Bernard Levin Quotes

Politics is comparable to boxing. The only thing is that in politics there are basically no rules. In boxing, you can get a black eye, but in politics you can get poison in your food or a bullet in the head. It's definitely rougher and tougher than other sports.

King William and the chief men loved gold and silver and did not care how sinfully it was obtained provided it came to them. He did not care at all how wrongfully his men got possession of land nor how many illegal acts they did.

… the tools of despotism and corruption

half militarist, half gangster

The savage and brutal barbarity of our enemies … is a full demonstration of that there is not the least remains of virtue, wisdom, or humanity in the British Court

gangs with no claims whatsoever to legitimacy. They are funded by theft and the basis of all their operations is aggression. They're no more entitled to keep their activities secret than any other gaggle of murderers, rapists and thieves is..

I wish I could avoid the people who have threatened me. My favorite threat is that I will be thrown in the River Miljacka, which is at most knee-deep, with my feet bound in cement.

We see violence to forcibly seize land, at any price, murders and corruption.

Beware of the man who rises to power from one suspender.

'The Sopranos' only reflected the tenor of how things are done in New Jersey. They didn't invent it. And I say that as a fan of both 'The Sopranos' and New Jersey.

'The Sopranos' gets praised as novelistic, but it follows the most banal of life patterns, showing the sheer tedium of being a mobster. It has dead spots, boring plotlines, weak episodes. Characters develop slowly, or don't. Like viewers, a gangster might get bored, fade out of the action, then come back to find none of his debts forgotten.

Wherever there's opportunity, the mafia will be there.

Our country has been overtaken by murderous thugs... gangsters who lust after fortunes and power.

People have told me about organized crime in the fashion industry, but I can't talk about that. I'm looking to stay alive.

If the money's right, I'm happy to bust up the other side of his face... No problem.

You look at the descriptions of Whitey by law enforcement during his early years, and they sum him up pretty well. He was the same guy 40 years later; he just had $40 million more, and had committed 40 more murders.

Heck, what's a little extortion among friends?

Sometimes you have to strike a deal with the Mafia. But remember, the Mafia is not Mother Theresa. We must always keep that in mind.

… J. Edgar Hoover, whom you should trust as much as you would a rattlesnake with a silencer on its rattle.

Such is human nature, in the gigantic intellect, the envious temper, the ravenous ambition, and the rotten heart of Daniel Webster.

... a bloodthirsty partisan who'd just as soon cut your guts out as look at you.

.. jack-booted government thugs.

… an organized system of blackguardism.

The orgy of thieving in Iraq has more to do with the character of the people than the absence of restraining troops. And to think that good, decent, law-abiding young British and American men and women laid down their lives to liberate this thieving mob.

The loggers are more powerful than we are …. There is bribery everywhere.