something from the thief:
  He robs himself that spends a bootless grief.
  • William Shakespeare, Othello (c. 1603), Act I, scene 3, line 208.

• He that is robb'd, not wanting what is stol'n,
  Let him not know't, and he's not robb'd at all.
  • William Shakespeare, Othello (c. 1603), Act III, scene 3, line 342.

• In limited professions there's boundless theft.
  • William Shakespeare, Timon of Athens (date uncertain, published 1623), Act IV, scene 3, line 430.

• The sun's a thief, and with his great attraction
  Robs the vast sea; the moon's an arrant thief,
  And her pale fire she snatches from the sun:
  The sea's a thief, whose liquid surge resolves
  The moon into salt tears: the earth's a thief,
  That feeds and breeds by a composture stolen
  From general excrement: each thing's a thief;
  The laws, your curb and whip, in their rough power
  Have uncheck'd theft.
  • William Shakespeare, Timon of Athens (date uncertain, published 1623), Act IV, scene 3, line 439.

Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations

Quotes reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 786-87.

• Who steals a bugle-horn, a ring, a steed,
  Or such like worthless thing, has some discretion;
  'Tis petty larceny: not such his deed
  Who robs us of our fame, our best possession.
  • Francesco Berni, Orlando Innamorato, Canto LV.

• To keep my hands from picking and stealing.
  • Book of Common Prayer, Catechism.

• 'Tis bad enough in man or woman
  To steal a goose from off a common;
  But surely he's without excuse
  Who steals a common from the goose.
  • Epigram in Carey's Commonplace Book of Epigrams (1872). Different versions of the same were prompted by the Enclosure Acts. One version given in Sabrinæ Corolla was written when Charles Pratt, first Earl of Camden, took a common strip of land in front of Camden House. Oct. 7, 1764.

• In vain we call old notions fudge
  And bend our conscience to our dealing.
  The Ten Commandments will not budge
  And stealing will continue stealing.
  • Motto of American Copyright League (written Nov. 20, 1885).

• Stolen waters are sweet, and bread eaten in secret is pleasant.
  • Proverbs, IX. 17.

• Stolen sweets are always sweeter:
  Stolen kisses much completer;
  Stolen looks are nice in chapels:
  Stolen, stolen be your apples.
  • Thomas Randolph, Song of Fairies.

• Well, well, be it so, thou strongest thief of all,
  For thou hast stolen my will, and made it thine.
  • Alfred Tennyson, The Foresters, Act III, scene 1.