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. . . CREATIVITY see: "DISCOVERY" for related links The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources. --attributed to Albert Einstein (18791955) German-American physicist. Proximity to the crowd, to the majority view, spells the death of creativity. For a soul can create only when alone, and some are chosen for the flowering that takes place in the dark avenues of the night. --Abraham Joshua Heschel (19071972) Jewish theologian and philosopher. _A Passion for Truth_ [1973] There are two things John [Lennon] and I always do when we're going to sit down and write a song. First of all we sit down. Then we think about writing a song. --Paul McCartney (b. 1942) English pop singer and songwriter. Quoted in Arnold Shaw _The Rock Revolution_ [1969]. Creativity can be described as letting go of certainties. --Gail Sheehy (b. 1937) American writer and lecturer. _Speed is of the Essence_ [1971] - Beethoven poured ice water over his head when he sat down to create music, believing it stimulated his brain. ----- opus (noun) ['o-pκs] (Erudite) A creative work, such as a novel, musical piece, or painting.  ;void(0)) CREDIT (FINANCE) . . see: "MONEY" for related links Creditors have better memories than debtors. --Benjamin Franklin (17061790) American politician, inventor, and scientist. _Poor Richard's Almanack_ [1736] No man's credit is as good as his money. --Edgar Watson Howe (18541937) American journalist and author. _Country Town Sayings_ [1911] People come to poverty in two ways: accumulating debts and paying them off. --Jewish Proverb Public credit is suspicion asleep. --Thomas Paine [spelled Pane prior to 1774] (17371809) English-American writer and political pamphleteer. _The Decline and Fall of the English System of Finance_ [1796] I have discovered the philosopher's stone, that turns everything into gold: it is, 'Pay as you go.' --John Randolph (17731833) American political leader. Attributed in Tryon Edwards (using pseud. Everard Berkeley) _The World's Laconics..._, p. 63 [1853]. . . see: "ACKNOWLEDGEMENT" When women are the advisers, the lords of creation don't take the advice until they have persuaded themselves that it is just what they intended to do; then they act upon it, and if it succeeds, they give the weaker vessel half the credit of it; if it fails, they generously give her the whole. --Louisa May Alcott (18321888) American novelist; daughter of Amos Bronson Alcott. _Little Women_, pt. II [1868] Every man who is high up loves to think that he has done it all himself; and the wife smiles, and lets it go at that. --Sir James Matthew Barrie (18601937) Scottish writer and dramatist. _What Every Woman Knows_, IV [1908] Men should allow others' excellences, to preserve a modest opinion of their own. --Isaac Barrow (16301677) English classical scholar, theologian, and mathematician who was a teacher of Isaac Newton. Quoted in Maturin M. Ballou _Treasury of Thought_, p. 29 [15th ed. 1894]. To give the devil his due. --Miguel de Cervantes (15471616) Spanish novelist. _Don Quixote de la Mancha_, pt. I, bk. 3, ch. 3 [1605] Give credit where credit is due. --"City Gazette and Daily Advertiser" Charleston, S.C. [14 August 1812] Mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself; but talent instantly recognises genius. --Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (18591930) Scottish-born writer of detective fiction. _The Valley of Fear_, ch. I [1915] If my theory of relativity is proven successful, Germany will claim me as a German and France will declare that I am a citizen of the world. Should my theory prove untrue, France will say that I am a German and Germany will declare that I am a Jew. --Albert Einstein (18791955) German-American physicist who developed the special and general theories of relativity. Address to the French Philosophical Society, Paris [6 April 1922]. Once upon a time my political opponents honored me as possessing the fabulous intellectual and economic power by which I created a worldwide depression all by myself. --Herbert Hoover (18741964) American Republican statesman, President 19291933. _Addresses Upon the American Road, 1955-1960_ [1961] Though I've belted you an' flayed you, By the livin' Gawd that made you, You're a better man than I am, Gunga Din! --Rudyard Kipling (18651936) English writer and poet. "Gunga Din" st. 5 [1892] There is no limit to what a man can do so long as he does not care a straw who gets the credit for it. --C.E. Montague (18671928) English novelist and essayist. _Disenchantment_, ch. 15 [1922] The world is divided into people who do things and people who get the credit. Try, if you can, to belong to the first class. There's far less competition. --Dwight Morrow (18731931) American lawyer, banker, and diplomat. Quoted in Mary Margaret McBride _The Story of Dwight W. Morrow_ [1930]. Ability is the art of getting credit for all the home runs somebody else hits. --Casey Stengel (18911975) American Major League baseball player and manager; inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1966. Quoted in Ira Berkow & Jim Kaplan _The Gospel According to Casey_ [1993]. When you are younger you get blamed for crimes you never committed and when you're older you begin to get credit for virtues you never possessed. It evens itself out. --I.F. Stone [Isidor Feinstein] (19071989) American investigative journalist. "International Herald Tribune" [16 March 1988]; quoted in Robert Andrews _The Columbia Dictionary of Quotations_, p. 25 [1993]. Leave out my name from the gift if it be a burden, but keep my song. --Rabindranath Tagore (18611941) Bengali poet, short-story writer, song composer, playwright, and painter who won the 1913 Nobel Prize for Literature. _Fireflies_ [1928] There is something awfully small about someone who cannot admit that anyone else is exceptionally large. --George F. Will (b. 1941) American columnist. _The Pursuit of Virtue and Other Tory Notions_ [1982] To Herbert Westbrok, without whose never-failing advice, help, and encouragement, this book would have been finished in half the time. --P.G. [Pelham Grenville] Wodehouse (18811975) English humorist; American citizen from 1955. _A Gentleman of Leisure_, "Dedication" [1910] ;void(0)) CREMATION . . see: "DEATH" for related links - Scatter my ashes in my garden so I can be near my loves. Say a few honest words, sing a gentle song, join hands in a circle of flesh. Please tell some stories about me making you laugh. I love to make you laugh. When Ive had time to settle, and green gathers into buds, remember I love blossoms bursting in spring. As the season ripens remember my persistent passion. And if you come into my garden on an August afternoon, pluck a bright red globe, let juice run down your chin and the seeds stick to your cheek. When Im dead I want folks to smile and say, 'That Patti, she sure is some tomato!' --Patti Tana American poet and teacher. "Post Humus" in _Ask the Dreamer Where Night Begins_ [1986]. - . . see: "SPORTS" for related links "Just between you and me, I don't think cricket has ever been played." "What are you talking about?" "It's my belief that at some time in the past an Englishman may have had the idea of a game to be played with bats and balls. He started to explain it as many Englishmen have done to their American friends but he couldn't go on. It was too complicated. What saved him and his idea was that he was talking to fellow Englishmen. They hate theory anyway, so they went ahead and got bats and balls of sorts and to oblige their friend, they stood around with them, running here and there very quietly from time to time, making believe they were playing the game. That's how the tradition started." "What tradition? I'm lost!" "The tradition that cricket is the national game and that every Englishman loves it. In a sense he does love it. 'Playing the game' means he wouldn't do a thing to dispel the general impression that there *is* such a thing it's an exact parallel to what they call the British Constitution." --Jacques Barzun (b. 1907) French-born American writer, educator, and cultural historian. "On Baseball", 1953, in _A Jacques Barzun Reader_ [2002]. - The fascination of cricket is made up of many factors, but I think that one of the reasons why cricket wins so many adherents is because of its setting. It is thought of as an essentially English thing, with its true home in the English countryside. After all, Broadhalfpenny Down and the Hambledon Club capture the thoughts and affections of all cricket lovers. And still today, when men speak of the charm of cricket, they are not thinking of the Test matches played on the historic grounds, such as Lord's or the Oval. They are thinking of the lovely cricket grounds in the incomparable beauty of the English countryside, where they have spent many long summer days watching the cricket, and seeing the white clouds sailing by overhead and the shadows lengthening as the sun declines. [. . . ] And so, when I think of cricket and cricketers, it is not to the lordly places that my minds turns first of all, but to a remote cricket field nestling among the Furness fells where I went as a boy to see the local heroes play. It lay outside the little country town of Ulverston, and you reached it by one of the steep, ancient ways which led to wonderful views of the lakeland hills and the arm of the sea. But when you turned off the road into the cricket field, you were in the very heart of the English countryside. There was a little white pavilion and a primitive scoreboard, and wooden benches at intervals round the ground, and great trees at the boundary's edge. That quiet ground has represented for me all my life the charm and joy of the game of cricket, for I cannot help thinking that men played the game there just because they loved it. --Thoughts on cricket, quoted in _Lord Justice: The Life and Times of Lord Birkett of Ulverston_, by H. Montgomery Hyde [1965]. - After years of patient study (and with cricket there can be no other kind) I have decided that there is nothing wrong with the game that the introduction of golf carts wouldn't fix in a hurry. It is not true that the English invented cricket as a way of making all other human endeavors look lively and interesting; that was merely an unintended side effect. I don't wish to denigrate a sport that is enjoyed by millions, some of them awake and facing the right way, but it is an odd game. It is the only sport that incorporates meal breaks. It is the only sport that shares its name with an insect. It is the only sport in which spectators burn as many calories as players more if they are moderately restless. It is the only competitive activity of any type, other than perhaps baking, in which you can dress in white from head to toe and be as clean at the end of the day as you were at the beginning. --Bill Bryson (b. 1951) American writer of humorous travel books. _In a Sunburned Country_ [2000] - The reason why Englishmen are the best husbands in the world is because they want to be faithful. A Frenchman or an Italian will wake up in the morning and wonder what girl he will meet. An Englishman wakes up and wonders what the cricket score is. --attributed to Barbara Cartland (19012000) British writer of romantic fiction. - A letter from David Niven (James David Graham Nevins) (1910-1983) to Jilly Brown (who had written an article about Mr. Niven in the 'Times'.) : Dear nice, beautiful, friendly and giggly Jilly, I'm very rude, but I was pissed when we parted and I never thanked you for a delicious luncheon. I *must* have been pissed if I let you pay! Thank GOD you didn't come with me into the BBC. It was a shambles. A nice prim lady interviewed me on Woman's Hour . . . an interview of unparalleled dreariness until she said: 'You mention the Hollywood Cricket Club in your book ["The Moon's a Balloon"] do you have many happy memories of our National Game?' Niven (smiling drunkenly) : Oh YES! Prim Lady: And what was the happiest? Niven: Without question it was the time I saw Patsy Hendren at Lord's coming out to bat for Middlesex on a September afternoon. Halfway to the wicket he flung his bat in the air, let out a piercing shriek and disappeared at a brisk trot into the pavilion! Prim Lady: Why did he do that? Niven: He had a sleeping wasp in his box. Prim Lady (mystified): His box? Niven: Yes. That's a sort of aluminum single-seater bra which batsmen wear between their legs to protect their spare parts. Prim Lady: I see. Now let's talk about your two little girls. . . --Jilly Cooper, in _The Best After-Dinner Stories_ - Cricket is the only game that you can actually put on weight when playing. --attributed to Tommy Docherty (b. 1928) Scottish footballer and football manager. If Stalin had learned to play cricket, the world might now be a better place to live in. --Richard Downey (18811953) Irish Archbishop of Liverpool [19281953]. Quoted in Thomas Arthur Rickard _Autumn Leaves_ [1948]. The batsman's Holding, the bowler's Willey. --Brian Johnston (19121994) British cricket commentator. (also attributed to Don Mosey.) [Commentating a cricket Test Match as Michael Holding faced bowler Peter Willey.] [While watching a cricket match:] Say, when do they begin? --Groucho [Julius Henry] Marx (18951977) American film comedian. I'll be at your Board, when at leisure from cricket. --John Montagu {4th Earl of Sandwich} (17181792) English politician. Response, on being appointed a Lord Commissioner of the Admiralty [11 June 1745]. Cricket civilises people and creates good gentlemen I want everyone to play cricket in Zimbabwe; I want ours to be a nation of gentlemen. --Robert Mugabe (b. 1924) President of Zimbabwe [1980 ]. In "Sunday Times" [26 February 1984]. Our Don Bradman Now I ask you is he any good? Our Don Bradman As a Batsman he can sure lay on the wood. For when he goes into bat For knocks ev'ry record flat, For there isn't anything he cannot do Our Don Bradman Ev'ry Aussie 'dips his lid' to you. --Jack O'Hagan (18981987) Australian songwriter. "Our Don Bradman", [1930 song] [Sir Donald G. Bradman (1908-2001) Australian Icon] There is a widely held and quite erroneous belief that cricket is just another game. --Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh (b. 1921) Consort of Queen Elizaberh II. Quoted in Boria Majumdar, & J. A. Mangan (eds.) _Cricketing Cultures in Conflict: World Cup 2003_ [2004]. I tend to think that cricket is the greatest thing that God ever created on earth .... certainly greater than sex, although sex isn't too bad either. --Harold Pinter (b. 1930) English playwright. In "The Observer [5 October 1980]. The English are not a very spiritual people, so they invented cricket to give them some idea of eternity. --attributed to George Bernard Shaw (18561950) Irish comic dramatist, literary critic, Socialist propagandist, and winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1925 [he didn't accept it.] [A cricket enthusiast opinion about baseball:] I dont think I can be expected to take seriously any game which takes less than three days to reach its conclusion. --Tom Stoppard [Tomas Straussler] (b. 1937) Czech-born British playwright. In "Guardian" [24 December 1984]. Personally, I have always looked on cricket as organized loafing. --attributed to William Temple (18811944) English theologian and Archbishop. - Cricket You have two sides: one out in the field and one in. Each man thats in the side thats in goes out and when hes out he comes in and the next man goes in until hes out. --Printed on tea towel sold to overseas visitors, quoted by David Winder, "Christian Science Monitor" [27 January 1987]. ;void(0)) CRIME . . see: "CRIME & PUNISHMENT" for related links I see in the papers that the Los Angeles police are hunting for a Chicago gangster. But why should they want one from Chicago? Can't they be satisfied with a hometown boy? --Gracie Allen [Grace Ethel Cecile Rosalie Allen] (18951964) American comedienne. Quoted in Gene Shalit _Laughing Matters: A Celebration of American Humor_ [1989]. - From _With the Flag on the Seven Seas: Fifty Years a Seafarer_ by Admiral Sir Bulwark Bloode [1907]: The Pacific Station had its ups and downs. My first mission when I took command of the "Myrmidon" was to track down some Solomon Islanders who had eaten a Quaker missionary. By all accounts he was a strange fellow who did not drink nor eat meat and walked around barefoot. It seems he stuck his nose into some native war and got eaten for his troubles. The poor devil was wrapped in palm leaves, parboiled in salt water and then lightly grilled. --_The Folio Book of Humorous Anecdotes_ Introduced by Edward Leeson [2005], "Food, Drink and Entertaining" - I've labored long and hard for bread For honor and for riches But on my corns too long you've tred, You fine-haired sons of bitches. --Charles E. Bolton [Charles Earl Bolles, aka Black Bart] (18291917?) American outlaw. In a note he left after robbing a Wells Fargo stagecoach, quoted in Joseph H. Jackson _Bad Company_ [1949]. Food comes first, then morals. --Bertolt Brecht (18981956) German dramatist. _Die Dreigroschenoper_ (The Threepenny Opera), II. iii [1928] [Butch Cassidy, played by Paul Newman:] If he'd just pay me what he's paying them to stop me robbing him, I'd stop robbing him! --"Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" [1969 film] Screenplay by William Goldman. When I see the Ten Most Wanted lists I always have this thought: If we'd made them feel wanted earlier, they wouldn't be wanted now. --attributed to Eddie Cantor (18821964) American comedian, actor, singer, and songwriter. [Captain Louis Renault (Claude Rains) speaking:] Major Strasser has been shot! . . . Round up the usual suspects. --Julius J. Epstein (19092000), Philip G. Epstein (19091952), and Howard Koch (19021995) "Casablanca" [1942 film] [Mater criminum necessitas tollitur.] Poverty is the mother of crime. --Flavius Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator (c. 490585) Roman statesman and writer. _Variae_, bk. 9, no. 13 (from Wikiquote) [Credo of fictional detective Philip Marlowe:] Trouble is My Business. --Raymond Chandler (18881959) American writer of detective fiction. Title of article in "Dime Detective Magazine" [August 1939]. - It was hot here on the streets of Tel Aviv, and hotter still where he was going, of course. The streets were busy with people scurrying about shopping or pursuing business. There was the expected number of police about, but more discordant was the occasional civilian toting a Uzi sub-machine gun, doubtless on his or her way to or from a reserve meeting. It was the sort of thing to shock an American anti-gun nut (or warm the heart of a pro-gun nut). Ryan figured that the weapons display probably knocked the hell out of purse-snatching and street crime. Ordinary civil crime, he knew, was pretty rare here. But terrorist bombings and other less pleasant acts were not. And things were getting worse instead of better. That wasn't new either. --Tom Clancy (b. 1947) American novelist. _The Sum of All Fears_, ch. 5 [1991] - ... [There is] no question that an admission of making false statements to government officials and interfering with the FBI and the CIA is an impeachable offense. --Bill (William Jefferson) Clinton (b. 1946) American Democratic statesman and president [19932001]. _Arkansas Gazette_ [8 August 1974]. (He was one year out of law school, running his first campaign for elective office, Arkansas Representative to Congress; he lost.) Better build schoolrooms for 'the boy', Than cells and gibbets for 'the man'. --Eliza Cook (18181889) English poet. "A Song for the Ragged Schools" [1853] [Harry Callahan (Clint Eastwood), while holding a gun to a bank robber's head:] I know what you're thinking. Did he fire six shots or only five? Well, to tell the truth, in all this excitement, I've kinda lost track myself. But being as this is a .44 Magnum, the most powerful handgun in the world, and would blow your head clean off, you've got to ask yourself one question: 'Do I feel lucky?' Well, do ya punk? --"Dirty Harry" [1971 film] Screenplay by Harry Julian Fink. Besides, on general principles it is best that I should not leave the country. Scotland Yard feels lonely without me, and it causes an unhealthy excitement among the criminal classes. --Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (18591930) Scottish-born writer of detective fiction. _The Disappearance of Lady Frances Carfax_ [1911] The prestige of government has undoubtedly been lowered considerably by the Prohibition law. For nothing is more destructive of respect for the government and the law of the land than passing laws which cannot be enforced. It is an open secret that the dangerous increase of crime in this country is closely connected with this. --Albert Einstein (18791955) German-American physicist who developed the special and general theories of relativity. "My First Impressions of the U.S.A." in _Berliner Tageblatt_ [7 July 1921]. They hang the man and flog the woman That steal the goose from off the common, But let the greater villain loose That steals the common from the goose. --English folk poem [c. 1764] ^^ In a few rare instances, a trial can be sensational even without a jury. The clearest example comes from 1924, when Richard Loeb and Nathan Leopold were tried in Chicago for the murder of Bobby Franks. This has been called "the crime of the century" (there are, of course, other candidates for this title). The two defendants were rich, young, brilliant, and Jewish; they killed young Franks, apparently, just for the thrill of it. For this reason, perhaps, their crime fascinated and horrified the country: it seemed to encapsulate some sort of twentieth-century malaise. Loeb and Leopold imagined that they could commit the perfect crime; but they were, in fact, blundering amateurs. They were caught fairly quickly; and they quickly confessed. The only issue to be decided, then, was their punishment: would they be hanged or not? Clarence Darrow argued for their defense; there was no jury, but the ladies and gentlemen of the press jammed the courtroom nonetheless. Darrow made an impassioned argument, insisting that the two young men were abnormal, emotionally immature, poisoned by reading too much Nietzsche, and the product of forces beyond their control. The judge did save them from the gallows, for whatever reason; he sentenced them to prison instead, to serve for the rest of their lives. It is unclear whether Darrow's eloquence made any difference. The judge stressed how young the defendants were; and Leopold himself (although he loved Darrow's speech) remarked that he found the whole psychiatric defense rather pointless: "We need only have introduced our birth certificates in evidence," and that would have been enough. Loeb died in prison; a vindictive fellow prisoner stabbed him to death in the shower. Leopold served until the brink of old age, was released, and died a few years later. --Lawrence M. Friedman (b. 1930) _American Law in the 20th Century_ [2002] Ch. 4 "Crime and Punishment in the New Century" pp. 88-9. ^^ ^^ The Mann Act was supposed to help crush white slavery, but the Supreme Court gave it a much broader reading. A key case involved two young men from Sacramento, California, Drew Caminetti and his buddy Maury Diggs. They were in their twenties, married with children, and from somewhat prominent families. Fidelity was not their strong suit. They went gallivanting off to Nevada with two young women in tow. This trip created something of a scandal; and the two men were arrested and, eventually, tried for violating the Mann Act. Of course, there was not a hint of white slavery, or prostitution, or commercialized vice in the case; no indication that the women were the least bit unwilling to have their fun. Nonetheless, the two men were convicted of violating the Mann Act. The Supreme Court affirmed: Caminetti and Diggs had crossed the state line for an "immoral purpose," and this was enough to satisfy the act. The Justice Department claimed that it was interested in commercialized sex, that for the most part it left alone the amateurs at the debauchery game - that is, people like Caminetti and Diggs. But the record shows otherwise. All sorts of cases were tried in the courts, cases which ranged "from seduction and betrayal, to casual romantic trips, to serious relationships of living together." From 1922 to 1937 the FBI looked into 50,500 alleged violations of the Mann Act. Many of the investigations started with complaints sent in by busybodies, people with grudges, outraged husbands, wives, parents, and misceIlaneous others. For example, a woman calling herself "a mother" sent a letter to the Department of Justice from West Palm Beach in 1927, in which she claimed "There is a J.S. Nouser liveing at 727 Kanuga drive with a woman that he not married to and they was on a trip this summer to california and new York they stoped at the pennsylvania Hotel in new york as man and wife." The Mann Act was applied to women, too, if they violated the sexual code; a study of women in federal prison between 1927 and 1937 found that about a quarter of the Mann Act violators were simply unmarried women who dared to travel about with married men. Scandalized and angry wives sometimes blew the whistle on their husbands. More sinister was the prosecution of the black boxer Jack Johnson, whose sex life crossed the state line and the color line. He was tried in 1913 and sentenced to prison. The rock-and-roll singer Chuck Berry was sent to prison similarly in 1960; and Charlie Chaplin, whose real sin was his leftist leanings, was tried but acquitted in 1943. Critics had warned that the Mann Act was a fertile breeding ground for blackmail. Sure enough, in January 1916 detectives arrested a gang of alleged Mann Act blackmailers. These men supposedly would "shadow" rich men, following them across state lines with their girlfriends.They would then confront the men, claim to be United States marshals, and demand payoffs. Sometimes the gang "employed ... attractive women to assist in creating evidence." The victims, naturally enough, were reluctant to step forward. --Lawrence M. Friedman (b. 1930) _American Law in the 20th Century_ [2002] Ch. 4 "Crime and Punishment in the New Century" pp. 98-9. ^^ A butcher was robbed in a very gallant manner by a woman well mounted on a side saddle. ... She presented a pistol to him, and demanded his money; he being amazed at her behaviour told her he did not know what she meant, when a gentleman coming up, told him he was a brute to deny the lady's request, and if he did not gratify her desire immediately, he would shoot him through the Head; so he gave her his watch and 6 guineas. --Gentleman's Magazine" [November 1735], as quoted in Frank Muir, _The Oxford Book of Humorous Prose_ [pub. 1990, 2002 ed.]. - Whenever the offense inspires less horror than the punishment, the rigor of penal law is obliged to give way to the common feelings of mankind. --Edward Gibbon (17371794) English historian. _The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_, vol. I, ch. XIV [17761788] History. . . is, indeed, little more than the register of crimes, follies and misfortunes of mankind. --Edward Gibbon (17371794) English historian. _The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire _ [17761788] - The darkest day in any man's earthly career is that wherein he first fancies there is some easier way of gaining a dollar than by squarely earning it. --Horace Greeley (18111872) American newspaper editor. "Friends' Intelligencer" (monthly periodical) [31 August 1867] Love is a series of darlings and dearies, Of honeys and sweeties and sugared entreaties. Of moonings, and swoonings, and cooings and billings, All tempered, of course, by occasional killings. --E.Y. "Yip" Harburg [Isidore Hochberg] (18961981) American songwriter. _Rhymes for the Irreverent_ [1965] The great crimes of the twentieth century were committed not by money-grubbing capitalists but by dedicated idealists. Lenin, Stalin, and Hitler were contemptuous of money. The passage from the nineteenth to the twentieth century has been a passage from considerations of money to considerations of power. How naοve the clichι that money is the root of evil! --Eric Hoffer (19021983) American longshoreman, philosopher, and author who received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1982. _Working and Thinking on the Waterfront_ [1969] Above all, I would teach him to tell the truth . . . Truth- telling, I have found, is the key to responsible citizenship. The thousands of criminals I have seen in 40 years of law enforcement have had one thing in common: every single one was a liar. --J. Edgar Hoover (18951972) Director of the FBI [19241972]. "What I Would Tell a Son" in _Family Weekly_ [14 July 1963]. I had an interest in death from an early age. It fascinated me. When I heard 'Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,' I thought, 'Did he fall or was he pushed?' --P.D. [Phyllis Dorothy] James (b. 1920) English writer of detective stories. In "Paris Review" [1995]. - No one ever became thoroughly bad all at once. [Lat., Nemo repente venit turpissimus.] --Juvenal (c. 55130) Roman satirist. _Satires_, II, 33 Where have you ever found that man who stopped short after the perpetration of a single crime? --Juvenal (c. 55130) Roman satirist. Quoted in D. E. MacDonnel _A Dictionary of Select and Popular Quotations_, p. 238 [5th ed., 1828]. - The illegal we do immediately; the unconstitutional takes a little longer. --Henry Alfred Kissinger (b. 1923) German-born American diplomat. Quoted in _Washington Post_ [23 December 1973]. I went up to a Bronx senior center and told two hundred senior citizens: A judge I helped elect was mugged recently. And do you know what he did? He called a press conference and said, 'This mugging of me will in no way affect my decisions in matters of this kind.' And an elderly lady got up in the back of the room and said, 'Then mug him again.' --Edward I. Koch (b. 1924) Mayor of New York City [19781989]. _Mayor_ [1984] It is not the murderers, the criminals, the delinquents and the wildly nonconformist who have embarked on the really significant rampages of killing, torture and mayhem. Rather it is the conformist, virtuous citizens, acting in the name of righteous causes and intensely held beliefs, who throughout history have perpetrated the fiery holocausts of war, the religious persecutions, the sacks of cities, the wholesale rape of women, the dismemberment of the old and the young and the other unspeakable horrors... The crimes of violence committed for selfish, personal motives are historically insignificant compared to those committed 'ad majorem gloriam Dei', out of a self- sacrificing devotion to a flag, a leader, a religious faith, a political conviction. --Arthur Koestler (19051983) Hungarian-born British novelist, journalist, and critic. _The Ghost in the Machine_ [1967] Those who are themselves incapable of great crimes are ever backward to suspect others. --Franηois de La Rochefoucauld (16131680) French classical author. _Maxims_ [1665] Murder is a crime. Describing murder is not. Sex is not a crime. Describing sex *is*. --Gershon Legman (19171999) American folklorist. _Love & Death_ "A Study in Censorship" [1949] Once in a Cabinet we had to deal with the fact that there had been an outbreak of assaults on women at night. One minister suggested a curfew: Women should stay home after dark. I said, 'But it's the men who are attacking the women. If there's to be a curfew, let the men stay home, not the women.' --Golda Meir (18981978) A founder and the fourth prime minister [19691974] of the State of Israel. Quoted in "Ms." (mag.) [July 1974]. - The idea that the sole aim of punishment is to prevent crime is obviously grounded upon the theory that crime can be prevented, which is almost as dubious as the notion that poverty can be prevented. --H.L. (Henry Louis) Mencken (18801956) American journalist and literary critic. _Minority Report: H.L. Mencken's Notebooks_, no. 262 [1956] The common argument that crime is caused by poverty is a kind of slander on the poor. --H.L. (Henry Louis) Mencken (18801956) American journalist and literary critic. _Minority Report: H.L. Mencken's Notebooks_, no. 273 [1956] - There once was an old man of Lyme Who married three wives at a time; When asked, "Why a third?" He replied, "One's absurd! And bigamy, sir, is a crime." --William Cosmo Monkhouse (18401901) English poet and critic. "There Once Was an Old Man of Lyme" Now, it's quite simple to defend yourself against a man armed with a banana. First of all you force him to drop the banana; then, second, you eat the banana, thus disarming him. You have now rendered him helpless. --Monty Python (Television show) Dwarfing all known records for matrimonial homicide, Mr Peter Scott of Southsea made seven attempts to kill his wife without her once noticing that anything was wrong. In 1980 he took out an insurance policy on his good lady which would bring him £250,000 in the event of her accidental death. Soon afterward, he placed a lethal dose of mercury in her strawberry flan, but it all rolled out. Not wishing to waste the lethal substance, he then stuffed her mackerel with the entire contents of the bottle. This time she ate it, but with no side effects whatsoever. Warming to the task, he then took his wife on holiday to Yugoslavia. Recommending the panoramic views, he invited her to sit on the edge of a cliff she declined to do so, prompted by what she later described as some 'sixth sense.' The same occurred only weeks later when he urged her to savour the view from Beachy Head. When his spouse was in bed with chicken-pox he started a fire outside the bedroom door, but some interfering busybody put it out. Undeterred, he started another fire and burnt down the whole flat in Turswell Road, Southsea: the wife of his bosom escaped uninjured. Another time he asked her to stand in the middle of the road so that he could drive towards her and check if his brakes were working. At no time did Mrs Scott feel that the magic had gone out of their marriage. Since it appeared that nothing short of a small nuclear bomb would have alerted this good woman to her husband's intentions, he eventually gave up and confessed all to the police. After the case, a detective said Mrs Scott was absolutely shattered when told of her husband's plot to kill her. She had not clued it at all and she was dumbstruck. --John Mortimer (19232009) English barrister and author. In _The Best After-Dinner Stories_ Selected and introduced by Tim Heald [2003]. The contagion of crime is like that of the plague. Criminals collected together corrupt each other; they are worse than ever when at the termination of their punishment they re-enter society. --Napoleon I (17691821) Emperor of France [18041815]. In _The Table Talk And Opinions Of Napoleon Buonaparte_ [pub. by S. Low, and Marston, London, 1868]. These detective series on TV always end at precisely the right moment after the criminal is arrested and before the court turns him loose. --Robert Orben (b. 1927) American magician and comedy writer. Quoted in Morgan O. Reynolds _Crime by Choice: An Economic Analysis_, p. 105 [1985]. Petty laws breed great crimes. --Ouida [Maria Louise de la Ramιe] (18391908) English novelist. _Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos_ "Pipistrello" [1884] Alcohol didn't cause the high crime rates of the '20s and '30s, Prohibition did. And drugs do not cause today's alarming crime rates, but drug prohibition does. --James C. Paine (19242010) American jurist. Addressing the Federal Bar Association in Miami [November 1991]. There were flowers all over the place. Gangsters have this thing about flowers. They think whoever sends the biggest arrangement cares the most. --Calogero Anello (Lillo Brancato) In the film _A Bronx Tale_ [1993], screenplay by Chazz Palminteri, directed by Robert De Niro. I'll make him an offer he can't refuse. --Mario Puzo (19201999) American novelist. _The Godfather_ [1969] The streets are safe in Philadelphia. It's only the people who make them unsafe. --Frank Rizzo (19201991) Ex-police chief and mayor of Philadelphia. Attributed in Richard Lederer _ The Bride of Anguished English_, p. 36 [2002]. Physicists and astronomers see their own implications in the world being round, but to me it means that only one-third of the world is asleep at any given time and the other two-thirds is up to something. --Dean Rusk (19091994) American politician. Speech to the American Bar Association, Atlanta, Georgia [22 October 1964]. Crime does not pay. --"Scientific American" [10 October 1874] ANONYMOUS: How could crime be reduced? SOLON: If it caused as much resentment in those who are not its victims as in those who are. --Solon (630?560? B.C.) Athenian lawmaker and Lyric poet. In Diogenes Laλrtius _Lives of Eminent Philosophers_ It is likewise commanded that the highways from market towns to other market towns be widened where there are woods or hedges or ditches, so that there may be no ditch, underwood or bushes where one could hide with evil intent within two hundred feet of the road on one side or the other, provided that this statute extends not to oaks or to large trees so long as it is clear underneath. And if by the default of a lord, who will not fill up a ditch or level underwood or bushes in the manner aforesaid, robberies are committed, the lord shall be answerable. --_Statutes of Winchester_ [1285] in M.J. Cohan and John Major {eds.} _History in Quotations_, p. 244 [2004]. Cohan & Major explain: The massive Statutes of Westminster (beginning in 1275) were inaugurated immediately after his coronation by Edward I's first London Parliament, and they covered a vast range of practical matters. The king's aim was to bring clarity, efficiency and system to the existing law, not the imposition of revolutionary new principles. On them is largely founded his later reputation as 'the English Justinian'. When you are younger you get blamed for crimes you never committed and when you're older you begin to get credit for virtues you never possessed. It evens itself out. --I.F. Stone [Isidor Feinstein] (19071989) American investigative journalist. "International Herald Tribune" [16 March 1988]; quoted in Robert Andrews _The Columbia Dictionary of Quotations_, p. 25 [1993]. Too much sensibility creates unhappiness, too much insensibility creates crime. --Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Pιrigord (17541838) French statesman. _Reminiscences of Prince Talleyrand; Edited from the Papers of the Late M. Colmache, Private Secretary to the Prince_ [2 vol. 1848]. Everyone has a devil in him that is capable of any crime in the long run. --Henry David Thoreau (18171862) American essayist, poet, and practical philosopher. "Wednesday" _A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers_ [1849] - [Published in the "Hartford Courant" in 1875:] TWO HUNDRED AND FIVE DOLLAR REWARD---- At the great baseball match on Tuesday, while I was engaged in hurrahing, a small boy walked off with an English-made brown silk UMBRELLA belonging to me, and forgot to bring it back. I will pay $5 for the return of that umbrella in good condition to my house on Farmington avenue. I do not want the boy (in an active state) but will pay two hundred dollars for his remains. Samuel L. Clemens. --In _Mark Twain's Helpful Hints For Good Living: A Handbook For The Damned Human Race_ [2004], edited by Lin Salamo, Victor Fischer, and Michael B. Frank. It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly native American criminal class except Congress. --Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (18351910) American humorist, novelist, journalist, and river pilot. _Following the Equator_, ch. 8 [1897] - Fear follows crime and is its punishment. --Voltaire (Franηois Marie Arouet) (16941778) French writer and philosopher. Quoted in N.M. Hentz _A Manual of French Phrases_ [2nd ed. 1824]. [If a district attorney wanted, a grand jury would:] Indict a ham sandwich. --Sol Wachtler (b. 1930) American judge. Quoted in "N.Y. Daily News" [31 January 1985]. Educate your children to self-control, to the habit of holding passion and prejudice and evil tendencies to an upright and reasoning will, and you have done much to abolish misery from their future lives and crimes from society. --Daniel Webster (17821852) American orator and politician. Quoted in Tryon Edwards _A Dictionary of Thoughts_, p. 135 [1908 ed.]. - Poverty is the mother of crime. --anon. Attributed to various. - While they were waiting at a bus stop in Cleriston, Mr and Mrs Daniel Thirsty were threatened by a Mr Robert Clear. 'He demanded that I give him my wife's purse,' said Mr Thirsty. 'Telling him that the purse was in her basket, I bent down, put my hands up her skirt, detached her artificial leg and hit him over the head with it. It was not my intention to do more than frighten him off, but, unhappily for us, he died.' --"Evening News" (Edinburgh) [18 August 1978] - Lizzie Borden took an axe And gave her mother forty whacks. When she saw what she had done She gave her father forty-one. --anon. (on the murder of Lisbeth 'Lizzie' Borden's father and stepmother in Fall River, Massachusetts [4 August 1892].) - TRIVIA: President Ulysses S. Grant was once arrested during his term of office. He was convicted of exceeding the Washington speed limit on his horse and was fined $20. ----- abscond (intransitive verb) 1. To run away secretly, especially in order to avoid arrest or prosecution 2. To escape from a place of detention don [DON], verb: 1. To put on or dress in. noun: 1. A Spanish title prefixed to a man's given name. 2. (In the Mafia) a head of a family or syndicate. flagitious [fluh-JISH-uhs], adjective: 1. Disgracefully or shamefully criminal; grossly wicked; scandalous; -- said of acts, crimes, etc. 2. Guilty of enormous crimes; corrupt; profligate; -- said of persons. 3. Characterized by enormous crimes or scandalous vices; as, "flagitious times." lenity [LEN-uh-tee], noun: The state or quality of being lenient; mildness; gentleness of treatment; leniency. Ex.: And what makes robbers bold but too much lenity? William Shakespeare, _Henry VI_, part III malfeasance (noun) An illegal act or wrongdoing, esp. by a public official. Syn.: abuse, misconduct Related: crime, injury, misconduct, iniquity, malpractice malfeasant (adj.) noir (adj.) ['nwa(r)] Gloomy crime fiction or film featuring cynical characters in sleazy settings. recidivism (noun): A tendency to lapse into a previous condition or pattern of behavior; especially, a falling back or relapse into prior criminal habits. shanghai (verb) ['shζng-hI] To kidnap, steal, or remove, especially by drugging or force. sleuth (noun) (informal) Same as detective. vandal (noun) ['vζn-dκl] 1/ A member of a Germanic tribe that invaded Western Europe and North Africa from the Baltic in the 4th and 5th centuries A.D., establishing settlements along the way, and sacked Rome in 455. 2/ A nasty person who destroys property that does not belong to them. end page | CALAMITIES - CALM | CALUMNY - CANADA | CANCER - CAPITAL PUNISHMENT | CAPITALISM | CAREFREE - CARPE DIEM | CARTER (JIMMY) - CATS & DOGS | CAUSES AND CONSEQUENCES - CENSORSHIP | CERTAINTY - CHANGE | CHANGING (ONE'S MIND) & CHANGING TIMES | CHARACTER | CHARACTER ASSASINATION - CHEERFULNESS | CHEER UP! - CHILDHOOD | CHILDREN | CHILDREN'S RHYME | CHINA | CHOCOLATE - CHRISTIANITY | CHRISTMAS | CHURCH - CIGARS | CIRCUMSTANCES & CITIES | CIVILITY - CIVIL RIGHTS | CLARITY - CLEVER | CLOTHES - COFFEE | COLD - COLORS | COMEDY | COMFORT - COMMON SENSE | COMMUNICATION | COMMUNISM | COMPANIONSHIP - COMPASSION | COMPETITION - COMPLIMENTS | COMPOSERS - CONDUCTORS | CONFESSION - CONQUEST | CONSCIENCE - CONTENTED | CONTEXT - CONVERSATION | CONVICTION & COOKING | COOLIDGE - CORPORATIONS | CORRUPTION - COURAGE | COURT - COWS | CREATIVITY - CRIME | CRIME & PUNISHMENT - CROOKS | CRITICISM & CRITICS | CROWD (THE) - CUBA | CULTURE - CYNICS | | A | B | C | D | E | F | G | | Return Home | The Credits | The Cast | Act 1 | Act 2 | Act 3 | The Reviews | |
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