William Landay Quotes

it is not the deed but the intention that makes the crime.

Intent is guilt. Failure to successfully carry out the intent does not absolve the guilt.

There is no such crime as a crime of thought; there are only crimes of action.

He who meditates a crime secretly within himself has all the guilt of the act.

If conduct is intentional, it could subject some of the criminal liability.

In law a man is guilty when he violates the rights of others. In ethics he is guilty if he only thinks of doing so.

A guilty mind can be eased by nothing but repentance; by which what was ill done is revoked and morally voided and undone.

He is not guilty who is not guilty of his own free will.

The mind sins, not the body; if there is no intention, there is no blame.

The attendant on William Rufus, who discharged at a deer an arrow, which glanced against a tree and killed the king, was no murderer, because he had no such design. And, on the other hand, a man who should lie in wait to assassinate another, and pull the trigger of a gun with that intent, would be morally a murderer, not the less though the gun should chance to miss fire.

Guilt is a timorous thing ere perpetration; despair alone makes guilty men be bold.

The guilty is he who meditates a crime; the punishment is his who lays the plot.

The laws do not take upon them to punish any other than overt acts.

For whoever meditates a crime is guilty of the deed.

Is there anybody here who thinks that following the orders takes away the blame Is there anybody here who wouldn't mind a murder by another name?

I have sinned against my brother the ass.

Punishment as punishment is not admissible unless the offender has had the freewill to select his course.

But I wonder where we will land if trial judges begin deciding that the fact that a man has committed an atrocious crime is proof sufficient that he is not responsible for his acts.

You are not guilty of anything until you are charged and tried.

Guilt is ever at a loss, and confusion waits upon it; when innocence and bold truth are always ready for expression.

Let him who is without guilt cast the first stone. A trap. Because then he will be no longer without guilt.

If the victims are my problem, the killers are yours.

He that voluntarily continues in ignorance, is guilty of all the crimes which ignorance produces.

Consequences are unpitying. Our deeds carry their terrible consequences, quite apart from any fluctuations that went before—consequences that are hardly ever confined to ourselves. And it is best to fix our minds on that certainty, instead of considering what may be the elements of excuse for us.

Shocking writing is like murder: the questions the jury must decide are the questions of motive and intent.