The Thief Quotes

In the case of scandal, as in that of robbery, the receiver is always thought as bad as the thief. ~ Lord Chesterfield

Let us suppose that someone is writing a story. From the world of conventional signs he takes an azalea bush, plants it in a pleasant park. He takes a gold pocket watch from the world of conventional signs and places it under the azalea bush. He takes from the same rich source a handsome thief and a chastity belt, places the thief in the chastity belt and lays him tenderly under the azalea, not neglecting to wind the gold pocket watch so that its ticking will, at length, awaken the now-sleeping thief. From the Sarah Lawrence campus he borrows a pair of seniors, Jacqueline and Jemima, and sets them to walking in the vicinity of the azalea bush and the handsome, chaste thief. Jacqueline and Jemima have just failed the Graduate Record Examination and are cursing God in colorful Sarah Lawrence language. What happens next? Of course, I don't know. ~ Donald Barthelme

Lia whispered, "I don't snore."
And the thief angled his gaze warm to hers, offering his lazy smile. "Aye, love, but if you did, I'd still treasure every one. ~ Shana Abe

They are shooting The Thief Lord in Venice at the moment. ~ Cornelia Funke

42Therefore, stay awake, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming. 43But know this, that if the master of the house had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and would not have let his house be broken into. 44Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect. ~ Anonymous

The thief steals from himself. The swindler swindles himself. For the real price is knowledge and virtue, whereof wealth and credit are signs. These signs, like paper money, may be counterfeited or stolen, but that which they represent, namely, knowledge and virtue, cannot be counterfeited or stolen. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

It was much easier for him now that he was smaller to negotiate his way through his crammed shop but he still tried to swagger past the shelves like he used to in the past. The attempt looked so strange that Scipio started to mimic him behind his back. "What's the silly giggling about?" Barbarossa asked when Prosper and Renzo bust out laughing. ~ Cornelia Funke

The thief had stolen something more precious than any jewel. And for once in her long, lustrous criminal career she had no intentions of ever letting it go. She had the heart of an outlaw who adored her. ~ V. Theia

He laughs like, what can you do? Laughs and spreads his palms as if revealing himself, Cortez the thief, as he is and always was, the person I always knew was there but never wanted to see. I am surprised, but why am I surprised? I decided at some point that he had made my road his road, given over to me the last two months of preimpact existence, because I was on my cockamamie hero's quest and required an able and agile sidekick - I reached that conclusion without thinking about it much and put the question aside. But everybody does everything for a reason. That's lesson number one of police work; it's lesson number one of life. ~ Ben H. Winters

Be occupied, then, with what you really value and let the thief take something else. ~ Rumi

Sex divorced from love is the thief of personal dignity. ~ Caitlin Thomas

All it takes for us to be guilty of theft is one misspent hour at work; one item we "forgot" to return from the office; one personal long-distance phone call we made at the company's expense; one overpriced item in our store. We see our sinless Lord, crucified for thieves not unlike the one hanging next to Him. Here was one person who never took what did not belong to Him, and who fulfilled all His obligations and paid debts He did not owe, and yet He hangs here next to a common thief, bearing His shame and guilt before God as though He had committed the crime. The thief crucified next to our Lord may have experienced the wrath of Rome that dark Friday afternoon, but because of the crucifixion of a Man just feet from him, he would not have to endure the wrath of heaven. All thieves who trust in Christ can expect to hear those same words on their death-bed from the spotless Lamb: "Today you shall be with me in Paradise. ~ Michael S. Horton

One of your most ancient writers, a historian named Herodotus, tells of a thief who was to be executed. As he was taken away he made a bargain with the king: in one year he would teach the king's favorite horse to sing hymns. The other prisoners watched the thief singing to the horse and laughed. "You will not succeed," they told him. "No one can." To which the thief replied, "I have a year, and who knows what might happen in that time. The king might die. The horse might die. I might die. And perhaps the horse will learn to sing. ~ Jerry Pournelle

Indecision is the thief of opportunity. ~ Jim Rohn

He says things which need saying and which none of us have had the courage to say. This passage, where he compares Italy to a tipsy man weeping with tenderness on the neck of the thief who is picking his pocket, is splendidly written. ~ Ethel Lilian Voynich

Can't fucking believe it's come to this," it muttered. "Negotiating with a fucking herdsman - you know, sometimes it's - listen, I was the thief of fire once, you goat-shagging thug. You know that? The fucking doom bringer to kings." An arm thrown out in exasperation. "Back when the earth was young, back when there was still a moon in the fucking sky, I pulled on whatever flesh was needful and I struck terror into the hearts of the powerful and enthroned all across this mudball world, and another dozen like it. I took the spirit form and strode across measureless ... ah, fuck it, never mind. ~ Richard K. Morgan

But who can find the truth in Canaan? Janis doesn't tell it, the Learning Room doesn't teach it. My father has twisted it, Mother half forgotten it, and the Forgetting is the thief that steals it. ~ Sharon Cameron

We bear the consequences for what we have done to ourselves, and for the sin that rules this world. Jesus forgave the thief, but he didn't take him down off the cross. ~ Francine Rivers

The knife; tool of the Thief, Skeben. I believe this is a mark of the prisoner's guilt."
There was a howl of "no!" from the prisoner. For the first time, Minister Terell smiled.
"The last rune," Alexa said, louder. The disc had a simple circle with a dot at its heart. "It's a mark of the world and the path. What ends will begin anew. ~ Mara Amberly

They think they can keep me out, but it does not matter how many locks they hang at the entrance. There is always another door.
- The Thief Who Stole the Stars, by Tristan Chirsley ~ Marie Lu

Alric looked up at the thief with a scowl. "I just want to say for the record that as far as royal protectors go, you're not very good."
"It's my first day," Royce replied dryly.
"And already I'm trapped in a timeless prison. I shudder to think what might have happened if you had a whole week. ~ Michael J. Sullivan

I understand what binds the sculptor to his clay, the painter to his colors, each workman to the matter he handles, and the docility and acquiescence of the matter to the movements of the one who animates it; I know the love that passes from the fingers into the folds, the holes, the swellings. Shall I abandon him? Lucien would prevent me from living. Unless his quiet tenderness, his blushing modesty, became beneath my sun of love a tiger or a lion. If he loves me, will he follow me?

What will become of him without me? ~ Jean Genet

I am made to sow the thistle for wheat; the nettle for a nourishing dainty
I have planted a false oath in the earth, it has brought forth a poison tree
I have chosen the serpent for a councellor & the dog for a schoolmaster to my children
I have blotted out from light & living the dove & the nightingale
And I have caused the earthworm to beg from door to door
I have taught the thief a secret path into the house of the just
I have taught pale artifice to spread his nets upon the morning
My heavens are brass my earth is iron my moon a clod of clay
My sun a pestilence burning at noon & a vapor of death in night

What is the price of Experience do men buy it for a song
Or wisdom for a dance in the street? No it is bought with the price
Of all that a man hath his house his wife his children
Wisdom is sold in the desolate market where none come to buy
And in the withered field where the farmer plows for bread in vain

It is an easy thing to triumph in the summers sun
And in the vintage & to sing on the waggon loaded with corn
It is an easy thing to talk of patience to the afflicted
To speak the laws of prudence to the houseless wanderer
To listen to the hungry ravens cry in wintry season
When the red blood is filled with wine & with the marrow of lambs
It is an easy thing to laugh at wrathful elements
To hear a dog howl at the wintry door, the o ~ William Blake

Read your work aloud, if you can, if you aren't too embarrassed by the sound of your voice ringing out when you are alone in a room. Chances are that the sentence you can hardly pronounce without stumbling is a sentence that needs to be reworked to make it smoother and more fluent. A poet once told me that he was reading a draft of a new poem aloud to himself when a thief broke into his Manhattan loft. Instantly surmising that he had entered the dwelling of a madman, the thief turned and ran without taking anything, and without harming the poet. So it maybe that reading your work aloud will not only improve its quality but save your life in the process. ~ Francine Prose

He wondered how the Attolians thought Eugenides had managed to become king if he was the idiot they assumed him to be. Perhaps because they had never seen him as the Thief, with his head thrown back and a glint in his eye that made the hair on the back of a man's neck rise up. ~ Megan Whalen Turner

It slowly dawned on the thief that a duel was but moments away. ~ Steven Erikson

Remember that, as the receiver is as bad as the thief, so the hearer of scandal is a sharer in the guilt of it. If there were no listening ears there would be no talebearing tongues. While you are a buyer of ill wares the demand will create the supply, and the factories of falsehood will be working full time. No one wishes to become a creator of lies, and yet he who hears slanders with pleasure and believes them with readiness will hatch many a brood into active life. ~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon

A wise man will always allow a fool to rob him of ideas without yelling "Thief."
If he is wise he has not been impoverished.
Nor has the fool been enriched.
The thief flatters us by stealing.
We flatter him by complaining. ~ Ben Hecht

Time's the thief of memory: that one he knew. ~ Stephen King

I could not take lightly the idea that people made love without me. ~ Jean Genet

Everyone needs something from their mother. It's the way it works."
When he smiled, she said, "What?"
"No one ever disagrees with me. But you."
Jane looked down at her own hands, her brows getting tight. "Not one of my virtues, huh."
"Actually, it's a part of you I love most."
When she glanced at him in surprise, he leaned in quick and kissed her on the mouth--even though he shouldn't have. ~ J.R. Ward

Time's the thief of memory ~ Stephen King

Friend of mine, a smart journalist, had his iPad stolen. He couldn't help that - the thief broke into his house. But his private, personal data wasn't stolen, exactly. Donated, more like. He had no passcode set on the iPad. ~ Barton Gellman

Time, That Is Pleased to Lengthen out the Day

Time, that is pleased to lengthen out the day
For grieving lovers parted or denied,
And pleased to hurry the sweet hours away
From such as lie enchanted side by side,
Is not my kinsman; nay, my feudal foe
Is he that in my childhood was the thief
Of all my mother's beauty, and in woe
My father bowed, and brought our house to grief.
Thus, though he think to touch with hateful frost
Your treasured curls, and your clear forehead line,
And so persuade me from you, he has lost;
Never shall he inherit what was mine.
When Time and all his tricks have done their worst,
Still will I hold you dear, and him accurst. ~ Edna St. Vincent Millay

In a world of change and decay not even the man of faith can be completely happy. Instinctively he seeks the unchanging and is bereaved at the passing of dear familiar things. Yet much as we may deplore the lack of stability in all earthly things, in a fallen world such as this the very ability to change is a golden treasure, a gift from God of such fabulous worth as to call for constant thanksgiving. For human beings the whole possibility of redemption lies in their ability to change. To move across from one sort of person to another is the essence of repentance; the liar becomes truthful, the thief honest, the lewd pure, the proud humble. The whole moral texture of the life is altered. The thoughts, the desires, the affections are transformed, and the man is no longer what he had been before. ~ A.W. Tozer

They say that when an elemental mage called forth flame, she stole a little from every fire in the world. That would make Iolanthe Seabourn quite the thief. ~ Sherry Thomas

As a ten-year-old boy, the Thief of Eddis could stop a grown man in his tracks with a single look. Where had that look gone? ~ Megan Whalen Turner

Comparison is the thief of all joy. ~ Eleanor Roosevelt

Don't become a victim of yourself. Forget about the thief waiting in the alley; what about the thief in your mind? ~ Jim Rohn

When a man kills another man, the people say he is a murderer, but when the Emir kills him, the Emir is just. When a man robs a monastery, they say he is a thief, but when the Emir robs him of his life, the Emir is honourable. When a woman betrays her husband, they say she is an adulteress, but when the Emir makes her walk naked in the streets and stones her later, the Emir is noble. Shedding of blood is forbidden, but who made it lawful for the Emir? Stealing one's money is a crime, but taking away one's life is a noble act. Betrayal of a husband may be an ugly deed, but stoning of living souls is a beautiful sight. Shall we meet evil with evil and say this is the Law? Shall we fight corruption with greater corruption and say this is the Rule? Shall we conquer crimes with more crimes and say this is Justice? Had not the Emir killed an enemy in his past life? Had he not robbed his weak subjects of money and property? Had he not committed adultery? Was he infallible when he killed the murderer and hanged the thief in the tree? Who are those who hanged the thief in the tree? Are they angels descended from heaven, or men looting and usurping? Who cut off the murderer's head? Are they divine prophets, or soldiers shedding blood wherever they go? Who stoned that adulteress? Were they virtuous hermits who came from their monasteries, or humans who loved to commit atrocities with glee, under the protection of ignorant Law? What is Law? Who saw it coming with the sun from the depths ~ Kahlil Gibran

Oi sweetheart, is your mummy a thief?'
'No she's not.' she said, sucking her thumb to signal a temper tantrum.
'Well, then, m'dear,' said the thief, 'who stole those diamonds and put them in your eyes? ~ Biyi Bandele-Thomas

Why is the tao so valuable? Because it is everywhere, and everyone can use it. This is why those who seek will find, And those who reform will be forgiven; Why the good will be rewarded, And the thief who is cunning will escape. ~ Laozi

Fear of the mob is a superstitious fear. It is based on the idea that there is some mysterious, fundamental difference between rich and poor, as though they were two different races, like Negroes and white men. But in reality there is no such difference. The mass of the rich and the poor are differentiated by their incomes and nothing else, and the average millionaire is only the average dishwasher dressed in a new suit. Change places, and handy dandy, which is the justice, which is the thief? Everyone who has mixed on equal terms with the poor knows this quite well. But the trouble is that intelligent, cultivated people, the very people who might be expected to have liberal opinions, never do mix with the poor. For what do the majority of educated people know about poverty? ~ George Orwell

I want you to steal something."
I smiled. "Do you want the king's seal? I can get it for you."
"If I were you," said the magus, "I'd stop bragging about that." His voice grated.
My smile grew. The gold ring with the engraved ruby had been in his safekeeping when I had stolen it away. ~ Megan Whalen Turner

Tristran and Yvaine were happy together. Not forever-after, for Time, the thief, eventually takes all things into his dusty storehouse, ~ Neil Gaiman

Nowadays the thief cannot be distinguished from his victim. Neither has any valuable objects on him. ~ Karl Kraus

The box didn't appear to be hampered in any way by the ornamental rug draped roguishly over it, nor by the thief hanging by one arm from the lid. It was, in a very real sense, a dead weight. Further along the lid were the remains of two fingers, owner unknown. ~ Terry Pratchett

Sometimes you got to lie on the outside to keep your voice loud on the inside. We don't owe the master the truth. He owes us. Nothing comes from the master. He is the thief in the night. He steals it all. And every time we have to say 'yes sir' and 'no sir,' he steals some more. But we can survive it, if we stay loud in here," she said, throwing a fist hard against her breast. ~ Jonathan Odell

The propounders of what are called the "ethics of evolution," when the 'evolution of ethics' would usually better express the object of their speculations, adduce a number of more or less interesting facts and more or less sound arguments, in favour of the origin of the moral sentiments, in the same way as other natural phenomena, by a process of evolution. I have little doubt, for my own part, that they are on the right track; but as the immoral sentiments have no less been evolved, there is, so far, as much natural sanction for the one as the other. The thief and the murderer follow nature just as much as the philanthropist. Cosmic evolution may teach us how the good and the evil tendencies of man may have come about; but, in itself, it is incompetent to furnish any better reason why what we call good is preferable to what we call evil than we had before. ~ Thomas Henry Huxley

Comparison with something that is better is the thief of joy. Comparison with something that is worse is a joy - full of relief and gratitude! You cannot always choose what happens to you or your circumstances but you can always choose your attitude by what you choose to compare your experiences or circumstances to and therefore how you will feel!! We can make any experience either a heaven or a hell by what we compare it to. Our emotions are 'an inside job!' ~ Theodore Roosevelt

To ask the mind to kill itself is like making the thief the policeman. He will go with you and pretend to catch the thief, but nothing will be gained. So you must turn inward and see where the mind rises from, and then it will cease to exist. ~ Ramana Maharshi

He could tell her he loved her. He ached to shout it out loud for the gods and everyone to hear. Little good it would do. Better to trust in the moon's promises than in the word of the Thief of Eddis. He was famous in three countries for his lies. ~ Megan Whalen Turner

When Satan cannot get a great sin in he will let a little one in, like the thief who goes and finds shutters all coated with iron and bolted inside. At last he sees a little window in a chamber. He cannot get in, so he puts a little boy in, that he may go round and open the back door. So the devil has always his little sins to carry about with him to go and open back doors for him, and we let one in and say, 'O, it is only a little one.' Yes, but how that little one becomes the ruin of the entire man! ~ Charles Spurgeon

The thief left it behind:
the moon
at my window. ~ Ryokan

The thief, as will become apparent, was a special type of thief. This thief was an artist of theft. Other thieves merely stole everything that was not nailed down, but this thief stole the nails as well. ~ Terry Pratchett

Spiritually, to be a criminal is a form of suffering, so this was the last gesture of atonement needed before Shiva, lord of spiritual seekers, was satisfied that the thief deserved enlightenment. ~ Deepak Chopra

Christ to the thief: Come with me. We die together, a thief and the Maker of the world. Walk with the Infinite made flesh into the belly of the whale. Stand close while reality quakes. Watch while Death is taken by the throat. Today you will be with me in Paradise.
Stories don't end at death. ~ N.D. Wilson

Government is the thing. Law is the thing. Not brotherhood, not international cooperation, not security councils that can stop war only by waging it ... Where does security lie, anyway - security against the thief, a bad man, the murderer? In brotherly love? Not at all. It lies in government. ~ E.B. White

Unless we look at a person and see the beauty there is in this person, we can contribute nothing to him. One does not help a person by discerning what is wrong, what is ugly, what is distorted. Christ looked at everyone he met, at the prostitute, at the thief, and saw the beauty hidden there. Perhaps it was distorted, perhaps damaged, but it was beauty none the less, and what he did was to call out this beauty. ~ Anthony Of Sourozh

The thief who received the kingdom of heaven, though not as the reward of virtue, is a true witness to the fact that salvation is ours through the grace and mercy of God. ~ John Cassian

...for those who value stability, who fear transience, uncertainty, change, have erected a powerful system of stigmas and taboos against rootlessness, that disruptive, anti-social force, so that we mostly conform, we pretend to be motivated by loyalties and solidarities we do not really feel, we hide our secret identities beneath the false skins of those identities which bear the belongers' seal of approval. But the truth leaks out in our dreams; alone in our beds (because we are all alone at night, even if we do not sleep by ourselves), we soar, we fly, we flee. And in the waking dreams our societies permit, in our myths, our arts, our songs, we celbrate the non-belongers, the different ones, the outlaws, the freaks. What we forbid ourselves we pay good money to watch, in a playhouse or movie theatre, or to read about between the secret covers of a book. Our libraries, our palaces of entertainment tell the truth. The tramp, the assassin, the rebel, the thief, the mutant, the outcast, the delinquent, the devil, the sinner, the traveller, the gangster, the runner, the mask: if we did not recognize in them our least-fulfilled needs, we would not invent them over and over again, in every place, in every language, in every time. ~ Salman Rushdie

He is the thief man who steals away your youth in the middle of the night. He is the evil whose shadow engenders fear in rural areas. He is the bogyman who keeps children up at night. He is the terrorist who claims to be enforcing the Ten Commandments while he breaks most of them.
The Prophet of Life From: The Most Notorious Serial Killer You've Likely Never Heard of i ~ The Prophet Of Life

Comparison is the thief of joy. ~ Theodore Roosevelt

Snake," Wyatt announced. "A big black one."

"There's dozens of them," Royce explained.

"Where?" Alric asked.

"Mostly behind you on the walls."

"What?" the king said, aghast. "Why didn't you say something?"

"Knowing would only make traveling slower."

"Are they poisonous?" Mauvin asked.

They could all see the silhouetted shoulders of Royce's shadow on the far wall shrug.

"I demand you inform me of such things in future!" Alric declared.

"Do you want to know about the giant millipedes, then too?"

"Are you joking?"

"Royce doesn't make jokes," Arista told him as she looked around, anxiously hugging herself. Immediately her robe brightened and she spotted two snakes on the walls, but they were a safe distance away.

"He must be joking," Alric muttered quietly. "I don't see any."

"You aren't looking up," the thief said.

Arista did not want to. Some instinct, a tiny voice, warned her to fight the impulse, but in the end she just could not help herself. On the low ceiling, illuminated brightly by the robe, slithered a mass of wormlike bugs with an uncountable number of hairlike feet. Each was nearly five inches in length and close to the width of a man's finger. There were so many that they swarmed over each other until it was hard to tell if the ceiling was rock at all. Arista felt a chill run down her back. She clenched her teeth, f ~ Michael J. Sullivan

The liar is no whit better than the thief, and if his mendacity takes the form of slander he may be worse than most thieves. It puts a premium upon knavery untruthfully to attack an honest man, or even with hysterical exaggeration to assail a bad man with untruth. ~ Theodore Roosevelt

Marina Orlova was hooked on my quote about women not owing men. I scrolled through her posted paintings and recalled a Slovak friend once commenting on a guy wanna-be a great painter, something like this: "Aaano, on bol profesionalnym maljiarom na Slovensku, maloval tam pice a hakove krize po stenach". He meant graffiti, but I hesitate to translate it in detail for it may sound too rough. Another thought is about surreal, sometimes spurious aesthetics mixed with hinted or daring sexuality, which Marina Orlova endorses, deliberately or not, in line of her claimed profession. The posts call to mind The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover or even Titus Andronicus. No wonder, thousands of bozos are attracted to her internet activity because ... , well, the woman is hot. ~ Vinko Vrbanic

For, by the disaster of his charity, God plays out at last the Game that began with the dawn of history. In the Garden of Eden - in the paradise of pleasure - where God laid out his court and first served the hint of meaning to humankind - Adam strove with God over the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. But God does not accept thrown-down racquets. He refuses, at any cost, to take seriously, our declination of the game; if Adam will not have God's rules, God will play by Adam's. In another and darker garden he accepts the tree of our choosing, and with nails through his hands and feet he volleys back meaning for unmeaning. As the darkness descends, at the last foul drive of a desperate day, he turns to the thief on the right and brings off the dazzling backhand return that fetches history home in triumph: Today shalt thou be with me in Paradise.

God has Gardens to give away! He has cities to spare! He has history he hasn't even used! The last of all the mercies is that God is lighter than we are, that in the heart of the Passion lies the divine mirth, and that even in the cities of our exile he still calls to Adam only to catch the Glory, to offer the world, and return the service that shapes the City of God. ~ Robert Farrar Capon

You wouldn't believe it,' Rauve said as his shadow fell across the stable entrance. 'All black like Lucifer the thief was. Fast as the Devil, too, whist-whist-whist, leaping, kicking. Still, I could've caught the bastard if I hadn't been protecting my lady love.'
'The Scots say he can't be caught,' Adric said. 'They say he's not of this world.'
'Well, if he's not of this world, then what does he need my silver for? ~ Glynnis Campbell

Anyone who can steal the king's seal ring can manage the locks on his record room. ~ Megan Whalen Turner

Comparison is the thief of happiness. ~ Brene Brown

But honesty requires courage. As she cornered the thief in his lair, she found that she wasn't so sure of herself. She was sure of only one thing. It made her fall back a little. She lifted her chin.
Her heart had an unsteady rhythm they both could hear when she told the thief that he might keep what he had stolen. ~ Marie Rutkoski

We covet what is guarded; the very care invokes the thief. Few love what they may have. ~ Ovid

I am always late on principle, my principle being that punctuality is the thief of time. ~ Oscar Wilde

No man willingly permits the thief to rob his bins of grain. Nor does any man willingly permit an enemy to drive away his customers and rob him of his profits. When once I did recognize that such acts as these my enemy was committing, with determination I conquered him. So must every man master his own spirit of procrastination before he can expect to share in the rich treasures of Babylon. "What ~ George S. Clason

Grace is undeserved. It makes no sense in the world's economy. In one of His last acts, Jesus forgave the thief hanging on the cross beside Him and told him he would be with Him that day in paradise. It didn't matter to Jesus what motivated this man's confession. Jesus still forgave him. He forgave him knowing he would never study the Bible, never impact the kingdom, and never bring another to Christ. ~ Wendy Blight

The instinct of the thief is most strongly marked in the Skua tribe, and I am afraid that the mere love of thieving alone actuates them on many occasions. ~ George Murray Levick

Salute to the Thief. Junaid of Baghdad was passing the scene of a public hanging, where a thief was on the scaffold. Junaid bowed towards the criminal. Someone asked him: 'What did you do that?' Junaid said: 'I was bowing before his single-mindedness. For his aim, that man has given his life. ~ Idries Shah

Without mountains, we might find ourselves relieved that we can avoid the pain of the ascent, but we will forever miss the thrill of the summit. And in such a terribly scandalous trade-off, it is the absence of pain that becomes the thief of life. ~ Craig D. Lounsbrough

I am not going to Heaven because I have preached to great crowds or read the Bible many times. I'm going to Heaven just like the thief on the cross who said in that last moment: 'Lord, remember me.' ~ Billy Graham

the thief
who steals my heart
shall be imprisoned
in my mind ~ Xue Yun

Every Day Is for the Thief, by turns funny, mournful, and acerbic, offers a portrait of Nigeria in which anger, perhaps the most natural response to the often lamentable state of affairs there, is somehow muted and deflected by the author's deep engagement with the country: a profoundly disenchanted love. Teju Cole is among the most gifted writers of his generation. ~ Salman Rushdie

The thief and the murderer follow nature just as much as the philanthropist. ~ Thomas Huxley

When it thunders, the theefe becomes honest.
[When it thunders, the thief becomes honest.] ~ George Herbert

The assumption of time is one of humanity's greatest follies. We tell ourselves that there's always tomorrow, when we can no more predict tomorrow than we can the weather. Procrastination is the thief of dreams. ~ Richard Paul Evans

The thief sighs. 'Perhaps. After that, she started talking about this ancient legend they have, about a creature called the Sleeper with a billion hit points, and after it was finally killed by a coalition of a thousand guilds, it dropped a small rusty dagger. ~ Hannu Rajaniemi

Procrastination is, as Edward Young said in about sixteen ninety-five, the thief of time. ~ Patrick Taylor

THE MOCKINGBIRD All summer the mockingbird in his pearl-gray coat and his white-windowed wings flies from the hedge to the top of the pine and begins to sing, but it's neither lilting nor lovely, for he is the thief of other sounds - whistles and truck brakes and dry hinges plus all the songs of other birds in his neighborhood; mimicking and elaborating, he sings with humor and bravado, so I have to wait a long time for the softer voice of his own life to come through. He begins by giving up all his usual flutter and settling down on the pine's forelock then looking around as though to make sure he's alone; then he slaps each wing against his breast, where his heart is, and, copying nothing, begins easing into it as though it was not half so easy as rollicking, as though his subject now was his true self, which of course was as dark and secret as anyone else's, and it was too hard - perhaps you understand - to speak or to sing it to anything or anyone but the sky. ~ Mary Oliver

Impatience is the thief of success. ~ Rebekah L. Pierce

We are now faced with the fact, my friends, that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history, there is such a thing as being too late. Procrastination is still the thief of time. Life often leaves us standing bare, naked, and dejected with a lost opportunity. The tide in the affairs of men does not remain at flood - it ebbs. We may cry out desperately for time to pause in her passage, but time is adamant to every plea and rushes on. Over the bleached bones and jumbled residues of numerous civilizations are written the pathetic words, "Too late." Martin Luther King, Jr. ~ Steven Pressfield

If you make the thief the policeman there will be lots of investigation but no arrests will ever be made. ~ Ramana Maharshi

Fear is the thief of dreams. ~ Brian Krans

Every Day Is for the Thief is a vivid, episodic evocation of the truism that you can't go home again; but that doesn't mean you're not free to try. A return to his native Nigeria plunges Cole's charming narrator into a tempest of chaos, contradiction, and kinship in a place both endearingly familiar and unnervingly strange. The result is a tale that engages and disturbs. ~ Billy Collins

But apart from that single expensive item, she stayed away from the high-dollar racks. Luxury was all well and good for a Fae prince, but what would she do with a pair of six-hundred-dollar Gucci boots? She'd be afraid to walk in them. Probably trip and break an ankle or something, and wasn't there some old fairy tale about stolen shoes that punished the thief? She knew better than most people that fairy tales had a twisted way of coming true.
She slipped into jeans and laced up tennis shoes. A sturdy pair of hiking boots went into the satchel.
She was done before he was. Figured. And when he returned, he was wearing dark, tattooed Armani jeans, with a sheer white silk tee and six-hundred dollar Gucci boots.
Which also figured. ~ Karen Marie Moning

Oppurtunity Makes the Thief ~ Stieg Larsson

A man may see how this world goes with no eyes. Look with thine ears: see how yond justice rails upon yon simple thief. Hark, in thine ear: change places; and, handy-dandy, which is the justice, which is the thief? ~ William Shakespeare

No man can know his deliverer, nor yet the thief of his soul. Their faces are covered; they swirl in the mob at the masquerade ball. Wine flows, and dance follows dance, and we are never certain of their names until that Midnight when all masks are removed ~ Robert V.S. Redick

So why the pelican? Said Haskoll.
The thief was giving Haskoll a look that said, Man, why NOT the pelican? ~ Adam Rex

Here we are told that Christ really lives in me, if I have accepted Christ as my Savior. In other words, we have the words of Jesus to the thief of the cross, 'Today thou wilt be with me in paradise.' Christ can say, 'Today thou wilt be with me in paradise,' and mean it. To die is to be with the Lord. It is not just an idea, it is a reality. But at the same time, Christ, the same Christ who gives the promise just as definitely, that when I have accepted Christ as my savior, he lives in me. ~ Francis Schaeffer

The thief you must fear the most is not the one who steals mere things. ~ Ann-Marie MacDonald

But rules for sustainability, like every workable social rule, would be put into place not to destroy freedoms, but to create freedoms or to protect them. A ban on bank robbing inhibits the freedom of the thief in order to assure that everyone else has the freedom to deposit and withdraw money safely. A ban on overuse of a renewable resource or on the generation of a dangerous pollutant protects vital freedoms in a similar way. ~ Donella H. Meadows