"Thief" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... descended, when the sound of the river in the darkness beneath told us that the water had arrived; and the men, dripping with wet, had just sufficient time to drag their heavy burdens up the bank. All was darkness and confusion. The river had arrived like "a thief ...
— Noble Deeds of the World's Heroines • Henry Charles Moore
... my room to seize him, to strangle him, to kill him!... But before I could reach it, my chair fell over as if somebody had run away from me ... my table rocked, my lamp fell and went out, and my window closed as if some thief had been surprised and had fled out into the ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Ghost Stories • Various
... quietly," said one, "we can get all the silver without waking the family." I then understood the expression, "It takes a thief to catch a thief," for after the milk and corned beef episodes I felt like a branded criminal. They started out to do their dishonest work and I followed, my velvet paws making no noise. They were so intent with watching out for policemen ...
— The Nomad of the Nine Lives • A. Frances Friebe
... underworld receive such new accessions to their numbers and power. For in the nature of the case, it is inevitable that all varieties of outcasts and outlaws should join forces. The religious schismatic makes common cause with the pariah; the political offender with the thief and robber. Such association of elements vastly increases the difficulty of repressing crime. The band of thieves and robbers in the cave of Adullam doubtless found their powers of preying vastly increased through the acquisition of such a leader as David. ...
— The Unpopular Review, Volume II Number 3 • Various
... or covers. Hence the very common expression, The healer is as bad as the stealer; that is, the receiver is as bad as the thief. ...
— The Dialect of the West of England Particularly Somersetshire • James Jennings
... ever assumed my married name, solely on account of its having been his request all along that I should not do it. This writing to you, madam, is my first disobedience, and I am justified in it. A woman who is driven to visit her husband like a thief in the night and then sent away like a street dog—left to get up, unbolt, unbar, and find her way out of the house as she best may—is ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy
... who is fat and untidy, a man old enough to be my father, who treats me as if I were a thief, or a dog. I loathe him. And he detests me. You see"—she smiled ironically—"we are not very happy. I ran away from him a month ago, from Hong Kong. I ran as far as Singaraja, and now I have to go back because I have not the courage to stay away. A stronger will would make me give ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts
... no word of answer. He turned away and went down to the broken corrals where the man behind Zoraida had fallen. If the man were not dead he might be induced to talk. And in any case, thief though he was, he was a man and not a dog. He found the huddled body lying still. Kneeling, he turned it over so that the wavering light shone on the face. He did not know whether the man was dead or not; he knew only ...
— Daughter of the Sun - A Tale of Adventure • Jackson Gregory
... morbidly sensitive about mere accidentals? We come to the Church for the true faith and the sacraments, not for 'sensations.' In fine, Durtal has not observed the route prescribed by the apologetics for reaching the door of the sheep-fold, but has climbed over in his own way, like a thief and a robber; he has not (as a recent critic says of him) tombe entre les bras maternals de ...
— The Faith of the Millions (2nd series) • George Tyrrell
... Biggs's face, as much as to say, "I've gone and done it;" and he added to the brother, "Scud away, you little thief; I've saved you ...
— Men's Wives • William Makepeace Thackeray
... which heard me what I have said unto them," is very much of a piece with his reply to the armed party which seized him, as we read it in Saint Mark's Gospel, and in Saint Luke's:(Mark xiv. 48. Luke xxii. 52.) "Are you come out as against a thief, with swords and with staves to take me? I was daily with you in the temple teaching, and ye took me not." In both answers we discern the same tranquillity, the same reference to his public teaching. His mild expostulation with Pilate, on two several occasions, as related by Saint John, (Chap. ...
— Evidences of Christianity • William Paley
... and drank hugely—and extremely bad manners it would have been regarded in me had I made as much noise as he, or lifted such quantities at a time into my mouth. But through his noisy gluttony he managed somehow to maintain that hang-dog air—like a thief who has gone through the house and, on his way out, has paused at the pantry, with the sack of plunder beside him, ...
— The Deluge • David Graham Phillips
... the golden beard: and the history of this somewhat unusual form of treasure affords a certain amount of amusing farcical relief. It is stolen by one of the Court pages, Motto recovers it as a reward for curing the thief's toothache, but he loses it again because, being overheard hinting at the ass's ears, he is convicted of treason by the pages, and is blackmailed in consequence. From this it will be seen that the underplot is more embroidered with incident and is, in every way, better arranged than ...
— John Lyly • John Dover Wilson
... had not given her the best education. I believe she was a bit of a thief, and she could tell fibs with fluency and precision. The woman was a sinner; but her wild, strong affections were true, and her heart ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... weight was four hundred and ten carats; but after it was cut as a brilliant, (a labor of two years, at a cost of three thousand pounds sterling,) it was reduced to one hundred and thirty-seven carats. It came from the mines of Golconda; and the thief who stole it therefrom sold it to the grandfather of the Earl of Chatham, when he was governor of a fort in the East Indies. Lucky Mr. Pitt pocketed one hundred and thirty-five thousand pounds for his treasure, the purchaser being Louis XV. This amount, it is said, is only half its real value. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 41, March, 1861 • Various
... snoring so noisily that it was like the sound of a hundred dragons roaring at once, yet to Jack's dismay and horror he heard the voice of his harp, and, starting to his feet with a bellow of anger, rushed after the daring thief. ...
— Favorite Fairy Tales • Logan Marshall
... of which we would here speak the lover had made one call at Widewood, but had not met sufficient encouragement to embolden him to ask that the lovee would give, oh, give him back a heart so damaged by fire, as to be worthless except to the thief; though his manner was rank with hints that she might keep it now and ...
— John March, Southerner • George W. Cable
... you tricked her who trusted you. You have done the thing which you yourself say she would never forgive. If she loves you and prays for you now, you have stolen that love and that prayer. You are a thief. A true daughter of France could never love a ...
— The Valley of Vision • Henry Van Dyke
... belongs to the plaintiff ought to be conveyed to him, for conveyance transfers ownership, and what is his cannot be made more his than it is already. Yet for the prevention of theft, and multiplication of remedies against the thief, it has been provided that, besides the penalty of twice or four times the value of the property stolen, the property itself, or its value, may be recovered from the thief by a personal action in the form 'if it be proved that the defendant ought to convey,' as an alternative ...
— The Institutes of Justinian • Caesar Flavius Justinian
... he, the unsullied, the fine theoretical moralist, was to return along that road a thief. A thief ...
— Bunker Bean • Harry Leon Wilson
... off. One of them, Mr. I. M. Mace, was asked if he would take the oath, and upon his replying that he would if the judges required it, he was dragged through the crowd away from the polls, amid cries of "kill the damned nigger-thief," "cut his throat," "tear his heart out," etc. After they got into the outside of the crowd they stood around him with cocked revolvers and drawn bowie-knives, one man putting a knife to his breast to that it touched him, another holding ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... the three sovereigns and put them in his pocket, and then he took up one of the heaps of shillings and sixpences which he had counted, and dropped them also into his trousers; they fell into the pocket with a great jingle, "Eric, you are a thief!" He thought he heard his brother Vernon's voice utter the words thrillingly distinct, but it was conscience who had borrowed the Voice, and, sick with horror, he began to shake the money out of his pockets again into the box. He was only just in time; he had barely locked the box, ...
— Eric, or Little by Little • Frederic W. Farrar
... Richard's quaint sayings; Franklin the immortal axiom-builder, who used to sit up at nights reducing the rankest old threadbare platitudes to crisp and snappy maxims that had a nice, varnished, original look in their regimentals; who said, "Virtue is its own reward;" who said, "Procrastination is the thief of time;" who said, "Time and tide wait for no man" and "Necessity is the mother of invention;" good old Franklin, the Josh Billings of the eighteenth century—though, sooth to say, the latter transcends him in proverbial originality as much as he falls ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... from him. It was as inalienable as the estates of which he had threatened to deprive his son, and which, as he knew quite well, were absolutely entailed. Michael, in this regard, seemed no better than a common but successful thief. He had annexed his father's firmness, and at his death would certainly annex all his pictures and trees and acres and ...
— Michael • E. F. Benson
... port and the starboard, the red and the green, Mixing and mingling with mast lights that move in the air, And deck lights and wharf lights and lights upon pier-head and stair; An edging of gold where a liner steals by like a thief; The giant grey gleam of a searchlight that swings like a leaf; And far out to seaward faint petals that flutter and fall Against the white flower of the ...
— A Cluster of Grapes - A Book of Twentieth Century Poetry • Various
... time, Mr. Augustus Jones, the surveyor, was either with or following it. He surveyed the north-west part of Southwold in the following year. On the up trip, the Governor's party met one man, who afterward proved to be a runaway thief from Detroit. They were also overtaken by a traveller, who, as they were subsequently informed, had got himself supplied with provisions and horses to the Grand Rivet, and a guide from thence to Detroit, by the false representation that he had despatches for ...
— The Country of the Neutrals - (As Far As Comprised in the County of Elgin), From Champlain to Talbot • James H. Coyne
... resumed his journey. He opened his pack at a farm-house to repair a clock, when he discovered that his watches were gone, and immediately lodged complaint with the sheriff, but nothing was ever seen again of Ainsley, his wife, or the rough stranger. Who was the thief? What was in the cushion? And what brought the ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... that would take the plant away."[280] Thus the dog takes the place of the dog-fish when the mandrake becomes the pearl's surrogate. The only discrepancy between the two stories is the point to which Josephus calls specific attention. For instead of the dog killing the thief, as the shark (dog-fish) kills the stealer of pearls, the dog becomes the victim as a substitute for the man. As Josephus remarks, "the dog dies immediately, as it were, instead of the man that would take the plant away". ...
— The Evolution of the Dragon • G. Elliot Smith
... therefore how thou hast received and heard, and hold fast, and repent. If therefore thou shalt not watch, I will come on thee as a thief, and thou shalt not know what hour I will ...
— The Revelation Explained • F. Smith
... celebrated for his fabulous exploits. The guides told Herodotus, and Herodotus retails to us, as sober historical facts, the remedy employed by this unhistorical Pheron in order to recover his sight; the adventures of Paris and Helen at the court of Proteus,* and the droll tricks played by a thief at the expense of the ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 9 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... gazing around me, I sat down and inquired of my neighbours how soon the play would begin? I was told in an hour. This new delay occasioned me to put my hand in my pocket and take out my watch, which as I supposed had been returned by the thief. But, good heavens! What was my surprize when, in lieu of my own plain watch, in a green chagrin case, the one I was now possessed of was set round with diamonds! And, instead of ordinary steel and brass, its appendages were a ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... done brown—and Jones' idiocy had made the task easy. I had no evidence but my word that the President knew the message was fabricated. Up till now I had thought that if I stood convicted I should have the honor of his Excellency's support in the dock. But now! why now, I might prove myself a thief, but I couldn't prove him one. I had convinced Jones, not for my good, but for his. I had forged papers, not for my good, but for his. True, I had spent the money ...
— A Man of Mark • Anthony Hope
... river stole away like a thief in straight places, or swung round corners with an eddy; the willows nodded, and were undermined all day long; the clay banks tumbled in; the Oise, which had been so many centuries making the Golden ...
— An Inland Voyage • Robert Louis Stevenson
... meanest an' most cowardly in the world. It's doin' what the Algerynes does in fair fighting. You're a fine American citizen, ain't you? I know your gang, and a bloody one it is, but you can't look a white man in the eye, because you're a thief and a coward!" ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... bein' sint down th' short r-road f'r near a lifetime; an' I minded th' first time I iver see him,—a bit iv a curly-haired boy that played tag around me place, an' 'd sing 'Blest Saint Joseph' with a smile on his face like an angel's. Who'll tell what makes wan man a thief an' another man a saint? I dinnaw. This here boy's father wur-rked fr'm morn till night in th' mills, was at early mass Sundah mornin' befure th' alkalis lit th' candles, an' niver knowed a month whin he failed his jooty. An' ...
— Mr. Dooley in Peace and in War • Finley Peter Dunne
... arose on all sides. But Dovizio, recovering his power of speech, seized Chigi by the arm, exclaiming: "We have the thief! Look you Agostino, I have had my suspicions all along. It was Raphael who played the bandit, and robbed me of my jewels. I demand that you arrest ...
— Romance of Roman Villas - (The Renaissance) • Elizabeth W. (Elizbeth Williams) Champney
... inebriate believes that there is pleasure in intoxica- tion. The thief believes that he gains something by steal- 294:30 ing, and the hypocrite that he is hiding himself. The Science of Mind corrects such mistakes, for Truth demon- strates the falsity ...
— Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures • Mary Baker Eddy
... his mare," returned Coates; "but if he escapes me, I'll forgive him. I know whither he's bound. He's off to London with my bill of exchange. I'll be up with him. I'll track him like a bloodhound, slowly and surely, as my father, the thief-taker, used to follow up a scent. Recollect the hare and the tortoise. The race is not always to the swift. What say you? 'Tis a match for five hundred pounds; nay, for five thousand: for there is a ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... sniffed, staring at him with eyes in which a mere foolish fear was giving place to cunning. He was a creature flimsy as paper, a mere lithe skinful of bones, in whom the wit of the thief supplied the place of strength. He was making now his hasty estimate of the man he had ...
— Those Who Smiled - And Eleven Other Stories • Perceval Gibbon
... the Roman crowd. But a number of English and Americans thought differently. They saw a little man chased by a big one. Some cried "Shame!" Others, thinking it a case of pocket-picking, cried "Stop thief!" Others cried "Go it, little fellow! Two to one on the ...
— The Dodge Club - or, Italy in 1859 • James De Mille
... tongue, every one cutting him to the quick, poisoning his soul with their venom of jealousy and vulgar spite. Contention was the breath of her nostrils; the prime impulse of her heart was suspicion. Little by little she came round to the wonted topic. Had he been to see his friend the thief? Was she in prison again yet? Whom had she been stealing from of late? Oh, she was innocence itself, of course; too ...
— The Unclassed • George Gissing
... turned his head, but no one followed him. At last he reached the wall of the family graveyard and climbed in. Suddenly a dog ran through the tall grass and leaped at him, barking. The thief had prepared a portion of poisoned meat, and threw it to the dog. The beast, being badly fed, smelt it and swallowed it. He still barked a little, but the venom was potent, and he very soon writhed ...
— Eastern Shame Girl • Charles Georges Souli
... "so very much so, that before I accept more of your hospitality, it is as well you should know whom you would honour—" here I paused and stared down at the ham and eggs. "Sir, I am a thief!" Here I let fall the knife. "Three nights since, sir," he continued in the same passionless voice, "I broke into a farmhouse and stole a loaf and a piece of cheese. I should have stolen more but that ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... of the evening, when one of the natives made off with a musquet belonging to the guard on shore. I was present when this happened, and sent some of our people after him, which would have been to little purpose, had not some of the natives, of their own accord, pursued the thief. They knocked him down, took from him the musquet, and brought it to us. Fear, on this occasion, certainly operated more with them than principle. They deserve, however, to be applauded for this act of justice, for, if they had not given their immediate assistance, it would hardly have been in ...
— A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World, Volume 1 • James Cook
... are strong, Laura, incredibly strong. You are like a fox in a trap, you would rather gnaw off your own leg than let yourself be caught! Like a master thief—no accomplice, not even your own conscience. Look at yourself in the glass! You ...
— Plays: The Father; Countess Julie; The Outlaw; The Stronger • August Strindberg
... he said, that being fatigued on the way, he had given the chest to a man who had followed our caravan from Giocha. I suspected the man had stolen it, by not seeing him with us. I left my family and things there, and went immediately with some of the King's people to Wattera in search of the thief. I had the Chief of Toucha's son and the son of the Chief of Wattera with me. From Wattera we went to Tagoubou, where we found the thief, who had broken the chest and taken away the things; he had ...
— The Journal Of A Mission To The Interior Of Africa, In The Year 1805 • Mungo Park
... and then scrambling over the fence unseen, fled into the darkness. When Sanza had searched all over the garden in vain, he returned to his room and examined his wound, which proving very slight, he began to look about to see whether the thief had carried off anything; but when his eye fell upon the place where the Muramasa sword had lain, he saw that it was gone. He hunted everywhere, but it was not to be found. The precious blade with which his Prince had entrusted him ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford
... vanish in the same fashion, and once even half-a-crown was missing, it was recognised that the thing must be put a stop to; and one bolder than the rest, and with a stronger sense of public morality, lodged a complaint. Investigations were made, a trap was set, and the thief discovered.—The school was now assembled to ...
— The Getting of Wisdom • Henry Handel Richardson
... for thee that richer wealth, No earthly mines reveal, "Which moth and rust cannot corrupt, And thief can ...
— The Poets and Poetry of Cecil County, Maryland • Various
... mingled with the wretched, they are at least entangled with them, and by knots that cannot be untied, and will not be cut. The thief indeed, and the burglar, and more lately the lazy vagabond, and now the assassin, have forced us to consider them; and we even attend to the drunkard, provided he pleads for notice by rolling in ...
— The Voyage Alone in the Yawl "Rob Roy" • John MacGregor
... thick envelopes, the gum was defective, and the back of a penknife served to open the cover without in any way betraying the fact that the cover had been tampered with. A puzzled frown crossed the face of the thief. ...
— The Slave of Silence • Fred M. White
... you were forbidden to enter there; you knew you were prying into what was no affair of yours; you knew you were doing wrong, and would displease me; and yet in the face of all this, you deliberately stole into his room like a spy, like a thief, to discover for yourself. Rose Danton, I ...
— Kate Danton, or, Captain Danton's Daughters - A Novel • May Agnes Fleming
... pious, nor generous to God. Many of them sinned often, and grievously, and did very little to atone for their sins; and the virtues they practised were few, and never brought to any perfection. This class also includes all those who spent their whole lives in sin, and who were saved, like the thief on the cross, by the grace of a death-bed repentance. Evidently, neither these, nor others who practised scarcely any virtue, are crowned with the high honors of heaven, which are the reward of a virtuous life. ...
— The Happiness of Heaven - By a Father of the Society of Jesus • F. J. Boudreaux
... "If calling me thief and assassin, and hurling his stone water-jug at my head, be confession and forgiveness of sins, the ceremony has been performed. Ah! my son, he needs no ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise
... summer's born, Hanging bright liquid pearls on every tree, New life and hope imparting, as to me Thy presence brings delight, so fresh and rare As May's first breath, dispensing such sweet air The Phoenix does expire in; sit, while I play The cunning thief, and steal thy heart away, And thou shalt stand as judge to ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... "very far from holding." The one says that military talent is "not conversant," and so on—the other says "it is never made conversant." The one speaks of "the highest and richest objects"—the other of "the more delicate and abstruse." Channing speaks of "thought"—the thief of "mental operations." Chaming mentions "intelligence of the highest order"—the thief will have it of "the highest and rarest." Channing observes that military talent is often "almost wholly wanting," etc.—the thief maintains it to be "wholly wanting." Channing alludes ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol. XXXII No. 2. February 1848 • Various
... paced back and forth, his lips forming soundless words, his big hands working as though the fingers were at the throat of the thief that had stolen into his home. His mind was going over certain words that Hagar had answered to his questions, just before Ruth's coming. He dwelt upon every slight circumstance that had occurred during the past few months. There were the tracks ...
— The Range Boss • Charles Alden Seltzer
... I think on the sweet smiles o' my lassie, My cares flee awa' like a thief frae the day; My heart loups licht, an' I join in a sang Amang the sweet birds on the braes o' Bedlay. How sweet the embrace, yet how honest the wishes, When luve fa's a-wooin', an' modesty blushes, Whaur Mary an' I meet amang the green bushes That screen us sae weel, ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... beautiful by proxy in the person of a daughter; she therefore refused to grow old and ugly on any consideration; she struggled with Time, and held fast her roses in spite of him, till the venerable thief appeared to have relinquished the spoil as not worth ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... in all ages of the world's history, but especially as we know it to-day, is the one thing for which men live and work. Stop the first man you meet on the street,—"rich man, poor man, beggar-man, thief, doctor, lawyer, butcher, priest,"—any man, going along with a preoccupied mind, thinking of the case he is to plead, the trade he is to make, the book he is to write. Get into this man's mind, down below this particular thing that is on the surface ...
— On the Firing Line in Education • Adoniram Judson Ladd
... path. A Tory and a Churchman, he was yet a moderate Tory and a moderate Churchman; prudent, sensible, a man of the world. To Hurrell Dissenters were rogues and idiots, a Liberal was half an infidel, a Radical was, at least in intention, a thief. From the effect of this nonsense Anthony was saved for a time by his first school. At the age of nine he was sent to Buckfastleigh, five miles up the River Dart, where Mr. Lowndes, the rector and patron of the living, took boarders and taught them, mostly Devonshire boys. ...
— The Life of Froude • Herbert Paul
... not seem to take the men seriously. Their names may have had something to do with his attitude, and the early West was not over-suspicious, anyway. It had been said that "out here we take every man to be honest, until he is proven to be a thief, and in the East they take every man to be a thief, until he is proven to be honest." You can believe that or not, as you happen to live in the West or in the East. Besides, Bill could make use of the talents of String ...
— Injun and Whitey to the Rescue • William S. Hart
... Deformed; he has been a vile thief this seven years; he goes up and down like a gentleman: I remember ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... lay hold of the first individual they met belonging to the family or nation of the suspected robber, strip him of his property, and retain it until the family or nation repaired the wrong. The father succeeded, by appealing to them as Christians, to release the prisoners. Fortunately, the real thief, who was not a Frenchman, became alarmed, and had ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... tradition or to any one in knee-skirted 1916. Mr. Hodshon was a good man as good men go, though he was capable of the little dishonesties and compromises with truth that characterize every profession. A man simply cannot succeed as a teacher, lawyer, doctor, merchant, thief, author, scientist, or anything else if he blurts out everything he knows or believes. No preacher could occupy a pulpit for two Sundays who told just what he actually thought or knew or could find out. The detective is equally ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... add that I have no hope of the States doing justice in this dishonest respect, and therefore do not expect to overtake these fellows, but we may cry "Stop thief!" nevertheless, especially as they wince and smart ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 1 (of 3), 1833-1856 • Charles Dickens
... call me a thief, I'll law ye. Thief yourself! you don't belong to the house; whose gown have you got on your back? Here, James! Tom! here's a strange woman making off with the squire's lady's clothes, and two pounds ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... "your mother said there's a gas-man down here and I've been sent by headquarters to take him in charge. I think he's a sneak thief." ...
— Kathleen • Christopher Morley
... received their high commission to preach the kingdom of heaven, to heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, and cast out devils. He was appointed treasurer to the community. John in telling the story of the anointing at Bethany says that he was a thief, but John also makes him the sole objector to the waste of the ointment. According to the other evangelists all the disciples objected. Since he remained in office it could hardly have been known at ...
— Pages from a Journal with Other Papers • Mark Rutherford
... fact to share the spoil with the advocates and the jurymen, and the more they stole, they did so the more securely. The notion of honour in theft too was already developed; the big robber looked down on the little, and the latter on the mere thief, with contempt; any one, who had been once for a wonder condemned, boasted of the high figure of the sums which he was proved to have exacted. Such was the behaviour in the provinces of the successors of ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... constitution. In the course of his evolutionary promotions, his sublime march toward ultimate perfection, he has been a gambler, a low comedian, a dissolute priest, a fussy woman, a blackguard, a scoffer, a liar, a thief, a spy, an informer, a trading politician, a swindler, a professional hypocrite, a patriot for cash, a reformer, a lecturer, a lawyer, a conspirator, a rebel, a royalist, a democrat, a practicer and propagator of irreverence, a meddler, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... Hycy, "that the respectability of the witnesses you have fished up is highly creditable to your judgments and sense of justice;—a common vagabond and notorious thief on the one hand, and a beggarman's brat on the other. However, proceed—I perceive that I shall be obliged to sink under the force ...
— The Emigrants Of Ahadarra - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... to those who represent them in official capacity. There can be no offense heavier than that of him in whom such a sacred trust has been reposed, who sells it for his own gain and enrichment; and no less heavy is the offense of the bribe giver. He is worse than the thief, for the thief robs the individual, while the corrupt official plunders an entire city or State. He is as wicked as the murderer, for the murderer may only take one life against the law, while the corrupt official and the man who corrupts ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... Borghese, who often rallies the devotion of her mamma, and who is more an amateur of the living than of the dead, of having played her these tricks. The Princess informed Napoleon of her mother's losses, as well as of her own innocence, and asked him to apply to the police to find out the thief, who no doubt was one of the pious rogues ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... Jehan. "Man, I come not as a thief in the night. This is a daylight business. If I am to live my days here I must make a ...
— The Path of the King • John Buchan
... opened an account next door. She owed something in every shop in the whole Quartier. She dared not pass the grocer or the baker in her own street and was compelled to make a lengthy circuit each time she went out. The tradespeople muttered and grumbled, and some went so far as to call her a thief and ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... saw I had none of the prostitute nature in me. I was simply overwhelmed with sensuality. I considered I was a criminal and wished to see in how many ways my nature had the criminal instinct. I wanted to see if I could become a thief. I stole a silver button in a shop where antiquities were sold, but I went to the shop the same day again and returned the button, without the people knowing. I found I could not become a thief. Then the question came. Why had I felt a criminal since my ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... acknowledged "Thou shalt not kill" among its commandments; and yet men speak of the "superiority" of the white race, and, speaking, forget to ask who of us would go hungry if the situation were reversed, but condemn the black fellow as a vile thief, piously quoting—now it suits them—from those same commandments, that men "must not steal," in the same breath referring to the white man's crime (when it finds them out) as "getting into trouble over some shooting affair with blacks." ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... the singular man who had so much to do with the wrecking of New France, a strange compound of energy and the love of luxury, lavish with hospitality, an untiring worker, a gambler, a profligate, a thief of public funds, he was also kindly, gracious and devoted to his friends. A strange bundle of contradictions and disjointed morals, he represented in the New World the glittering decadence that marked the French monarchy at home. Now he was smiling as de Mezy introduced ...
— The Hunters of the Hills • Joseph Altsheler
... been making itself somewhat disastrously felt during the last three or four years. Wherefore he had sold out, broken all his ties in India handsomely, as he had broken them in London handsomely once before, when, mad with jealousy, he had fled like a thief in the night, burned his boats behind him, and, as he thought, obliterated every trace by which that loved and graceless woman could discover his real name or family holding; and now had come home prepared to do his duty to society and himself. That is, prepared to marry a nice ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - February, 1876, Vol. XVII, No. 98. • Various
... but to a pathway of real light, that pierces into eternity. The Day! We are of the Day! The darkness passes, the true light already shines! Then listen, my fellow-pilgrims, to the Spirit's counsel: "But ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief. Ye are all the children of light, and the children of the day: we are not of the night, nor of darkness. Therefore, let us not sleep, as do others, but let us watch and be sober. For they that sleep, sleep in the night; and ...
— Old Groans and New Songs - Being Meditations on the Book of Ecclesiastes • F. C. Jennings
... "I can't admit that there is anything regenerative in punishment. If I had been the thief that everybody believed I was, I should have come out of prison still a thief—with an added grudge against society. While I was treated well, as a whole, nothing was done to arouse the better man in me, or even ...
— Branded • Francis Lynde
... year, even for the hapless, is that period of ferment and fever. It is not the season for duns, and the debtor glides about with a less anxious eye; and the weather is warm, and the vagrant sleeps, unfrozen, under the starlit portico; and the beggar thrives, and the thief rejoices—for the rankness of the civilisation has superfluities clutched by all. And out of the general corruption things sordid and things miserable crawl forth to bask in the common sunshine—things that perish ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... this servant thief casteth the cloak that he carried on his arm about this poor man's face that he should not mark or view them, with sharp words to deliver quickly that he had, and to confess truly what was in his purse. This poor man then ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... said winter. "Now I need no longer steal round like a thief in the night. From to-morrow, I shall look every one straight in the face and bite his nose and make his eyes ...
— The Old Willow Tree and Other Stories • Carl Ewald
... 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 awakened 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 ...
— Stories by English Authors: Scotland • Various
... temper, which, having so mighty a power of realization at command, never became so much interested in any fact of human history as to spend one touch of heartfelt skill upon it;—which, yielding momentarily to indolent imagination, ended, at best, in a Puck, or a Thais; a Mercury as Thief, or a Cupid as Linkboy. How wide the interval between this gently trivial humor, guided by the wave of a feather, or arrested by the enchantment of a smile,—and the habitual dwelling of the thoughts of the great ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... reason men's hearts in all places and at all times are overflowing with sadness. In the desert the lion and the scorpion are his danger, in the cave lurks the dragon, among flowers the poisonous serpent. In the sunshine a greedy neighbor is thinking how to decrease his land, in the night the active thief is breaking through the door to his granary. In childhood he is incompetent, in old age stripped of strength. When full of power, he is surrounded by perils, as a whale is ...
— The Pharaoh and the Priest - An Historical Novel of Ancient Egypt • Boleslaw Prus
... think on't, let it lie; To find it were in vain: For thou'st a thief in either eye Would steal it ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... on the ocean of thought like a magnificent ship going to sea. And when the night was far spent, and the orgies were over, and the lights were blown out at the club, I saw him enter his own sweet home in his glory—entered it, like a thief, with his boots in his hands,—entered ...
— Gov. Bob. Taylor's Tales • Robert L. Taylor
... said. "You'd be the first one to kick if we should attempt to put that thief in there out of the boat. You're the tender-hearted little child of ...
— Boy Scouts in a Submarine • G. Harvey Ralphson
... partnership cordoban, morocco leather despacio, slowly despreciable, despicable dinero efectivo, cash discutir, to discuss especulacion, speculation, venture garrote, cudgel, stick *impedir, to hinder, to preclude ladron, thief (el) matiz, shade *mover, to move, to actuate mozalbete, beardless youth *quebrantamiento, breakage, break down reflejo, reflection *seguir, to pursue sin ton ni son, without rhyme or reason sombrero de copa, silk ...
— Pitman's Commercial Spanish Grammar (2nd ed.) • C. A. Toledano
... jeweller heard the ominous cough, he turned at once upon that narrow way. A thief was he, of very high repute, being patronized by the lofty and elect, for he stole nothing smaller than the Moomoo's egg, and in all his life stole only four kinds of stone—the ruby, the diamond, the emerald, and the sapphire; and, ...
— The Book of Wonder • Edward J. M. D. Plunkett, Lord Dunsany
... number of times she had blessed us for our love of her, as well as of how in her last moments she had implored our forgiveness if, in her ignorance, she had ever at any time given us offence. "Yet a thief have I never been. Never have I used so much as a piece of thread that was not my own." Such was the one quality ...
— Childhood • Leo Tolstoy
... the wind, like the sea, Whose raging will hearken to no man; Like a mill, like a pill, Like a flail, like a whale, Like an ass, like a glass Whose image is constant to no man; Like a shower, like a flower, Like a fly, like a pie, Like a pea, like a flea, Like a thief, like—in brief, She's like nothing on ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... civilian and a soldier—were their chief custodians during that night, and signalized themselves after their fashion. They deprived the prisoners of their clothing, and, in truth, everything of the slightest value in the eyes of a thief. One of these swashbucklers attempted to reduce our young hero's wardrobe to an Arkansas basis, namely, a straw-hat and a pair of spurs, with what success the following dialogue, taken mainly from "The Capture, Prison-Pen, and ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens
... of the four men that had stood by me most in my time; now one was a miser and smuggler, and got himself hung; and one was a thief, and died of a split wishbone, on what he called "a throne;" and one was a fighter and gambler and poet, and he had a heavy fist, and he turned remorseful into a Burmese monk; and one was Stevey Todd. And Madge Pemberton thought at one time I was all right, but she was wrong there. And I thought ...
— The Belted Seas • Arthur Colton
... our opponents. Moreover, Mr Denis Johnston, the Chief Organiser of the League, who had come down from Dublin with all his plans for my extermination cut and dried, dared not take the train that evening in the ordinary course from the Macroom station, but, like a thief in the night, stole out of the town in a covered car and drove ...
— Ireland Since Parnell • Daniel Desmond Sheehan
... Scripture) to be limited to certain states; for the passage 'Thou art that' shows that the general fact of Brahman being the Self of all is not limited by any particular state. Moreover, Scripture, showing by the instance of the thief (Ch. VI, 16) that the false-minded is bound while the true-minded is released, declares thereby that unity is the one true existence while manifoldness is evolved out of wrong knowledge. For if both were true how could the man who acquiesces in the reality of this phenomenal ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Sankaracarya - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 1 • George Thibaut
... Dere, you frog-eating thief." he said angrily as he fired his musket at an advancing foe. "Dat serve you right," he went on to himself as the Frenchman fell. "You spoil Sam's hat. Dis colored gentleman catch cold first time him come ...
— The Young Buglers • G.A. Henty
... on the castle, muttered to himself, "Lapis offensionis et petra scandali!" and then, turning to Halbert Glendinning, he added, "We may say of yonder fort as King James did of another fastness in this province, that he who built it was a thief in his heart." [Footnote: It was of Lochwood, the hereditary fortress of the Johnstones of Aunandale, a strong castle situated in the centre of a quaking bog, that James VI. ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... lord. I won't be denying it. But, on the other hand, I wouldn't marry her now for all her money, av' I didn't mane to trate her well. Well, my lord, after beating about the bush for a long time, the ould thief popped it out, and told me that he thought Anty'd be all the betther for a husband; and that, av' I was wanting a wife, he b'lieved I might suit myself now. Well, I thought of it a little, and tould him I'd ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope
... 15:27: "The thieves crucified with our Lord denote those who, believing in and confessing Christ, either endure the conflict of martyrdom or keep the institutes of stricter observance. But those who do the like for the sake of everlasting glory are denoted by the faith of the thief on the right; while others who do so for the sake of human applause copy the mind and behavior of ...
— Summa Theologica, Part III (Tertia Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas
... to the Wanderer. "Help, help! oh, save mine honour from this evil man, this foreign thief whom Pharaoh set to guard me, and who guards me thus. This coward who dares to creep upon me—the Queen of Khem—even as I slept in Pharaoh's bed!" and she cast herself upon the floor and threw her hair about her, and lay there groaning and weeping ...
— The World's Desire • H. Rider Haggard and Andrew Lang
... still, the meeting, which had been protracted, had annoyed him. Mr. Tyrrwhit had made accusations against himself personally which he knew to be false, but which, having been covered up, and not expressed exactly, he had been unable to refute. A man shall tell you you are a thief and a scoundrel in such a manner as to make it impossible for you to take him by the throat. "You, of course, are not a thief and a scoundrel," he shall say to you, but shall say it in such a tone of voice as to make ...
— Mr. Scarborough's Family • Anthony Trollope
... the boys, very proud of what they had done; "but we shouldn't have waked if our good Cocky had not crowed, and scared the rascals. He deserves half the praise, for this is the second time he has caught a thief." ...
— The Louisa Alcott Reader - A Supplementary Reader for the Fourth Year of School • Louisa M. Alcott
... Benjamin to go with them. The unexpected feast which Joseph made for them, sitting himself at another table—the greater portions given to Benjamin, the deception played upon them by the secretion of Joseph's silver cup in Benjamin's sack, as if he were a thief, the distress of all the sons of Jacob, the eloquent pleadings of Judah, the restrained tears of Joseph, the discovery of himself to them, the generosity of Pharaoh, the return of Jacob's children laden not only with corn but presents, the final migration of the ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord
... decided not to bother you with our troubles," said Aunt Polly, "but I see we can't hide a thing from your sharp eyes. I have bad news to tell you. While you were away with Peter this afternoon, and while Linda and I were in town, a miserable chicken thief got into the chicken yard and stole ever so many chickens. We don't know yet how many. And they took nearly every one of Linda's ducks. She has the ducks for her own, you know, and she uses the money for her school clothes. ...
— Four Little Blossoms at Brookside Farm • Mabel C. Hawley
... "Thou old thief, have the good sword done ere I return or I will have the bear swallow thee at a gulp." Leaping with joy he went back into the forest. The Mime sat down in great trouble. He did not doubt Siegfried's word—yet he knew that he could never ...
— Operas Every Child Should Know - Descriptions of the Text and Music of Some of the Most Famous Masterpieces • Mary Schell Hoke Bacon
... simplify his task, for the disappointment of the Democrats was extreme, and they found a natural difficulty in adjusting themselves to the decision against Tilden. Democratic newspapers dubbed Hayes "His Fraudulency" and "The Boss Thief," printed his picture with "Fraud" printed across his brow and referred to his election as the ...
— The United States Since The Civil War • Charles Ramsdell Lingley
... after you had tomahawked your mother at the breakfast table for putting too much sugar in your coffee? You would "ask for a suspension of public opinion." That is what Senator Dilworthy did. It is the custom. He got the usual amount of suspension. Far and wide he was called a thief, a briber, a promoter of steamship subsidies, railway swindles, robberies of the government in all possible forms and fashions. Newspapers and everybody else called him a pious hypocrite, a sleek, oily fraud, a reptile ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... that her father, the man she had idolized, was a thief and a swindler—a bitter heritage not ...
— Glory of Youth • Temple Bailey
... end, but materially with regard to the object of the external action. Hence the Philosopher says (Ethic. v, 2) that "he who steals that he may commit adultery, is strictly speaking, more adulterer than thief." ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas
... be, but it ain't," replied Lassiter. "Oldring's an honest thief. He don't skulk behind ridges to scatter your cattle to the four winds. He rides down on you, an' if you don't like it ...
— Riders of the Purple Sage • Zane Grey
... stop thief! a highwayman!" Not one of them was mute; And all and each that passed that way Did join ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck
... the terror he felt in being what and where he was. He wanted to laugh when he thought of the perfect ease and safety of his return. At the same time a thrilling anxiety pierced him through and through, and made him take all the precautions of a thief in the night. ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... thief; apples and plums and so on are quite safe, though the turnip-tops are not: there is a subtle casuistry involved here—the distinction between the quasi-wild and the garden product. He is not a poacher in the sense of entering ...
— The Amateur Poacher • Richard Jefferies
... 'I'll throw myself on your mercy. I admit the cat is your cat, and that I have no right to it, and that I am just a common sneak-thief. But consider. I had just come back from the first rehearsal of my first play; and as I walked in at the door that cat walked in at the window. I'm as superstitious as a coon, and I felt that to give ...
— The Man with Two Left Feet - and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... MAGINN remarks, is often confounded with talent. "A bold woman always gets the name of clever"—among fools—"though her intellect may be of a humble order, and her knowledge contemptible." Among the vulgar, especially those of greedy, griping race and blood, the children of the thief, a robber of the widow and orphan, the scamp of the syndicate, and soulless "promoter" in South or North America, bold robbery, or Selfishness without scruple or timidity always appears as Will. But it is not the whole of the real ...
— The Mystic Will • Charles Godfrey Leland
... thinking it would be as well to bring them away, in case the captain should like to have a look at them, so I just put them in my shirt before I slipped out of the cabin window. I hope I won't be called a thief for taking them. Here they are, Mr Terence;" and he handed me the packet which I ...
— Paddy Finn • W. H. G. Kingston
... western men call a "stampede," and whenever one occurs there is pretty surely a mule or a thief at the bottom of it; but sometimes a hail-storm will do as well, or nearly so. By five or six minutes past three all of that herd were racing westward, with boys and men getting out of breath behind it, and all the squaws in the camp were holding hard upon the lariats of the ponies tethered among ...
— Two Arrows - A Story of Red and White • William O. Stoddard
... way of the Redeemer to emancipate from sin by the freeness of absolution. The dying thief, an hour before a blasphemer, was unconditionally assured; the moment the sinner's feelings changed towards God, He proclaimed that God was reconciled to him: "This day thou shalt be with me in Paradise." And hence, speaking humanly, hence, from this absolving tone and spirit, ...
— Sermons Preached at Brighton - Third Series • Frederick W. Robertson
... were turned over to the provost guard. After reaching Chilesburg we were on the same road over which we marched with Kilpatrick and needed no guide. The confederate prisoners looked with astonishment upon this big body of cavalry which had stolen into their territory like a thief in the ...
— Personal Recollections of a Cavalryman - With Custer's Michigan Cavalry Brigade in the Civil War • J. H. (James Harvey) Kidd
... one of the marines, in my tent, stealing rum out of a small vessel, which contained what was drawn off to serve the officers and men belonging to the Sirius; and was kept in my tent, as I had not a more secure place to put it in. In the afternoon, I assembled the settlement, and punished the thief with three dozen lashes; causing him to be led by a halter to the place of punishment: I also stopped the deficiency of rum ...
— An Historical Journal of the Transactions at Port Jackson and Norfolk Island • John Hunter
... thirty-seven, or forty-seven, and so forth, always increasing by tens in proportion to the injury done, and running up to one hundred and seven. Of these beatings sometimes they die.[NOTE 1] But if the offence be horse-stealing, or some other great matter, they cut the thief in two with a sword. Howbeit, if he be able to ransom himself by paying nine times the value of the thing stolen, he is let off. Every Lord or other person who possesses beasts has them marked with his peculiar brand, be they horses, mares, camels, oxen, cows, or other great cattle, ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... the French woman went to awaken the thief and while the latter was making his toilet little Boudru entered. He regarded the Hun with gravity for at least five minutes and then delivered ...
— War and the Weird • Forbes Phillips
... — [persuasively, to Timmy.] — Maybe they're hanging a thief, above at the bit of a tree. I'm told it's a great sight to see a man hanging by his neck; but what joy would that be to ourselves, and we ...
— The Well of the Saints • J. M. Synge
... I do, but it seems to me as if she had made a mistake in giving Sammy Jay such a handsome coat. There must be a reason, I suppose, but for the life of me I cannot understand it. I should think that she would give such a thief as Sammy Jay the very homeliest suit she could find. You may depend I would, if ...
— Mother West Wind 'Why' Stories • Thornton W. Burgess
... retreat.' Filled with great rage, Sankha said unto him, 'Thou hast committed theft by thyself taking these fruits. Go and approaching the king confess to him what thou hast done. Tell him, O best of kings, I have committed the offence of approaching what was not given to me. Knowing me for a thief and observing the duty of thy order, do thou soon inflict upon me, O ruler of men, the punishment of a thief.' Thus addressed, the highly blessed Likhita of rigid vows, at the command of his brother, proceeded to king Sudyumna. Hearing ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown |
