Quotes & Sayings About Pickpockets

The government of my country snubs honest simplicity but fondles artistic villainy, and I think I might have developed into a very capable pickpocket if I had remained in the public service a year or two. — Mark Twain

Gods, I love this place," Locke said, drumming his fingers against his thighs. "Sometimes I think this whole city was put here simply because the gods must adore crime. Pickpockets rob the common folk, merchants rob anyone they can dupe, Capa Barsavi robs the robbers and the common folk, the lesser nobles rob nearly everyone, and Duke Nicovante occasionally runs off with his army and robs the shit out of Tal Verarr or Jerem, not to mention what he does to his own nobles and his common folk. — Scott Lynch

I study every quivering branch, every imposing soldier, every window I can count. My eyes are two professional pickpockets, stealing everything to store away in my mind. — Tahereh Mafi

Dad steps away from the window, and I'm alarmed to discover his eyes are wet. Something about the idea of my father-even if it is my father-on the brink of tears raises a lump in my throat.
"Well,kiddo.Guess you're all grown up now."
My body is frozen. He pulls my stiff limbs into a bear hug.His grip is frightening. "Take care of yourself. Study hard and make some friends. And watch out for pickpockets," he adds. "Sometimes they work in pairs. — Stephanie Perkins

If one sides with pickpockets by saying, 'what's wrong with what he is doing? He doesn't have any food so of course he'll pick pockets!' Now even when he is not a pickpocket himself, by supporting such actions, he will become a pick pocket in his next life. The poor man, although he makes the mistake in ignorance (in darkness, within), the price he will pay in brightness [that can be seen with 5 senses, the outer world]. — Dada Bhagwan

The priests of all these cults, the singers, shouters, prayers and exhorters of Bootstrap-lifting have as their distinguishing characteristic that they do very little lifting at their own bootstraps, and less at any other man's. Now and then you may see one bend and give a delicate tug, of a purely symbolical character: as when the Supreme Pontiff of the Roman Bootstrap-lifters comes once a year to wash the feet of the poor; or when the Sunday-school Superintendent of the Baptist Bootstrap-lifters shakes the hand of one of his Colorado mine-slaves. But for the most part the priests and preachers of Bootstrap-lifting walk haughtily erect, many of them being so swollen with prosperity that they could not reach their bootstraps if they wanted to. Their role in life is to exhort other men to more vigorous efforts at self-elevation, that the agents of the Wholesale Pickpockets' Association may ply their immemorial role with less chance of interference. — Upton Sinclair

Another example is the modern political order. Ever since the French Revolution, people throughout the world have gradually come to see both equality and individual freedom as fundamental values. Yet the two values contradict each other. Equality can be ensured only by curtailing the freedoms of those who are better off. Guaranteeing that every individual will be free to do as he wishes inevitably short-changes equality. The entire political history of the world since 1789 can be seen as a series of attempts to reconcile this contradiction. Anyone who has read a novel by Charles Dickens knows that the liberal regimes of nineteenth-century Europe gave priority to individual freedom even if it meant throwing insolvent poor families in prison and giving orphans little choice but to join schools for pickpockets. Anyone who has read a novel by Alexander Solzhenitsyn knows how Communism's egalitarian ideal produced brutal tyrannies that tried to control every aspect of daily life. — Yuval Noah Harari

Pickpockets either work alone or in pairs, or what is called a mob. — Harry Houdini

He loved his job. What was advertising, anyway, but a knowledge of people and of which buttons to push to nudge them into opening their wallets?

It was, he often though, an accepted, creative, even expected twist on picking those wallets. For a man who had spent the first half of his life as a thief, it was the perfect career. — Nora Roberts

Honor to a Spaniard, no matter how dishonest, is as real a thing as water, wine, or olive oil. There is honor among pickpockets and honor among whores. It is simply that the standards differ. — Ernest Hemingway,

Criminality was so widespread that its practitioners split into fields of specialization. Some became coney catchers, or swindlers (a coney was a rabbit reared for the table and thus unsuspectingly tame); others became foists (pickpockets), nips, or nippers (cutpurses), hookers (who snatched desirables through open windows with hooks), abtams (who feigned lunacy to provide a distraction), whipjacks, fingerers, cross biters, cozeners, courtesy men, and many more. Brawls were shockingly common. — Bill Bryson

My eyes are two professional pickpockets, stealing everything away in my mind. I lose track of the minutes we trample over. — Tahereh Mafi

Jeers and obscenities trailed after us like optimistic pickpockets. — Lyndsay Faye

Since the white cops ventured over only when they needed a Negro to conveniently arrest for some crime, the residents had no protection from pickpockets and thieves and burglars, scofflaws and roughnecks, moonshiners and drunks and rapists. — Thomas Mullen

Because of the oil-and-water relationship governments have cultivated between ethics and political economy, speaking in plain terms - spelling it out as it is - as become foreign to the public. So here goes: When government sports a surplus, this implies that the political pickpockets have stolen more funds than they can possibly dream of spending. The property is not theirs to keep! Conversely, when deficits are reported, this means that the kleptomaniacs have not been able to steal sufficient funds to cover their profligacy. — Ilana Mercer

It is needless to say that women make the most patient as well as the most dangerous pickpockets. — Harry Houdini

Not everybody likes the idea of their cities filling up with the poor. A judge in Bombay called slum dwellers pickpockets of urban land. Another said, while ordering the bulldozing of unauthorized colonies, that people who couldn't afford to live in cities shouldn't live in them. When those who had been evicted went back to where they came from, they found their villages had disappeared under great dams and dusty quarries. — Arundhati Roy

When Tessia and Jayan were served a large, fat rassook each, Jayan had smugly commented that Tessia certainly had a way with villagers and he would not be surprised if she could charm pickpockets into putting money into her wallet. — Trudi Canavan