thief

But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night.

—Bible (NewTestament)

Behold,Icomeas athief.Blessed ishethat watcheth, and keepeth his garments, lest he walk naked, and they see his shame. And he gathereth them together into a place called in the Hebrew tongue Armageddon.

—Bible (NewTestament)

And now was acknowledged the presence of the Red Death. He had come like a thief in the night. And one by one dropped the revellers in the blood-bedecked halls of their revel, and died each in the despairing posture of his fall.

—Poe, EdgarAllan

Hethat firstcries out stop thief, is often hethat has stolen the treasure.

—Congreve,William

So clomb this first grand thief into God's fold: So since into his church lewd hirelings climb. Thence up he flew, and on theTree of Life, The middle tree and highest there that grew, Sat like a cormorant.

—Milton,John

He that steals a cow from a poor widow, or a stirk from a cottar, is a thief; he that lifts a drove from a Sassenach laird, is a gentleman-drover. And, besides, to take a tree from the forest, a salmon from the river, a deer from the hill, or a cow from a Lowland strath, is what no Highlander need ever think shame upon.

—Scott, Sir Walter

Watch therefore: for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come.But know this, that if the goodman of the house had known in what watch the thief would come, he would have watched, and would not have suffered his house to be broken up.

—Bible (NewTestament)

   Jean Cocteau me croit un mauvais voleur. C'est parce qu'aupre'  s de lui je suis d'abord un e¤  crivain. Les voleurs me croient un mauvais e¤  crivain. Jean Cocteau thinks that I am a poor thief. That's because next to him I am primarilya writer.Thieves think that I am a poor writer.

—Genet,Jean

It is not the mouse who is the thief, it is the hole that allows the mouse in.

—Jacobs, Herman

Opportunity makes a thief.

—Bacon, Francis,Viscount St Albans

Pleasure is a thief to business.

—Defoe, Daniel

To be nameless in worthy deeds exceeds an infamous history† Who would not rather have been the good thief than Pilate?

—Browne, SirThomas

Not all the treasures of the world, so far as I believe, could have induced me to support an offensive war, for I think it murder; but if a thief breaks into my house, burns and destroysmy property, and kills or threatenstokill me or those that are in it, and to'bind me in all cases whatsoever'to his absolute will, am I to suffer it?

—Paine,Thomas

   The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.

—Bible (NewTestament)