A Quote by Oscar Wilde

I wonder that no criminal has ever pleaded the ugliness of your city as an excuse for his crimes.

Oscar Wilde

Quote Topics

City Ever Excuse His Ugliness Wonder Your

Quote Author

Oscar Wilde
Irish - Poet
October 16, 1854 - November 30, 1900

The citizens of a city are not guilty of the crimes committed in their city; but they are guilty as participants in the destiny of [humanity] as a whole and in the destiny of their city in particular; for their acts in which freedom was united with destiny have contributed to the destiny in which they participate. They are guilty, not of committing the crimes of which their group is accused, but of contributing to the destiny in which these crimes happened.

Paul Tillich

Originally they wanted it to be bigger, but I pleaded and pleaded and pleaded to have the smallest tonsure that they could get away with. A tonsure that could still be seen, but, I worried about my social life!

Derek Jacobi

Look at New York and the number of crimes out there. Every big city has crime. Bombay is the biggest city of India. So, naturally, all crimes in Bombay get banner headlines.

Raj Thackeray

In existing criminology there are concepts: a criminal man, a criminal profession, a criminal society, a criminal sect, and a criminal tribe, but there is no concept of a criminal state, or a criminal government, or criminal legislation. Consequently what is often regarded as "political" activity is in fact a criminal activity.

P.D. Ouspensky

Given the inefficiencies of what DC laughingly calls the 'criminal justice system,' I think we can safely assume that 95 percent of the black males in that city are semi-criminal or entirely criminal.

Ron Paul

In the case of non-signatory states like Syria and Iraq, the U.N. Security Council is mandated with enforcement of the International Criminal Court's jurisdictions in matters of genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity.

Terry Glavin

We should distinguish between responsibility and guilt. Guilt only touches the ones who committed the crimes but the son of a criminal is not a criminal himself.

Pascal Bruckner

Every criminal-justice system has to find some kind of balance between protecting the rights of innocent people falsely accused of crimes and protecting the victims of crimes.

Hannah Fry

When we think of a criminal, we imagine someone with criminal motives. And when we look at Eichmann, he doesn't actually have any criminal motives. Not what is usually understood by "criminal motives." He wanted to go along with the rest. He wanted to say "we," and going-along-with-the-rest and wanting-to-say-we like this were quite enough to make the greatest of all crimes possible. The Hitlers, after all, really aren't the ones who are typical in this kind of situation--they'd be powerless without the support of others.

Hannah Arendt

Man gives every reason for his conduct save one, every excuse for his crimes save one, every plea for his safety save one; and that one is his cowardice

George Bernard Shaw

To declare that in the administration of criminal law the end justifies the means to declare that the Government may commit crimes in order to secure conviction of a private criminal would bring terrible retribution.

Louis D. Brandeis

You cannot "love" a dog out of her bad behavior, just as you can't "love" a criminal into stopping his crimes.

Cesar Millan

Your Majesty, you just-" Costis stopped. "Just what?" the king prompted wickedly. Nothing would induce Costis to say out loud that the king had almost fallen from the palace wall and that Costis had seen him manifestly saved by the God of Thieves. The king smiled. "Cat got your tongue?" "Your Majesty, you are drunk," Costis pleaded. "I am. What's your excuse?

Megan Whalen Turner

There is no such thing as a criminal life. Life is life, and life is criminalized. No one ever, in the history of life, has chosen a criminal life. No one has ever said, 'I want to be a criminal.' No one ever has done that.

Rhys Ifans

Experience shows that the frequent use of severe punishment has never rendered a people better. The death of a criminal is a less effective means of restraining crimes than the permanent example of a man deprived of his liberty during the whole of his life to make amends for the injury he has done to the public.