Once a book falls into our possession, it is ours, the same way children lay their claim: 'That's my book. ' As if it were organically part of them. That must be why we have so much trouble returning borrowed books. It's not exactly theft (of course not, we're not thieves, what are you implying?); it's simply a slippage in ownership or, better still, a transfer of substance. That which belonged to someone else becomes mine when I look at it. And if I like what I read, naturally I'll have difficulty giving it back.
They don't have a lot of crime in the countryside other than theft. But every once in a while, things turn ugly, and when they turn ugly, they turn very ugly.
A father of the church said that property was theft, many centuries before Proudhon was born. Bourdaloue reaffirmed it. Montesquieu was the inventor of national workshops and of the theory that the state owed every man a living. Nay, was not the church herself the first organized democracy?
Property is theft. Nobody "owns" anything. When you die, it all stays here.
The theft potentially of data does create this image of sort of cloak and dagger politics that we sort of imagine when we think of underhanded politics.
To use for our exclusive benefit what is not ours is theft.
Acceptable rules of conduct were suspended when it came to the spoon shortage. The deficit had gotten so bad that prices were all but unaffordable, and dynastic spoon succession had become a matter of considerable interest. Spoons were even postcode engraved and carried on one's person to eliminate theft, and good table manners, one of the eight pillars upon which the Collective was built, had been relaxed to allow tea to be stirred - shockingly - with the handle of a fork.
Now, no matter what the mullah teaches, there is only one sin, only one. And that is theft. Every other sin is a variation of theft.
One bush, they say, can never hide two thieves.
One last important influence I'll mention is Flannery O'Connor. In high school I shoplifted her Complete Stories. Having read "Good Country People" for class, I really just felt a home in her work. I had little guilt about the theft at the time. I sucked in my stomach and shoved the book into my pants. It's very big. I can still feel how it cut into my body in the most exciting way. Clearly, I don't feel guilt-free about this crime anymore - I wouldn't be mentioning here, looking for some absolution if I did.
Reducing children to a test score is the worst form of identity theft we could commit in schools.
A society without the means to detect lies and theft soon squanders its liberty and freedom.
Some French socialist said that private property was theft. . . I say that private property is a nuisance.
I certainly don't know if you could claim that every theft is wrong, but I'll prove to you that every theft is forbidden, by simply locking you up.
Identity theft is one of the fastest-growing crimes in the nation - especially in the suburbs.
A lie is an act of theft. It steals peoples faith and makes them resent themselves
Every athlete learns by theft and mimicry.
If you are looking for a producer, try to contact established producers. Don't let the fear of theft paralyze you, or you will never get anywhere with it.
What is dishonestly got vanishes in profligacy.
Executing a murderer is the only way to adequately express our horror at the taking of an innocent life. Nothing else suffices. To equate the lives of killers with those of victims is the worst kind of moral equivalency. If capital punishment is state murder, then imprisonment is state kidnapping and restitution is state theft.