Terry Pratchett Quotes

You have seen for a long time the great disorder in the world caused by these crimes. It is so bad in some of your provinces, I am told, and you are so weak in the administration of justice, that one can hardly go along the road by day or night without being attacked by robbers; and whether at home or abroad one is in danger of being despoiled either by force or fraud.

He that first cries out stop thief, is often he that has stolen the treasure.

In a closed society where everybody's guilty, the only crime is getting caught. In a world of thieves, the only final sin is stupidity.

As long as dishonorable success outranks honest effort—as long as society bows and cringes before the great thieves, there will be little ones enough to fill the jails.

The great thieves are leading away the little thief.

Manila is like a small New York. Nothing works, and everybody's out to get the better of you.

New York... where people come for their Ph.D. in corruption.

Those who embezzle public funds should be ready to face the consequences.

The difference between a politician and a pickpocket is that a pickpocket doesn't always get indignant when you tell him to keep his hands to himself.

Poets have tried to describe Ankh-Morpork. They have failed. Perhaps it's the sheer zestful vitality of the place, or maybe it's just that a city with a million inhabitants and no sewers is rather robust for poets, who prefer daffodils and no wonder. So let's just say that Ankh-Morpork is as full of life as an old cheese on a hot day, as loud as a curse in a cathedral, as bright as an oil slick, as colourful as a bruise and as full of activity, industry, bustle and sheer exuberant busyness as a dead dog on a termite mound.

Shew me a lyer, and I'le shew thee a theefe.

Oppurtunity Makes the Thief

Gotham City. Clean shafts of concrete and snowy rooftops. The work of men who died generations ago. From here, it looks like an achievement. From here, you can't see the enemy.

What day is so festal it fails to reveal some theft?

We're living in a den of thieves

Steal five dollars and you're a common thief. Steal thousands and you're either the government or a hero.

Throw away profit and greed, and there won't be any thieves.

In limited professions there's boundless theft.

They used to take your horse and if they were caught they got hung for it. Now they take your car, and if they are caught it's a miracle.

The state lies in all languages of good and evil; and whatever it says, it lies-and whatever it has, it has stolen.

Washington, of course, aside from being one of the most mismanaged, crime-ridden cities on the planet, is a place where 535 federal legislators and about 38,000 lobbyists work at confiscating and redistributing the incomes of the American people.

Some men rob you with a six-gun -- others rob you with a fountain pen.

It was so easy to disappear, so easy to deny knowledge, so very easy in the smoke and din to mask that something dark had taken root. This was Chicago, on the eve of the greatest fair in history.

We’re being ripped off and screwed by a bunch of liars, thieves, crooks, and criminals, and they’re not the folks below. Don’t look in the streets, look in the corporate suites.

Today I am so at home in Dublin, more than in any other city, that I feel it has always been familiar to me. But, as with Belfast it took me years to penetrate its outer ugliness and dourness, so with Dublin it took me years to see through its soft charm to its bitter prickly kernel - which I quite like too.