Criminals quotes
706 quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
Explore further
Browse quotes that often appear alongside criminals — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
Quote collection
Follow a thought to its author, or read the full quote page.
"I think it is right for Canadians to be asked to show their faces when they're taking the oath. On revocation of citizenship, we do not let people who have criminal records, including convictions for terrorism, become either permanent residents or citizens. I think there is a limit beyond which someone has really cashed in their chips in terms of their allegiance to Canada."
"I, for one, will not have [the Vietcong] insulted by any comparison to the forces of Zarqawi, the Fedayeen Saddam, and the criminal underworld now arrayed against us. These depraved elements are the Iraqi Khmer Rouge."
"The Master said of Gong Yechang, “He is marriageable. Although he was once imprisoned and branded as a criminal, he was in fact innocent of any crime.” The Master gave him his daughter in marriage. (Analects 5.1)"
"'It is my duty to warn you that it will be used against you,' cried the Inspector, with the magnificent fair play of the British criminal law."
"The artist can within limits make what he likes of his life... It is only the artist, and maybe the criminal, who can make his own."
"You have no ability, if you're a financial institution and you're threatened with criminal prosecution, you have no ability to negotiate."
"It is not altogether a bad thing to have criminal ancestors. An arsonist grandfather may bequeath one a nose for smelling smoke."
"Tony Blair is a war criminal."
"The Church seems to totter to its fall, almost all life extinct. On this occasion, any complaisance would be criminal which told you, whose hope and commission it is to preach the faith of Christ, that the faith of Christ is preached."
"Those who attempt nothing themselves think every thing easily performed, and consider the unsuccessful always as criminal."
"Ignorance, when it is voluntary, is criminal."
"The feeble-minded, the neurotic, the criminal, perhaps, also, the artist, have unpredictability and perverted innocence in common."
"For too long, the victims of crime have been the forgotten persons of our criminal justice system."
"If you're a drug addict, then you've always got drugs, so you're a criminal. So you're gonna get into problems."
"Though a non-co-operator, I shall gladly subscribe to a bill to make it criminal for anybody to call me mahatma and to touch my feet."
"If you get into crime you gotta know that everybody's a criminal and everybody's a liar, and everybody has the potential to backstab you, because it's not an honest profession. So don't go into crime and look for honesty."
"It's almost impossible to separate the actions, or it's also, it's almost impossible to separate the oppression and exploitation, criminal oppression and criminal exploitation of the American negro from the color of the skin of the person who is the oppressor or the exploiter."
"Once negro community recognize it as such, they can adopt the same measures against the community that harbors the criminals who are responsible for this activity."
"And, as for what is called improving conversation, that is merely the foolish method by which the still more foolish philanthropist feebly tries to disarm the just rancour of the criminal classes."
"The criminal classes are so close to us that even the policemen can see them."
