Hoyt & Roberts, comps. Hoyt’s New Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations. 1922.
Crime
Non nella pena,
Nel delitto è la infamia.
Disgrace does not consist in the punishment, but in the crime.
Alfieri—Antigone. I. 3.
Il reo
D’un delitto è chi’l pensa: a chi l’ ordisce
La pena spetta.
The guilty is he who meditates a crime; the punishment is his who lays the plot.
Alfieri—Antigone. II. 2.
Oh! ben provvide il cielo,
Ch’ uom per delitto mai lieto non sia.
Heaven takes care that no man secures happiness by crime.
Alfieri—Oreste. I. 2.
There’s not a crime
But takes its proper change out still in crime
If once rung on the counter of this world.
E. B. Browning—Aurora Leigh. Bk. III. L. 870.
A man who has no excuse for crime, is indeed defenceless!
Bulwer-Lytton—The Lady of Lyons. Act IV. Sc. 1.
Nor all that heralds rake from coffin’d clay,
Nor florid prose, nor honied lies of rhyme,
Can blazon evil deeds, or consecrate a crime.
Byron—Childe Harold. Canto I. St. 3.
Le crime fait la honte et non pas l’échafaud.
The crime and not the scaffold makes the shame.
Corneille—Essex. IV. 3. Quoted by Charlotte Corday in a letter to her father after the murder of Marat.
But many a crime deemed innocent on earth
Is registered in Heaven; and these no doubt
Have each their record, with a curse annex’d.
Cowper—The Task. Bk. VI. L. 439.
C’est plus qu’un crime, c’est une faute.
It is worse than a crime, it is a blunder.
Joseph Fouché. As quoted by himself in his Memoires, original Ed., 1824. Referring to the murder of the Due Enghien. Fouché’s sons deny that it originated with their father. Quoted by others as “C’est pis qu’un crime,” and “C’estoit pire qu’un crime.” (See Notes and Queries, Aug. 14, 1915. P. 123. Aug. 28. P. 166.)
Crime is not punished as an offense against God, but as prejudicial to society.
Froude—Short Studies on Great Subjects. Reciprocal Duties of State and Subjects.
Every crime destroys more Edens than our own.
Hawthorne—Marble Faun. Vol. I. Ch. XXIII.
Deprendi miserum est.
It is grievous to be caught.
Horace—Satires. Bk. I. 2. 134.
A crafty knave needs no broker.
Ben Jonson. Quoted in Every Man in his Humour; also in Taylor’s London to Hamburgh.
’Tis no sin love’s fruits to steal;
But the sweet thefts to reveal;
To be taken, to be seen,
These have crimes accounted been.
Ben Jonson—Volpone. Act III. Sc. 6.
Se judice, nemo nocens absolvitur.
By his own verdict no guilty man was ever acquitted.
Juvenal—Satires. XIII. 2.
Multi committunt eadem diverso crimina fato;
Ille crucem scleris pretium tulit, hic diadema.
Many commit the same crimes with a very different result. One bears a cross for his crime; another a crown.
Juvenal—Satires. XIII. 103.
Nam scelus intra se tacitum qui cogitat ullum,
Facti crimen habet.
For whoever meditates a crime is guilty of the deed.
Juvenal—Satires. XIII. 209.
Non faciat malum, ut inde veniat bonum.
You are not to do evil that good may come of it.
Law Maxim.
Solent occupationis spe vel impune quædam scelesta committi.
Wicked deeds are generally done, even with impunity, for the mere desire of occupation.
Ammianus Marcellinus—Annales. XXX. 9.
Pœna potest demi, culpa perennis erit.
The punishment can be remitted; the crime is everlasting.
Ovid—Epistolæ Ex Ponto. I. 1. 64.
Factis ignoscite nostris
Si scelus ingenio scitis abesse meo.
Overlook our deeds, since you know that crime was absent from our inclination.
Ovid—Fausti. Bk. III. 309.
Ars fit ubi a teneris crimen condiscitur annis.
Where crime is taught from early years, it becomes a part of nature.
Ovid—Heroides. IV. 25.
Le crime d’une mère est un pesant fardeau.
The crime of a mother is a heavy burden.
Racine—Phèdre. III. 3.
With his hand upon the throttle-valve of crime.
Lord Salisbury—Speech in House of Lords, 1889.
Prosperum ac felix scelus
Virtus vocatur; sontibus parent boni;
Jus est in armis, opprimit leges timor.
Successful crime is dignified with the name of virtue; the good become the slaves of the impious; might makes right; fear silences the power of the law.
Seneca—Hercules Furens. CCLI.
Nullum caruit exemplo nefas.
No crime has been without a precedent.
Seneca—Hippolytus. DLIV.
Scelere velandum est scelus.
One crime has to be concealed by another.
Seneca—Hippolytus. DCCXXI.
Cui prodest scelus,
Is fecit.
He who profits by crime is guilty of it.
Seneca—Medea. D.
Ad auctores redit
Sceleris coacti culpa.
The guilt of enforced crimes lies on those who impose them.
Seneca—Troades. DCCCLXX.
Qui non vetat peccare, cum possit, jubet.
He who does not prevent a crime when he can, encourages it.
Seneca—Troades. CCXCI.
Dumque punitur scelus,
Crescit.
While crime is punished it yet increases.
Seneca—Thyestes. XXXI.
Foul deeds will rise,
Though all the earth o’erwhelm them, to men’s eyes.
Hamlet. Act I. Sc. 2. L. 257.
If little faults, proceeding on distemper,
Shall not be wink’d at, how shall we stretch our eye
When capital crimes, chew’d, swallow’d, and digested,
Appear before us?
Henry V. Act II. Sc. 2. L. 54.
Between the acting of a dreadful thing
And the first motion, all the interim is
Like a phantasma, or a hideous dream.
Julius Cæsar. Act II. Sc. 1. L. 63.
Beyond the infinite and boundless reach
Of mercy, if thou didst this deed of death,
Art thou damn’d, Hubert.
King John. Act IV. Sc. 3. L. 117.
Tremble, thou wretch,
That has within thee undivulged crimes,
Unwhipp’d of justice.
King Lear. Act III. Sc. 2. L. 51.
There shall be done
A deed of dreadful note.
Macbeth. Act III. Sc. 2. L. 43.
Amici vitium ni feras, facis tuum.
If you share the crime of your friend, you make it your own.
Syrus—Maxims.
Du repos dans le crime! ah! qui peut s’en flatter.
To be at peace in crime! ah, who can thus flatter himself.
Voltaire—Oreste. I. 5.
La crainte suit le crime, et c’est son châtiment.
Fear follows crime and is its punishment.
Voltaire—Semiramis. V. 1.
Yet each man kills the thing he loves,
By each let this be heard,
Some do it with a bitter look,
Some with a flattering word,
The coward does it with a kiss,
The brave man with a sword.
Oscar Wilde—Ballad of Reading Gaol.