"Thief" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... bear nicknames. Dotterel means "dotard," and dodo is from the Port. doudo, mad. Ferret is from Fr. furet, a diminutive from Lat. fur, thief. Shark was used of a sharper or greedy parasite before it was applied to the fish. This, in the records of the Elizabethan voyagers, is more often called by its Spanish name tiburon, whence Cape Tiburon, in Haiti. The origin of shark is unknown, but it appears to be identical with shirk, ...
— The Romance of Words (4th ed.) • Ernest Weekley
... last night?" Is the suspicion haunting my mind written on my countenance? I trust not. What if one man after another were to come up to me and say, "How dare you, sir, suspect me in your mind of stealing your fruit? Go be hanged, you and your jargonels!" You rascal thief! it is not merely three-halfp'orth of sooty fruit you rob me of, it is my peace of mind—my artless innocence and trust in my fellow-creatures, my childlike belief that everything they say is true. How can I hold out the hand of friendship ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... parents,—in xxix. 15 [Hebrew: amv] is added,—or making them ashamed, disappointing their hopes. On the other hand, the signification, "to be put to shame," "to be convicted of a disgraceful deed," is quite an established one. Compare, e.g., Jer. ii. 26: "As the disgrace of a thief when he is found, thus the whole house of Israel is put to shame;" Jer. vi. 15: "They are put to shame, for they have committed abomination; they shamed not themselves, they felt no shame;" compare also Jer. viii. 9. In all these passages, [Hebrew: hvbiw] signifies the ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions, v. 1 • Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg
... of its aspects the lesson of this parable is parallel with that which is taught by the experience of the penitent thief. Both greatly magnify the patience and long-suffering of God: they record and proclaim, each in its own way, that there is hope at the eleventh hour. But in such a case, a perverse carnal mind frequently turns the grace of God into lasciviousness. ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot
... 'no such statement will I give belief till it has been proven to me beyond all doubt, and——' I leaned forward, speaking with intensity, 'you have yet to understand that were Jeanette's father doubly a thief, still would Jeanette be Jeanette, and the more obstacles you set in our path, only the more determined shall I become to wed ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... say to you: He that enters not through the door into the sheepfold, but climbs up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber. (2)But he that enters in through the door is a shepherd of the sheep. (3)To him the porter opens, and the sheep hear his voice; and he calls his own sheep by name, and leads them out. (4)And when he has put forth all his own, ...
— The New Testament of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. • Various
... a thief in a mill," he whispered with a nod to his companion. And at that moment a harsh laugh overhead broke the silence startlingly, and set all the poultry ...
— Madam Crowl's Ghost and The Dead Sexton • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... in one week from Berlin streets. It is now suggested that the London police might be taken off duty for one night in order to give the thief a sporting chance. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, September 29th, 1920 • Various
... you imitate the Pharisees you are perfecting your lives. They fast, they pray, they weep, and they mortify the flesh; but to them one thing is impossible, charity to the failings of others. Whoso then shall come to you, be he friend or foe, penitent or thief, receive him kindly. Aid the helpless, console the unfortunate, forgive your enemy, and forget yourselves—that is charity. Without it the kingdom of heaven is lost to you. There, there is neither Greek nor Jew, male nor female; nor can it come to you until the garment of shame ...
— Mary Magdalen • Edgar Saltus
... not wish to become better acquainted with it. After each occasion he had found that the nest had been robbed of a portion of its contents, and that from its position the plunderer had been unable to carry off the remainder. He was sure that the bear was the thief, and he had formed a plan for catching it; he would then, he said, bring Uncle Denis to the spot, and exhibit his captive. I asked him how he ...
— With Axe and Rifle • W.H.G. Kingston
... justice is to the richer. Talk to the Chinese of Religion, of a God, of Heaven or Hell, and they yawn; speak to them of business and they are all attention. If you ever hear of a Chinaman who is not a thief and a liar, do not believe it, Monsieur Morrison, do not believe it, they are ...
— An Australian in China - Being the Narrative of a Quiet Journey Across China to Burma • George Ernest Morrison
... themselves invisible. In a conversation which we once had on this subject, my old friend posed me with this question, "Who do you think robbed . . . of his money without his knowledge?" "Who do you think took . . . money only twenty years ago?" "Why, the Fairies," added he, "for no one ever found out the thief." ...
— Welsh Folk-Lore - a Collection of the Folk-Tales and Legends of North Wales • Elias Owen
... and to slap Jubal. He should even like to tell Juliet Burwell that he didn't want to keep a clean heart, and to call God names. No, he would not become a minister and preach the Gospel. He would be a thief instead and break into hen-houses and steal chickens. If his father planted watermelons he would steal them from the vines as soon as they were ripe. Perhaps Eugenia would help him. At any rate he would go halves with her if she would be his partner in wickedness. ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow
... the cholera, which found swine foraging in the streets as the only scavengers, and a swarming host, but little above the hog in its appetites and in the quality of the shelter afforded it, peopling the back alleys. Still later, the mob, caught looting the city's treasury with its idol, the thief Tweed, at its head, drunk with power and plunder, had insolently defied the outraged community to do its worst. There were meetings and protests. The rascals were turned out for a season; the arch-chief died in jail. I see him now, going through the ...
— The Battle with the Slum • Jacob A. Riis
... they that stood aloof came up also. Amongst them were women and children to whom I made various little presents of beads and fishhooks, with which they seemed pleased. To the old man for his honesty I gave a tomahawk with which he appeared highly pleased—his name was Mootielina; the thief I could not find out, or would have given him his deserts likewise. They did not muster very strong this morning, only about 100; but numbers of others were visible all round the lake at the different ...
— McKinlay's Journal of Exploration in the Interior of Australia • John McKinlay
... when Miss Rabbit and Gertie happened to be, for the moment, alone, the forewoman begged her in a low, confidential whisper not to put off till to-morrow anything she could do to-day, adding that procrastination was the thief of time. ...
— Love at Paddington • W. Pett Ridge
... me! I am easing my mind, I must speak out, since I have found strength enough to do so. For ten years I have been abandoned and crushed every day. Ah! to be nothing more to you, to feel myself cast more and more on one side, to fall to the rank of a servant; and to see that other one, that thief, place herself between you and me and clutch hold of you and triumph and insult me! For dare, yes, dare to say that she hasn't taken possession of you, limb by limb, glided into your brain, your heart, your flesh, everywhere! She holds you like a vice, she feeds on you; in fact, she's your wife, ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
... Livio to have the right on his side, because the banker had an unpleasant face and Livio accused him of being not only a Venetian but a Freemason. The banker in response remarked that he was not going to stay to be insulted by a Ligurian thief, and with violent gestures unscrewed his tin lady and her bunch of real lemons and put away his board. Livio burst into a studied and insulting shout of laughter, stopped abruptly without remembering to bring it to ...
— The Lee Shore • Rose Macaulay
... catholic in her tastes, her gaunt arms, painted blood red, were open alike to the murderer and the thief, the aristocrats of ancient lineage, and the proletariat ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... leaden pump, the daffodils were in flower and the tulip buds swelling. A blast from the first of those golden trumpets could hardly have startled her more than did her first sight of it flaunting in the sun. It had stolen upon her like a thief. ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... presence of the Red Death. He had come like a thief in the night. And one by one dropped the revellers in the blood-bedewed halls of their revel, and died each in the despairing posture of his fall. And the life of the ebony clock went out with that ...
— A Manual of the Art of Fiction • Clayton Hamilton
... Cross." Of this picture the "Guide-book" gives you orders how to judge. If it is the end of religious painting to express the religious sentiment, a hundred of inferior pictures must rank before Rubens. Who was ever piously affected by any picture of the master? He can depict a livid thief writhing upon the cross, sometimes a blond Magdalen weeping below it; but it is a Magdalen a very short time indeed after her repentance: her yellow brocades and flaring satins are still those which she wore when she was of the world; ...
— Little Travels and Roadside Sketches • William Makepeace Thackeray
... immediately afterward, we would hear him dancing down the corridor singing, "Safe in the Arms of Jesus." If he had given heed to one-half we said to him, he would have been safer in our hands than in those of his imaginary protector. He turned out a thief, an unmitigated liar, a dancing dervish, and, through all our experiences of six weeks with him, his chief reading was his Bible and Sunday-school books. The experience, however, was not lost on Theodore—he has never ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... winter in Staunton, dear." Alas, I knew it well, Between High Teas and Blue Teas, and Ladies' Lunches and Bands of Twenties, I knew it well. I knew it from the number of times that I have had to steal in like a thief in the night, at my own side gate and make my way into a cold set-out in the nursery, while a High Tea was progressing down stairs accompanied by the hum of feminine voices. I knew it from the cold nights I have had to carry our eldest daughter to her club, with the ...
— Observations of a Retired Veteran • Henry C. Tinsley
... magpies are thieves. I know that Jack was a sad thief. He would carry off almost any thing he saw lying about. One day he was caught in the act of carrying off ...
— The Nursery, No. 169, January, 1881, Vol. XXIX - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest Readers • Various
... The cotton thief served as prosecuting attorney. The negro youth in for rape of one of his own colour,—the sergeant-at-arms; while the negro preacher in for hog-stealing defended us ... and he did it so well that we were let off with ten blows of the strap a-piece. We ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... look about me. I had noticed that they had put up a flag on my raft, but had paid no attention to it; now I looked at it and it charged me with stealing negroes; and it was thought by many to be no sin to shoot a "nigger thief." Down that flag must come; and then I remembered that they had said they would follow me down the river and shoot me if I did pull it down. The picture on the flag was that of a white man riding at full gallop, on horseback, with a negro behind him. The flag bore this inscription: ...
— Personal Recollections of Pardee Butler • Pardee Butler
... get at the truth," added the squire, in a milder tone. "If Mrs. Taylor did not receive this bill from her son, and will tell us where she got it, we can trace out the thief." ...
— Little Bobtail - or The Wreck of the Penobscot. • Oliver Optic
... the Christmas-pie, That the thief, though ne'er so sly, With his flesh-hooks, don't ...
— In The Yule-Log Glow—Book 3 - Christmas Poems from 'round the World • Various
... would-be thief's chance. With a dexterity worthy of a better cause the urchin transferred the slip, money and letters to his own pocket. It was done in less than three seconds, and then he darted back into ...
— Richard Dare's Venture • Edward Stratemeyer
... and man can be atoned for by minor punishments: crimes between citizens and their country can only be properly avenged by death. You may teach the murderer or the thief the iniquity of his fault; and when he has learnt to hate the deed he has committed, he may be pardoned. It is not so with traitors. Though the truest child of France should spend his life in the attempt, he would not be able to inspire ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope
... and face. He works in heavy gloves. Mouth and nose being the favorite point of attack, everybody who ventures out wears over this part of the face a curiously shaped shield, whose firm look says, "No admittance here." But all the same, that germ from Siberia is a wily thief and steals lives by the thousands, ...
— The Lady and Sada San - A Sequel to The Lady of the Decoration • Frances Little
... tried to get in anything that offered temptation to sin. There would be no thieves if there was nothing to steal; and I suppose, in the thieves' catechism, the provider is as bad as the thief; and, probably, I am to blame for leaving out a few winter pears, which some predatory boy carried off on Sunday. At first I was angry, and said I should like to have caught the urchin in the act; but, on second thought, I was ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... strike there are two kinds of attitudes toward those who take their places. The first is the scorn of the man who is winning. "You are a dirty scab," it says. "You're a Judas to the working class and a thief who is trying to steal my job. But you won't get it, we're bound to win, and you're barely worth kicking out of the way." The second is quite a different feeling. In this is the fear of the man who is losing—and fear, as an English ...
— The Harbor • Ernest Poole
... she had made you a tinker, sir, and you turned out a thief, as likely as not you would have done, and you'd been hung, sir, what then? Am I to have such discredit as this brought upon me, without my having any ...
— With Clive in India - Or, The Beginnings of an Empire • G. A. Henty
... mountaineer, who first uprear'd A mouse-trap, and engoal'd the little thief, The deadly wiles and fate inextricable, Rehearse, my Muse, and, oh! thy presence deign, Auxiliar Phoebus, mortal foe to mice: Whence bards in ancient times thee ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 214, December 3, 1853 • Various
... I do?" moaned Euphra, succeeding at length in raising herself to a sitting posture, and leaning thus against a tree. "I shall be found out some day. I have been already seen wandering through the house at midnight, with the heart of a thief. I hate ...
— David Elginbrod • George MacDonald
... to the Pennsylvania oil regions, I stopped one evening with a fellow-traveler at a village which had just been thrown into a turmoil of excitement by the exploits of a horse-thief. As we sat around the tavern hearth, after supper, we heard the particulars of the rogue's capture and escape fully discussed; then followed many another tale of theft and robbery, told amid curling puffs of tobacco-smoke; until, at the close of an exciting story, one of the natives turned ...
— The Man Who Stole A Meeting-House - 1878, From "Coupon Bonds" • J. T. Trowbridge
... snail-shell. "This is lucky," said he, "I can sleep here very well," and in he crept. Just as he was falling asleep he heard two men passing, and one said to the other, "How shall we manage to steal that rich parson's silver and gold?" "I'll tell you," cried Thumbling. "What noise was that?" said the thief, frightened. "I am sure I heard some one speak." They stood still listening, and Thumbling said, "Take me with you, and I'll soon show you how to get the parson's money." "But where are you?" said they. "Look about on the ground," answered he, "and listen where the sound comes ...
— My Book of Favorite Fairy Tales • Edric Vredenburg
... Somebody cried: "Stop, thief!" and a policeman ran out to arrest him. But the Woggle-Bug used his four hands to push the officer aside, and the astonished man went rolling into the gutter so recklessly that his uniform bore marks of ...
— The Woggle-Bug Book • L. Frank Baum
... suppose, for a moment, that we are commanded to encourage the attacks of the wicked, by literally turning the left cheek when assaulted on the right, and thus induce the assailant to commit more wrong? Shall we invite the thief and the robber to persevere in his depredations, by literally giving him a cloak when he takes our coat; and the insolent and the oppressor to proceed in his path of crime, by going two miles with him if he ...
— Elements of Military Art and Science • Henry Wager Halleck
... his ship," Matt Peabody declared passionately. "If the old thief can gamble on good weather I guess I can gamble on ...
— Cappy Ricks • Peter B. Kyne
... have overlooked it. But you have told me an untruth and you have lost the ring. You are a very wicked child, and it will make your dear mother very unhappy when she hears of it. That her boy should be a liar. It is worse than being a thief!' ...
— The Magic World • Edith Nesbit
... if the slightest possible chance of doing so were afforded him. He was dazzled by the magnitude of the temptation; so much so, indeed, that he never seemed to realise in his own mind the foulness of the deed by which alone it could become his property. Had any man hinted that he was a thief, either in act or intention, he would have repudiated the term with scorn—would have repudiated it even in his own mind, for he made a point of hoodwinking and cozening himself, as though he were some other person whose good opinion ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 4, April, 1891 • Various
... assured her she would in no wise be the loser by the dog's presence; he wanted both to stay with him. But it was impossible to appease the cat. The dog promised her not to touch anything intended for her. She insisted that she could not live in one and the same house with a thief like the dog. Bickerings between the dog and the cat became the order of the day. Finally the dog could stand it no longer, and he left Adam's house, and betook himself to Seth's. By Seth he was welcomed kindly, and from Seth's house, he continued to make efforts at reconciliation with the cat. In ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... here, Big Chief—which it would be big thief if 'ee had yer right name—I ain't goin' to stand this sort o' thing no longer. I kep' my word to you all the time we wos at Raratonga, but now I'll keep it no longer. I'll do my best to cut the cable and make sail the wery first chance I gits—so I ...
— Jarwin and Cuffy • R.M. Ballantyne
... seek her very essence—that is, the fruit of Blood. He who pays not the price of charity with true humility and the light of most holy faith, would share this, not unto life, but unto death; he would do like the thief, who takes what is not his. For the fruit of Blood is for those who pay the price of love, because she is founded in love, and is Very Love itself. And I will," said Eternal God, "that every one give to her ...
— Letters of Catherine Benincasa • Catherine Benincasa
... if you wass quiet and let me alone. That night Essec Powell cum home from chapel in a devil of temper, and he call Valmai a thief to steal his brother's money from him, and worse names than that, an' he turn her out of the house that night, pwr ...
— By Berwen Banks • Allen Raine
... more. She was not surprised. She knew now that she had known it always. She had pretended to herself that the thief would not come; but she was expecting him when he knocked. And he stood there, outside. Presently he ...
— The Lowest Rung - Together with The Hand on the Latch, St. Luke's Summer and The Understudy • Mary Cholmondeley
... there is all eternity to do it in. Take Him for your master, and He will demand nothing of you which you are not able to perform. This is the open door to bliss. With your last breath you can cry to Him, and He will hear you as He heard the thief on the cross, who cried to Him dying beside him: 'Lord, remember me when Thou comest into Thy kingdom.'—'To-day shalt thou be with me in paradise.' It makes my heart swell to think of it, my lord. No cross-questioning of the poor fellow, no preaching ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Vol. XV., No. 85. January, 1875. • Various
... same way that you have given yours," said Abner, "and as every man here has given his. Our fathers found out that they could not manage the assassin and the thief when every man undertook to act for himself, so they got together and agreed upon a certain way to do these things. Now, we have indorsed what they agreed to, and promised to obey it, and I for one would like to ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Stories • Various
... an incomprehensible ordination, He, in the time of the scourging and of the blows and of the insults spat in His face, had put off divinity, nor had He resumed it when, after these preliminary mockeries, He entered upon the unspeakable torment of the unceasing agony. Thus, dying like a thief, like a dog, basely, vilely, physically, He had sunk himself to the deepest depth of fallen humanity and had not spared Himself ...
— La-bas • J. K. Huysmans
... while; they couldn't have refused me so much; and maybe some day I'd have been a gentleman, and could have talked with her free and equal. But now she's lost to them and to me; and, when I tell the master, he'll call me a mean thief and a liar, and a rascal every way, and he'll never look at me again; ...
— Outpost • J.G. Austin
... or purses—though, of course, if the attempt miscarried, a great uproar ensued. One had only to approach a roulette table, begin to play, and then openly grab some one else's winnings, for a din to be raised, and the thief to start vociferating that the stake was HIS; and, if the coup had been carried out with sufficient skill, and the witnesses wavered at all in their testimony, the thief would as likely as not succeed in getting away with the money, ...
— The Gambler • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... goods are taken by violence from the possessor, we call it a robbery, and the person who takes it we call a robber. Money clandestinely taken from the proprietor we call theft, and the person who takes it we call a thief. When a false paper is made out to obtain money, we call the act a forgery. That steward who takes bribes from his master's tenants, and then, pretending the money to be his own, lends it to that master and takes bonds for it to himself, we consider guilty of a breach of trust; and the person ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... matter cleared up before we sleep. But, Nellie, don't tell Edward what I want to see Don John for. Not a word about that to any one. By keeping my own counsel, I may get at the whole truth; whereas the thief, if he gets wind of what I am doing, may cover his tracks ...
— The Yacht Club - or The Young Boat-Builder • Oliver Optic
... might scramble out of the field. At last he found one and made a bound to climb up it; but the bank was too steep and he fell back. The boys seeing that he was afraid of them began to raise the cry of thief, or, as they called it, thafe. Half a dozen of them ran round to the gate of the meadow to cut him off, while the rest yelled round him like a pack of baying hounds, with cries of "Thafe! Thafe! Thafe!" The man made a second attempt to climb up the bank, and this time reached the top, where ...
— The Drummer's Coat • J. W. Fortescue
... thirty, forty, and even fifty per cent. Yet they are not so liberal as they appear; they could afford ninety per cent. You understand me, gentlemen. Would you lend to a man that came to you under an alias like a Newgate thief? Cast your eye over this prospectus. It is the Poyais loan. There is no ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... kept a prisoner in the cavern till he has been condemned along with the others?' said Lomellino. 'Neither more nor less than what you imagine, and I only wish I had the Lady Nisida also in my power, for I have no doubt she instigated her brother to turn me off suddenly like a common thief, because from all you have since told me, Lomellino, I dare swear it was she who got an inkling of our intentions to plunder the Riverola Palace; though how she could have done so, being deaf and dumb, passes my understanding.' 'Well, well,' growled Lomellino, 'it is no use to waste ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... still is, as "The Lord Bond Robbery." Lord was a very wealthy man, who had inherited his millions. His office was in Broad street, where he managed his estates. He had invested $1,200,000 in seven-thirty bonds, all payable to bearer. For the thief, if he had any knowledge of finance, and knew how to negotiate them, such a sum as this in bonds was better than the same amount in gold, it being more portable. One million two hundred thousand dollars in gold would weigh upward of a ton, and would be difficult to handle, but ...
— Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison - Fifteen Years in Solitude • Austin Biron Bidwell
... mischief. For what does it matter, or rather ought it to matter, for social purposes, in what part of a man's system his conscience lies, or whether pressure on a particular portion of the brain may convert him into a thief, when we know, as of experience, that the establishment of good courts and police turns a robbers' den into a hive of peaceful industry, and when we see the wonders which discipline works ...
— Reflections and Comments 1865-1895 • Edwin Lawrence Godkin
... last moment towards thy Saviour, and though thou hast scorned and rebelled against Him in life, to ask His pardoning mercy in death. He has pardoned a dying miscreant ere now. Wilt thou not take upon thy lips that dying thief's petition, and cry 'Lord, remember me;' or this prayer, 'Lord, be ...
— In the Days of Chivalry • Evelyn Everett-Green
... hast lived and died to save, Us sinners, Christ of Galilee! Thy great love pardon'd and forgave The dying thief upon the tree, Thou canst not ...
— Poems • Adam Lindsay Gordon
... guest, by nature kindly cherished, A world grows dark with thee in blinding death; One little gasp,—thy universe has perished, Wrecked by the idle thief who ...
— Voices for the Speechless • Abraham Firth
... immorality and theft is so mild as to deprive them of the character of crime, pamphlets and works of the most immoral description are dispersed by means of the circulating libraries among all classes, and the bold infidelity preached even from the universities is left unchecked. But—is not the thief taught morality in the house of correction? and are not diseases, the result of license, cured in the ...
— Germany from the Earliest Period Vol. 4 • Wolfgang Menzel, Trans. Mrs. George Horrocks
... advanced, thief-like, but a few steps, he had felt but for a moment the welcome warmth of the fire, when the figure of Antonina, still extended insensible upon the floor, caught his eye; he approached it with eager curiosity, and, raising the girl on his arm, looked at her with a long ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... with the penitentiary staring him in the face, was clamoring for money to make good the overdraft. At home he used the words "overdraft" and "overdrawn" in confessing the situation. Williams, when speaking to Tom of the shortage, had used the words "embezzlement" and "thief." ...
— A Forest Hearth: A Romance of Indiana in the Thirties • Charles Major
... a cruel despoliation be permitted! The publishers, with consummate cunning, turn to the public, and virtually say, support us in our theft, and we will share the spoil with you; we will give you standard works at a price immeasurably below their value. As well might a thief, brought before the honest and worthy recorder say: If your honour will wink at the crime, you will make me a public benefactor, for whilst I rob one man of an hundred watches, I can sell them to ...
— Diary in America, Series Two • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... others weak and feeble and only four feet ten? Most unequal and unjust! If I have a field, and a town grows up to it of its own accord, and somebody offers me four times as much as I gave for it, I hardly see why I should be reckoned a thief and a robber if I pocket the proffered cash. To take another illustration. I may have on my house-walls a picture for which I gave twenty pounds. The artist has "gone up" since I made my purchase, and I am now offered a hundred and twenty pounds for my painting. ...
— A Tale of One City: The New Birmingham - Papers Reprinted from the "Midland Counties Herald" • Thomas Anderton
... to be better than the detected libertines, and clamoring for their condign punishment; but this is mere self-defence. No reasonable person expects the burglar to confess his pursuits, or to refrain from joining in the cry of Stop Thief when the police get on the track of another burglar. If society chooses to penalize candor, it has itself to thank if its attack is countered by falsehood. The clamorous virtue of the libertine is therefore no more ...
— Overruled • George Bernard Shaw
... the Thief of Lunches has learned from you what nobody ever told her before: that honesty's the best policy. I suppose I always enjoyed the other way because I never was found out. But being found out is different. Honest people who have nothing to conceal are the happiest. ...
— Molly Brown's Senior Days • Nell Speed
... than light"; and then I am filled with terror and I look upon myself as lost. No resource is left me but flight. If, before the end of the month, my father does not go with me, or consent to my going alone, I shall steal away like a thief, without a word to ...
— Pepita Ximenez • Juan Valera
... "'You're a lying thief,' I said, looking at him square. 'And you're going too far. You played me for a fool once and made it stick, but ...
— The Spoilers • Rex Beach
... Inn, wide space, is rail'd around, Cross not with venturous step; there oft is found The lurking thief, who, while the daylight shone, Made the walls echo with his begging tone: That crutch, which late compassion moved, shall wound Thy bleeding head, and fell thee to the ground. Though thou art tempted by the linkman's call, Yet trust him not along the lonely wall; In the midway he'll quench ...
— Holborn and Bloomsbury - The Fascination of London • Sir Walter Besant
... how you believe in people if ill-natured women would let you alone. You wouldn't mistrust a thief if you saw him stealing your watch ...
— The Inner Shrine • Basil King
... water-logged souterrain connected with the Seine made his way out and saw dreadful things in the house above. There is really no great interval or discrepancy (except in details of manners and morals) between these and the novels of detective, gentleman-thief, and other impolite life which delight many persons indubitably respectable and presumably intelligent in England to-day.[283] To sneer at these ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... Johannites dared to attribute to St. John.[195] This would accord with the confession of the Catalonian Knight Templar, Galcerandus de Teus, who stated that the form of absolution in the Order was: "I pray God that He may pardon your sins as He pardoned St. Mary Magdalene and the thief on the cross"; but the witness went ...
— Secret Societies And Subversive Movements • Nesta H. Webster
... replied, stooping to look into the safe. "It must have been a sneak-thief, Hawkins. Every vestige of your beautiful ...
— Mr. Hawkins' Humorous Adventures • Edgar Franklin
... thief be pursued, if necessary. If there be present need, let it be told the hundred men, and let them afterwards make it known to the tithing men and let them all go forth whither God may direct them to their end; let ...
— The Customs of Old England • F. J. Snell
... "Take that, you pelt thief, and that! Let me ketch ye at my traps agin an' I'll jest waste a bullet on one o' yer legs. Kim up here an' steal my skins, will ye? Thar's another fur ye. Oh, howl all ye want to, I'm larnin' ...
— The Outdoor Chums - The First Tour of the Rod, Gun and Camera Club • Captain Quincy Allen
... given him time there is no doubt that he would have gone off with his plunder. One night he went to T'nowhead, and Bell, who slept in the kitchen, was wakened by the noise. She knew who it would be, so she rose and dressed herself, and went to look for him with a candle. The thief had not known what to do when he got in, and as it was very lonely he was glad to see Bell. She told him he ought to be ashamed of himself, and would not let him out by the door until he had taken off his boots so as not to ...
— Auld Licht Idylls • J. M. Barrie
... could appear in the Middle Ages. The whole spirit of medieval Christianity excluded it. The conceptions which were entertained of the working of divine Providence, the belief that the world, surprised like a sleeping household by a thief in the night, might at any moment come to a sudden end, had the same effect as the Greek theories of the nature of change and of recurring cycles of the world. Or rather, they had a more powerful effect, because they were not reasoned conclusions, but dogmas guaranteed by ...
— The Idea of Progress - An Inquiry Into Its Origin And Growth • J. B. Bury
... should come to repentance,' goes on immediately to repel the inference that therefore a period of which retribution shall be the characteristic is impossible, by the solemn declaration, 'But the day of the Lord shall come as a thief in the night.' His character remains ever the same, the principles of His government are unalterable, but there may be variations in the prominence given in His acts, to the several principles of the one, and the various though harmonious phases of the other. ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... a thief!" the sailor elevated his dull tone. "After I telegraphed ye about th' men... fought for ye... called ...
— The Cruise of the Dry Dock • T. S. Stribling
... old Thief; This Moment leave my Fort, and to your Country. Let me hear no more of your hellish Clamour, Or to D——n I will blow you all, And feast the Devil with ...
— Ponteach - The Savages of America • Robert Rogers
... regret, a paragraph going the round of the papers headed, "THE LADY THIEF AT LINCOLN," as if a lady could commit larceny! "Her disorder," says the newspapers, "is ascribed to a morbid or irrrepressible propensity, or monomania;" in proof of which we beg to subjoin the following prescriptions of her family physician, which have been politely ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, August 14, 1841 • Various
... Africa, and on which I was to spend seven to The Graphic contributor's one; the other from The Daily Telegraph, reviewing a French book of "Phrases in common use" in Dahomey. The opening sentence in the latter was, "Help, I am drowning." Then came the inquiry, "If a man is not a thief?" and then another cry, "The boat is upset." "Get up, you lazy scamps," is the next exclamation, followed almost immediately by the question, "Why has not this man been buried?" "It is fetish that has ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... been a first-class reiver, one of the "tail" of some noted Border chieftain, for he lacked neither pluck nor strength. But in his own day he preferred the suaviter in modo to the fortiter in re; his cunning, indeed, was not unworthy of the hero of that ancient Norse tale, "The Master Thief," and in his misdeeds there was not seldom to be found a spice of humour so disarming that at times his victims were compelled to laugh, and in laughter to forget their just resentment; and with the perishing of resentment, to forego their manifest duty and that satisfaction ...
— Stories of the Border Marches • John Lang and Jean Lang
... that it might fall. Another desired a husband for his elderly daughter, already nineteen. And an old couple were in great distress at the robbery of their jewels, and were sure the Saint would discover the thief and recover the booty. I found but one, who, like me, came from a consuming desire to hear new doctrine for the soul. And so I was to have the advantage of them, I learnt, not without chuckling; for whereas I should receive my wish on the Sabbath, being invited to attend ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... the school that day; and Mr. Wiseacre having read in a book of an ingenious method of finding out a thief by making him put his hand into a sack (which, if guilty, the rogue would shirk from doing), all we boys were subjected to the trial. Goodness knows what the lost object was, or who stole it. We all had black hands to show the master. ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... who had been the cause of so much trouble. It would not have been difficult to take steps that would have led to his punishment; though the likelihood of any reparation being made for the loss sustained was very small. But the consideration which weighed most heavily was that the thief was a man for whose salvation I had laboured and prayed; and I felt that to prosecute him would not be to emphasise the teaching of the Sermon on the Mount, in which we had read together, "Resist not evil," and other similar ...
— A Retrospect • James Hudson Taylor
... the Van Cortlandts. A hundred lashes here and there, a debtor's jail, a hanging or two, would have made things more cheerful. But I, curse me if I could ever bring myself to use my simplest prerogatives; I can't whip a man, no! I can't hang a man for anything—even a sheep-thief has his chance with me—like that great villain, Billy Bones, who turned renegade and joined Danny Redstock and ...
— The Maid-At-Arms • Robert W. Chambers
... suddenly fired and the bullet whistled uncomfortably close by the door of our house. The guard turned out very quickly without any fuss and passed at the double. A single sharp order was given and then all was quiet again. Next day we heard that a thief had penetrated to the rubber store when he was seen by the sentry, who fired the alarm, but the man was not captured. All the natives here seem anxious to trade. Ladies sell us their brass bangles for a tea cup full of salt and their dresses for a similar amount. Spears, knives ...
— A Journal of a Tour in the Congo Free State • Marcus Dorman
... Howard Street," he explained, as he untied the fastening, "have small balconies to the first-floor windows at the back. Now, the thief entered by one of these windows, having climbed up a rain-water pipe to the balcony. It was a gusty night, as you will remember, and this morning, as I was leaving the house, the butler next door ...
— John Thorndyke's Cases • R. Austin Freeman
... there, he thought he would have a look at the contents of the precious vessel, when, on his opening the lid, out jumped the holy wafer, up it flew into the air over his head, and there it kept dodging about, and bobbing up and down, behind the affrightened thief, and following him wherever he went. He rushed into the town of St Denis, but there was the wafer coming after him, and just above his head; whichever way he turned, there was the flying wafer. It was now broad daylight, and some ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV. • Various
... ryvere, that is clept Thebe. And in generalle, alle the men of tho yles and of alle the marches there abouten, ben more trewe than in ony othere contrees there abouten, and more righte fulle than othere, in alle thinges. In that yle is no thief, ne mordrere, ne comoun woman, ne pore beggere, ne nevere was man slayn in that contree. And thei ben so chast, and leden so gode lif, as tho thei weren religious men: and thei fasten alle dayes. And because thei ben so trewe and so rightfulle and ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, - and Discoveries of The English Nation, Volume 9 - Asia, Part 2 • Richard Hakluyt
... nation. Xenophon has made an eloquent attempt to explain the nature of military good faith. Cambyses tells his son, that, in taking advantage of an enemy, a man must be "crafty, deceitful, a dissembler, a thief, and a robber." Oh Jupiter! exclaims the young Cyrus, what a man, my father, you say I must be! And he very sensibly asks his father, why, if it be necessary in some cases to ensnare and deceive men, he had not in his childhood been taught by his preceptors the art of doing harm to ...
— Practical Education, Volume I • Maria Edgeworth
... and I will tell you all about it. I became weary of ranging fields and scaling walls, and seriously alarmed at the idea suggested by you, that if caught hovering about here your father would very likely have me sent to prison as a thief. That would compromise the honor of the French army, to say nothing of the fact that the continual presence of a captain of Spahis in a place where no warlike projects could be supposed to account for it might well create surprise; so I have become a gardener, and, consequently, ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... reason to suppose him smitten with the charms of solitude, of a lonely abode in the midst of mountainous and rugged nature; but this could not be uninterruptedly enjoyed. Life could be supported only by occasionally visiting the haunts of men, in the guise of a thief or a mendicant. Hence, since Clithero was not known to have reappeared at any farm-house in the neighbourhood, I was compelled to conclude either that he had retired far from this district, ...
— Edgar Huntley • Charles Brockden Brown
... "A benevolent thief!" exclaimed the other in astonishment. "I have never heard of such a thing before, and I should very much like to know ...
— Chinese Folk-Lore Tales • J. Macgowan
... Patrick Burke, standing in the midst of a group of people. He went over and heard the old man's story—how there was a Dago fellow who had stolen his timbers, and he had come up to the surface for more; so his life had been saved, while the timber-thief was down there still—a judgment ...
— King Coal - A Novel • Upton Sinclair
... goodness and beauty become transformed into stags; for they are no longer hunters, but that which is hunted. For the ultimate and final end of this sport, is to arrive at the acquisition of that fugitive and wild body, so that the thief becomes the thing stolen, the hunter becomes the thing hunted; in all other kinds of sport, for special things, the hunter possesses himself of those things, absorbing them with the mouth of his own intelligence; ...
— The Heroic Enthusiast, Part II (Gli Eroici Furori) - An Ethical Poem • Giordano Bruno
... concerning Servants. 3. A Caveat for Shopkeepers: with a Description of Shoplifts, how to know 'em, and how to prevent 'em: also a Caution of delivering Goods: with the Relation of several Cheats practised lately upon the Publick. Written by a converted Thief. To which is prefix'd some Memoirs of his Life. Set a Thief to catch a Thief. London: Printed for J. Roberts, in Warwick Lane. Price 1s. (No date, but circ. 1726.) ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 71, March 8, 1851 • Various
... soul. For the eternal tendencies of all toward happiness make the only point of sane philosophy. Whatever comprehends less than that ... whatever is less than the laws of light and of astronomical motion ... or less than the laws that follow the thief the liar the glutton and the drunkard through this life and doubtless afterward ... or less than vast stretches of time or the slow formation of density or the patient upheaving of strata—is of no account. Whatever would put God in ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... said she. “White man, he come here, I marry him all-e-same Kanaka; very well then, he marry me all-e-same white woman. Suppose he no marry, he go ’way, woman he stop. All-e-same thief, empty hand, Tonga-heart—no can love! Now you come marry me. You big heart—you no ’shamed island-girl. That thing I love you for too ...
— Island Nights' Entertainments • Robert Louis Stevenson
... of others. Of many patriotic or benevolent actions we can give a straightforward account by their tendency to promote happiness. For the explanation of justice, on the other hand, we have to go a long way round. No man is indignant with a thief because he has not promoted the greatest happiness of the greatest number, but because he has done him a wrong. There is an immeasurable interval between a crime against property or life, and the omission of an act of charity ...
— Philebus • Plato
... and felt in his bowels the yearning for a law of retaliation? Did he then invent justice? And the first who plucked the fruit planted by his neighbor and who fled cowering under his mantle, did he invent shame? And he who, having overtaken that same thief who had robbed him of the product of his toil, forgave him his sin, and instead of raising his hand to smite him, said, "Sit thou down and eat thy fill"; when after having thus returned good for evil he raised his eyes toward Heaven and felt his heart ...
— The Confession of a Child of The Century • Alfred de Musset
... The thief had not found the line yet, for the haul of marten and mink was good. But this was merely ...
— Rolf In The Woods • Ernest Thompson Seton
... in, she began a perfect torrent of abuse. Bok could not piece out, try as he might, what it was all about. But he did gather from the explosion that the woman considered him a hypocrite who wrote one thing and did another; that he was really a thief, stealing a woman's money, and so forth. There was no chance of a word for fully fifteen minutes and then, when she was almost breathless, Bok managed to ask if his caller would kindly tell him just ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok
... ME!" burst out Neale, passionately. "You think I'll take your dirty money—cover up your crooked job! Why, you sneak! You thief! You dog!" ...
— The U.P. Trail • Zane Grey
... on Thursday last, at Worcester, for burglary. A greater thief and burglar was perhaps never ...
— The Olden Time Series, Vol. 5: Some Strange and Curious Punishments • Henry M. Brooks
... man defends himself as he can. I am not a knight. I am only a financier. Money is my weapon. The Prince has stolen from me. I will have him sentenced as a thief." ...
— Serge Panine, Complete • Georges Ohnet
... leg up, fussing about office work. And when he was not fussing he would look at Eleanor and say to himself, "How can I tell her?" Then he would think of his boy developing into a little joyous liar—and thief! The five cents that purchased the jew's-harp, instead of going into the missionary box, was intensely annoying to him. "But the lying is the worst. I can stand anything but lying!" the poor lying father thought. ...
— The Vehement Flame • Margaret Wade Campbell Deland
... thief with a reward out for you," said Roland. "You're that Mortimer Henry what absconded from the Longacre National ...
— The Fortune Hunter • Louis Joseph Vance
... speech, in the religious passion of it, such as there may be, is entirely sincere. Andrew is a thief, a liar, a coward, and, in the Fair service from which he takes his name, a hypocrite; but in the form of prejudice, which is all that his mind is capable of in the place of religion, he is entirely sincere. He does not in the least pretend detestation of image ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... home. They are not all economic, but the primary problem is our economy. There are some good signs. Inflation, that thief, is down, and interest rates are down. But unemployment is too high, some industries are in trouble and growth is not what it should be. Let me tell you right from the start and right from the heart: I know we're in hard times, but I know something ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... 'tis madness to defer; Next day the fatal precedent will plead; Thus on, till wisdom is push'd out of life. Procrastination is the thief of time; Year after year it steals, till all are fled, And to the mercies of a moment leaves The vast concerns of ...
— Lectures on the English Poets - Delivered at the Surrey Institution • William Hazlitt
... raving curses were fearful to hear. Rodney pitied her, though she cursed him. He was indignant at his companion's rascality, and offered to go with her and try to find him. It was two o'clock in the morning. He looked round for his hat, collar, and handkerchief; but they were gone. The thief had taken them with him. Taking Bill's old hat, he went out with the woman, and looked into the oyster-cellars and grog-shops, some of which they found still open; but they could find no ...
— The Runaway - The Adventures of Rodney Roverton • Unknown
... supreme in their realm, but there are people who prefer to lie when truth would serve them better, and who would rather steal than get an honest living. But truth and honesty do not permit—are not responsible for such perversion. Until the liar and the thief turn to truth and honesty, to reclaim them, they will suffer from the results of their sins; they cannot substitute ...
— Katherine's Sheaves • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... burden in walking, climbing or leaping. If, by some accident, it become detached from the fastening to which it is hung, she flings herself madly on her treasure and lovingly embraces it, ready to bite whoso would take it from her. I myself am sometimes the thief. I then hear the points of the poison-fangs grinding against the steel of my pincers, which tug in one direction while the Lycosa tugs in the other. But let us leave the animal alone: with a quick touch of the ...
— The Wonders of Instinct • J. H. Fabre
... should be attacked. The French were in number about equal to the English. After a stubborn fight, the English were all killed or captured. Among the latter was the chief of the robbers, Franquet d'Arras. It was proved before the bailiff and justices of Lagny that Franquet had not only been a thief, but a murderer, and he was consequently condemned to die. Joan of Arc wished that he should be exchanged for a French prisoner, but this French prisoner had meanwhile died. The justices of Lagny insisted on having their sentence carried ...
— Joan of Arc • Ronald Sutherland Gower
... frequently used instead of the in naming an object as typical of its class, especially when the speech carries any flavour of pleasantry. Cf. Shakespeare, Measure for Measure, IV. ii. 46, 'Every true man's apparel fits your thief.' ...
— The Coverley Papers • Various
... on the door feeling for the wooden latch. We mentally say, "You have made too much noise, Mr Thief, for your purpose, and you are discovered." Soon the door opened a little. As it was a beautiful starlight night, the form of a tall man was plainly visible in the opening. Covering him with my rifle, and about to ...
— By Canoe and Dog-Train • Egerton Ryerson Young
... All the world could have entered unrebuked into that silent hall. What need now for bars and bolts? When the Great Thief has entered in and stolen from them their best, what heart have they ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton
... know; perhaps it does bind me, in a way," Dick replied. "All the same, Shanks is a loafing thief; I'd have turned him out ...
— Partners of the Out-Trail • Harold Bindloss
... by the present occasion, to bring home to their hearts the unwelcome truth that death was inevitable. He pointed to the coffin that contained the remains of one who had attained so great an age, as to make her an object of wonder in the neighborhood. Yet her time had come, like a thief in the night. There was no sickness, no sudden failing, nothing unusual in her appearance, to intimate the presence of death. God had given her a long time of health to prepare for the great change; he had given her every ...
— Aunt Phillis's Cabin - Or, Southern Life As It Is • Mary H. Eastman
... besiegers' lines, but, fainting from loss of blood, he fell from his horse, and his companions hurried on. A Syrian Christian heard his groans, and striking off his head carried the prize to the camp of the conquerors. Phirouz lived to be a second time a renegade, and to close his career as a thief. ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 5 • Various
... surrounded by musicians and poets, who adulate him by such refined flatteries as lord of the sun and moon; great magician; and great thief!—where probably thievery is merely ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... and the seasons, brethren, ye have no need that I write unto you. 2. For yourselves know perfectly, that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night.'—1 ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... doors and shutters were untouched. The thief must have been let into the house, the policeman said; and our father, who trusted all his servants, ...
— A Sheaf of Corn • Mary E. Mann
... entirely of opportunities furnished by the prowess of the Ashikaga, he did not hesitate to slander Takauji to the sovereign, and he asked for an Imperial commission to destroy the Nitta leader, whom he dubbed a "national thief." ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... thief, while Nan picked Josie from among the thorns and set her on her feet without a word of reproof; for having been a romp in her own girlhood, she was very indulgent to like tastes in others. 'What's the matter, dear?' she asked, pinning up the longest rip, while Josie ...
— Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... share, unless it be specially revealed to him by God. No matter how sure I may feel of my own goodness, I have no certainty of faith, such as that which Mary Magdalen had, or that which was vouchsafed to the penitent thief on the cross, that I am justified. It is one of the approved rules of syllogistic reasoning that "the conclusion must follow the weaker premiss."(1168) Hence, in the above syllogism the certainty cannot be of faith, but human and moral ...
— Grace, Actual and Habitual • Joseph Pohle
... man above was a murderer, the man below was a thief; And I lay there in the bunk between, ailing beyond belief; A weary armful of skin and bone, wasted with ...
— Ballads of a Cheechako • Robert W. Service
... modo sepulturae, was borrowed from Solon, (Cicero de Legibus, ii. 23—26:) the furtem per lancem et licium conceptum, is derived by Heineccius from the manners of Athens, (Antiquitat. Rom. tom. ii. p. 167—175.) The right of killing a nocturnal thief was declared by Moses, Solon, and the Decemvirs, (Exodus xxii. 3. Demosthenes contra Timocratem, tom. i. p. 736, edit. Reiske. Macrob. Saturnalia, l. i. c. 4. Collatio Legum Mosaicarum et Romanatum, tit, vii. No. i. p. 218, edit. Cannegieter.) *Note: Are not the same points of similarity ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... clock struck seven. In the breathless silence that followed, a woodpecker took up his interrupted work on the roof, and seemed to beat out monotonously on her ear the last words of the stranger: Stanton Green—a thief! Stanton Green, one of the "boys" John had helped out of the falling tunnel! Stanton Green, whose old mother in the States still wrote letters to him at Laurel Run, in a few hours to be a disgraced and ruined man forever! ...
— Colonel Starbottle's Client and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... together the litter of papers on the table, tied them up, took his hat and cloak, and went out. In the passage, near the door of Anna's room, he hurried forward in a spasm of fear. Downstairs he glanced for the last time into the empty garden. He crept away like a thief in the night. An icy mist pricked his face and hands. Christophe skirted the walls of the houses, dreading a meeting with any one he knew. He went to the station, and got into a train which was just starting for Lucerne. At the ...
— Jean-Christophe Journey's End • Romain Rolland |
