Once a book falls into our possession, it is ours, the same way children lay their claim: 'That's my book. ' As if it were organically part of them. That must be why we have so much trouble returning borrowed books. It's not exactly theft (of course not, we're not thieves, what are you implying?); it's simply a slippage in ownership or, better still, a transfer of substance. That which belonged to someone else becomes mine when I look at it. And if I like what I read, naturally I'll have difficulty giving it back.
False encouragement is a kind of theft: it steals time, energy, and motivation a person could put toward some other purpose.
Copying is not theft. Because when you steal something it means the other person doesn't have it anymore.
If throughout your life you abstain from murder, theft, fornication, perjury, blasphemy, and disrespect toward your parents, church, and your king, you are conventionally held to deserve moral admiration even if you have never done a single kind, generous or useful action. This very inadequate notion of virtue is an outcome of taboo morality, and has done untold harm.
From the theft of confidential cables to 21st-century protest movements, to development breakthroughs that have the potential to change millions of lives, we are all in uncharted territory.
Like other forms of stealing, identity theft leaves the victim poor and feeling terribly violated.
When government does more than guard against the initiation of force, inevitably it becomes a means of theft and bamboozlement.
If two individuals enter into a contract to commit trespass, theft, robbery or murder upon a third, the contract is unlawful and void, simply because it is a contract to violate natural justice, or men's natural rights.
What is government but theft by consent?
Falsehood is never better than truth, theft better than honesty, treachery better than loyalty, cowardice better than courage.
Where there's property, there's theft.
Charity is reaching into one's own pockets to assist his fellow man in need. Reaching into someone else's pocket to assist one's fellow man hardly qualifies as charity. When done privately, we deem it theft, and the individual risks jail time.
Let this single hour atone For the theft of all of me
[O]pulence is always the result of theft, if not committed by the actual possessor, then by his predecessors.
To use for our exclusive benefit what is not ours is theft.
On the theft of his material by Denis Leary: "I have a scoop for you. I stole his act. I camouflaged it with punchlines, and to really throw people off, I did it before he did.
As problems like identity theft become more prevalent, now more than ever, Americans need to take their financial health seriously - and this information is of the utmost importance.
I don't need to worry about identity theft because no one wants to be me.
Art theft gave a guy an appetite.
It would be considered a theft on our part if we didn't give to someone in greater need than we are.