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Most religions argue stealing is a sin

• He saith unto him, Which? Jesus said, Thou shalt do no murder, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness, Honour thy father and thy mother: and, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. Bible
• Dishonesty,  Lying,  Sin,  Deceit

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Stealing leads to negative karma

• Bad karma is the spiritual debt one has accumulated for one’s mistakes from all previous lives and this life. It includes killing, harming, taking advantage, cheating, stealing, and more. On Mother Earth, when you buy a house, you take out a mortgage from a bank. This mortgage is your debt to the bank. You pay every month for fifteen, twenty, or thirty years to clear your financial debt. In the spiritual realm, if you have bad karma, you may have to pay for many lifetimes to clear your spiritual debt. Zhi Gang Sha
• Karma

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True wealth within can never be stolen from without

• Ordinary riches can be stolen, real riches cannot. In your soul are infinitely precious things that cannot be taken from you. Oscar Wilde
• No thief, however skillful, can rob one of knowledge, and that is why knowledge is the best and safest treasure to acquire. Frank Baum
• What a unique treasure are the things we have learned to live without, for no thief can take them from us. Robert Brault
• A man who has nothing can whistle in a robber’s face. Juvenal
• True wealth

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When your wealth is within, you no longer need to steal from without

• You are quaffing drink from a hundred fountains: whenever any of these hundred yields less, your pleasure is diminished. But when the sublime fountain gushes from within you, no longer need you steal from the other fountains. Jalal-Uddin Rumi
• The treasure within

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Don’t let anything steal your life

• Live life so completely that when death comes to you like a thief in the night, there will be nothing left for him to steal.
• Be occupied, then, with what you really value and let the thief take something else. Rumi
• A single day spent doing things which fail to nourish the soul is a day stolen, mutilated, and discarded in the gutter of destiny. Michel Faber

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Don’t let anyone steal your dreams

• Don’t let anyone steal your dream. It’s your dream, not theirs.  Dan Zadra
• Procrastination is the greatest stealer of  Robin Sharma
• Dreams

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Don’t let anything steal your energy

• Don’t hold to anger, hurt or pain. They steal your energy and keep you from love. Leo Buscaglia
• Energy

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Don’t let anything steal your happiness, joy and peace

• Envy and jealousy, twin sisters, come with the cunning of the fox to steal away our peace and happiness. Nicias Ballard Cooksey
• When you own your breath, nobody can steal your peace.
• Watch out for the joy-stealers: gossip, criticism, complaining, faultfinding, and a negative, judgmental attitude. Joyce Meyer
• There is one recurring, persistent, perennial, and dogging personal problem which, more than any other, steals the force and peace of people and ruins projects and enterprises and careers. It is the habit of feeling hurt because of what others do or do not do and what they say or do not say. Ervin Seale
• As soon as you willfully allow a dialogue with temptation to begin, the soul is robbed of peace, just as consent to impurity destroys grace. Josemaria Escriva
• Happiness,  Inner peace,  Joy

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Don’t allow your time to be stolen …

• I value my time. I choose to use it wisely and do not let others steal it from me. Paula Peisner
• There is one kind of robber whom the law does not strike at, and who steals what is most precious to men: time. Napoleon Bonaparte
• There’s no thief like a bad movie. Sam Ewing
• Time

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… especially by procrastination

• He was always late on principle, his principle being that punctuality is the thief of time. Oscar Wilde
• Procrastination is the thief of time. Edward Young
• Procrastination

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Don’t let anything steal your attention

• Once you understand how much energy is involved in high-level thinking like planning and creating, you might be more vigilant about allowing distractions to steal your attention. One of the most effective distraction management techniques is to switch off all communication devices during any thinking work. David Rock
• Attention

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Don’t let the past steal your present

• Don’t let the past steal your present. Terri Guillemets
• We steal if we touch tomorrow. It is God’s.  Henry Ward Beecher
• Live in the present

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Don’t let the past steal your future

• Every hour spent reflecting on the disappointments of the past is an hour stolen from seeing the possibilities that your future holds. Robin S. Sharma
• The past,  The future

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Don’t let fear steal your power

• But every time we do that which we fear, we take back the power that fear has stolen from us – for on the other side of our fears lives our strength. Every time we step into the discomfort of growth and progress, we become more free. The more fears we walk through, the more power we reclaim. Robin Sharma
• Power

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Some things are worth stealing

• But there are some things, child, that you should steal. That you must steal, if you have enough love and courage in your heart. You must snatch freedom from the hands of the tyrant. You must spirit away innocent lives before they are destroyed. You must hide secret and sacred places. Lian Tanner, Museum of Thieves
• I would like to make a toast to lying, stealing, cheating and drinking. If you’re going to lie, lie for a friend. If you’re going to steal, steal a heart. If your going to cheat, cheat death. And if you’re going to drink, drink with me. Toast
• The only thing worth stealing is a kiss from a sleeping child. Joe Houldsworth
• Most people, in my opinion, steal much of what they are. If they didn’t what poor items they would be. Julian Barnes
• Magic can be found in stolen moments. Francesca Lia Block
• Idleness, like kisses, to be sweet must be stolen. Jerome K. Jerome

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Never hesitate to steal a good idea …

• Never hesitate to steal a good idea. Al Neuharth
• Every idea is a juxtaposition. That’s it. A juxtaposition of existing concepts. Steven Grant
• Ideas

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… for there is nothing new under the sun

• The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun. Is there any thing whereof it may be said, See, this is new? it hath been already of old time, which was before us. Ecclesiastes 1
• Nothing of me is original. I am the combined effort of everyone I’ve ever known. Chuck Palahniuk
• Plagiarism is basic to all culture. Pete Seeger
• All my best thoughts were stolen by the ancients. Ralph Waldo Emerson
• The ideas I stand for are not mine. I borrowed them from Socrates. I swiped them from Chesterfield. I stole them from Jesus. And I put them in a book. If you don’t like their rules, whose would you use?  Dale Carnegie
• The sun

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Steal from many sources …

• If you steal from one author it’s plagiarism; if you steal from many it’s research. Wilson Mizner
• If you have one person you’re influenced by, everyone will say you’re the next whoever. But if you rip off a hundred people, everyone will say you’re so original! Gary Panter
• Creativity

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… from anywhere that resonates

• Nothing is original. Steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration or fuels your imagination. Devour old films, new films, music, books, paintings, photographs, poems, dreams, random conversations, architecture, bridges, street signs, trees, clouds, bodies of water, light and shadows. Select only things to steal from that speak directly to your soul. If you do this, your work (and theft) will be authentic. Authenticity is invaluable; originality is non-existent. And don’t bother concealing your thievery – celebrate it if you feel like it. In any case, always remember what Jean-Luc Godard said: “It’s not where you take things from – it’s where you take them to.” Jim Jarmusch
• Rip something off that you love….Find something that speaks to you…and build it yourself. Jim Coudal

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Steal old ideas and take them to new places

• It’s not where you take things from—it’s where you take them to. Jean-Luc Godard

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Steal old things and combine them in a new way

• Some one may say of me, that I have here only made a nosegay of other men’s flowers, having furnished nothing of my own but the thread to tie them. Michel de Montaigne
• My hobby (one of them anyway)…is using a lot of scotch tape… My hobby is to pick out different things during what I read and piece them together and make a little story of my own. Louis Armstrong

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Stealing is the art of creativity

• About the most originality that any writer can hope to achieve honestly is to steal with good judgment. Josh Billings
• Those who do not want to imitate anything, produce nothing. Salvador Dali
• You know how you scratch away at a lottery ticket to see if you’ve won? That’s what I’m doing when I begin a piece. I’m digging through everything to find something.  Scratching can look like borrowing or appropriating, but it’s an essential part of creativity. It’s primal, and very private. It’s a way of saying to the gods, ‘Oh, don’t mind me, I’ll just wander around in these back hallways…’ and then grabbing that piece of fire and running like hell.  Twyla Tharp
• Creativity

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Stealing is what artists do …

• That is why the analogy of stealing does not work. With a thief, we want to know how much money he stole, and from whom. With the artist it is not how much he took and from whom, but what he did with it. Lukas Foss
• If an artist may say nothing except what he has invented by his own sole efforts, it stands to reason he will be poor in ideas. If he could take what he wants wherever he could find it, as Euripides and Dante and Michelangelo and Shakespeare and Bach were free, his larder would always be full, and his cookery might be worth tasting. R G Collingwood
• Sometimes I think everything I draw is just a combination of all of the millions and millions of drawings I’ve seen. Dash Shaw
• I love art, I love being thrilled by art, and I love folding these thrills into my own practice. I love stealing…. I absolutely believe my best work lies ahead of me, and lies in the work I’m absolutely on fire to steal from. Tom Hart
• Stealing things is a glorious occupation, particularly in the art world. Malcolm Mclaren
• Art

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… including poets, writers and movie directors

• Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal; bad poets deface what they take, and good poets make it into something better, or at least something different. The good poet welds his theft into a whole of feeling which is unique, utterly different from that from which it was torn; the bad poet throws it into something which has no cohesion. T. S. Eliot
• A good poet will usually borrow from authors remote in time, or alien in language, or diverse in interest. T. S. Eliot
• A real writer learns from earlier writers the way a boy learns from an apple orchard-by stealing what he has a taste for and can carry off. Archibald MacLeish
• I steal from every movie ever made. Quentin Tarantino
• Writing

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Don’t worry about others stealing your ideas

• Don’t worry about people stealing your ideas. If your ideas are any good, you’ll have to ram them down people’s throats. Howard Aiken

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Theft is not always a crime

• It’s no crime to steal from a thief. Proverb
• Stealing to eat ain’t criminal-stealing to be rich is. Andrew Vachss
• Stealing, of course, is a crime, and a very impolite thing to do. But like most impolite things, it is excusable under certain circumstances. Stealing is not excusable if, for instance, you are in a museum and you decide that a certain painting would look better in your house, and you simply grab the painting and take it there. But if you were very, very hungry, and you had no way of obtaining money, it would be excusable to grab the painting, take it to your house, and eat it. Lemony Snicket

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Theft and books

• Dickens is one of those authors who are well worth stealing. George Orwell
• Nobody steals books but your friends. Roger Zelazny
• I once stole a pornographic book that was printed in Braille. I used to rub the dirty parts. Woody Allen
• Books

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Theft and trust

• When a man comes to me and tries to convince me that he is not a thief, then I take care of my coppers. Ernestine L. Rose
• Those you trust the most can steal the most. Lawrence Life
• He that steals an egg will steal an ox. Proverb
• A thief believes everybody steals. Edgar Watson
• There is honor among thieves. Proverb
• Plagiarists are always suspicious of being stolen from. Samuel Taylor Coleridge
• Trust

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Theft and hanging

• It is not the thief who is hanged, but one who was caught stealing. Czech Proverb
• Men are not hanged for stealing horses but that horses may not be stolen. George Savile
• There’s no surer justice in the world than that which makes the rich thief hang the poor one. Peire Cardenal

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• A cynic is a person searching for an honest man with a stolen lantern.  Edgar A. Shoaff
• A man who has never gone to school may steal from a freight car; but if he has a university education he may steal the whole railroad.  Theodore Roosevelt
• About the most originality that any writer can hope to achieve honestly is to steal with good judgment.  Josh Billings
• Don’t steal. The government hates competition.
• Don’t worry about people stealing an idea; if it’s original you will have to ram it down their throats.  Howard Hathaway Aiken
• Don’t steal. That’s the government’s job.
• Fire and Theft insurance. Only paid you if your house is robbed while it is burning
• He’d steal a hot stove and come back for the smoke.  Wilson Mizner
• He’d steal flies from a blind spider.
• He’s the only man I ever knew who had rubber pockets so he could steal soup.  Wilson Mizner
• I am a politician which means I am a liar and a crook. When I am not kissing babies I am stealing their lollypops. Tom Clancy
• I don’t need to worry about identity theft because no one wants to be me. Jay London
• I got a new car. I just need to put it together. They’re easier to steal piece by piece. Jarod Kintz
• I got up the other day and everything in my apartment was stolen and replaced with an exact replica. Steven Wright
• I just took a little nap. I stole it from an infant. Jarod Kintz
• I once stole a pornographic book that was printed in Braille. I used to rub the dirty parts. Woody Allen
• I’m too lazy to work and too scared to steal.  Tom Bolton
• I’ve been doing stealing from hotels for so long I have a set of towels from the Ark.  Joan Rivers
• If she was cast as Lady Godiva the horse would steal the show.
• If you’re going to steal, then smile for the camera. Sign
• Immature poets imitate, mature poets steal.  S. Eliot
• In Russia a man is called reactionary if he objects to having his property stolen and his wife and children murdered.  Winston Churchill
• In West Virginia yesterday, a man was arrested for stealing several blow-up dolls. Reportedly, police didn’t have any trouble catching the man because he was completely out of breath. Conan O’Brien
• Insider trading: Stealing too fast. Calvin Trillin
• It’s always darkest before dawn. So if you’re going to steal the neighbor’s newspaper, that’s the time to do it.
• Kiss: What the child gets free, the young man steals and the old man buys.  Anonymous
• Last time I got caught stealing a calendar, I got 12 months.
• Liberals feel unworthy of their possessions; Conservatives feel they deserve everything they’ve stolen.  Mort Sahl
• Love is the most precious gift you could ever possibly hope to steal. Some women foolishly do not leave their rib cages locked at night. Jarod Kintz
• modern lament: “I just want to be like all other ten year olds:  play ball, go out on hikes, neck with girls, steal cars, slug cops.  Robert Orben
• My father was stupid; he worked in a bank and they caught him stealing pens.  Rodney Dangerfield
• Never hesitate to steal a good idea.  Al Neuharth
• Philanthropist: One who returns to the people publicly what he steals from them privately.
• Plagiarism: Failure to adorn stolen ideas with footnotes, as opposed to scholarship, which repeatedly acknowledges the theft.
• Someone stole all my credit cards, but I won’t be reporting it. The thief spends less than my wife did. Henry Youngman‎
• Sometimes opportunity knocks but most of the time it sneaks up and then quietly steals away.  Doug Larson
• Taking pictures is like tiptoeing into the kitchen late at night and stealing Oreo cookies Diane Arbus
• The real reason that we can’t have the Ten Commandments in a courthouse: You cannot post “Thou shalt not steal” “Thou shalt not commit adultery” and “Thou shalt not lie” in a building full of lawyers judges and politicians. It creates a hostile work environment.  George Carlin
• Thieves had broken into my house and stolen everything except my soap, shower gel, towels and deodorant. Dirty Bastards.
• Thou shalt not steal – only from other comedians.   C. Fields
• To enjoy a good reputation, give publicly and steal privately.  Josh Billings
• To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism; to steal from many is research.
• When a man steals your wife, there is no better revenge than to let him keep her. Sacha Guitry
• When I was a kid I used to pray every night for a new bicycle. Then I realised that the Lord doesn’t work that way so I stole one and asked Him to forgive me. Emo Philips
• When writing a novel, that’s pretty much entirely what life turns into: ‘House burned down. Car stolen. Cat exploded. Did 1500 easy words, so all in all it was a pretty good day. Neil Gaiman
• Why would anyone steal a shopping cart? It’s like stealing a two-year-old. Erma Bombeck
• Will you describe the [stolen] car please? Black fenders, silver doors, green hood polka-dot seat covers, monkey-fur dashboard. Maybe it wasn’t stolen; maybe it ran away.   Jack Soo

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Lighthearted definitions

• A kleptomaniac is a person who helps himself because he can’t help himself. Henry Morgan
• Embezzler: A thief with an education.
• Plunder, v. To take the property of another without observing the decent and customary reticences of theft. To wrest the wealth of A from B and leave C lamenting a vanishing opportunity. Ambrose Bierce

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