It's universally wrong to steal from your neighbor, but once you get beyond this one-to-one level and pit the individual against the multinational conglomerate, the federal bureaucracy,… or the utility company, it becomes strictly a value judgment to decide who exactly is stealing from whom. One person's crime is another person's profit.

About Abbie Hoffman

Abbot Howard Hoffman (November 30, 1936 – April 12, 1989) was an American political and social activist who co-founded the Youth International Party ("Yippies") and was a member of the Chicago Seven. He was also a leading proponent of the Flower Power movement.

More quotations from Abbie Hoffman

I believe in compulsory cannibalism. If people were forced to eat what they killed, there would be no more war.

—Abbie Hoffman

I think we are constantly faced with the same decision. The decision to be blindly obedient to authority versus the decision to try and change things by fighting the powers that be is always, throughout history, the only decision.

—Abbie Hoffman

history power change authority fighting obedience

I think the greatest legacy of the 1960s was the general feeling that not only can you fight the powers that be, but you can win.

—Abbie Hoffman

politics power power winning control victory

The first duty of a revolutionary is to get away with it.

—Abbie Hoffman

success revolution

More quotations tagged with “theft”

When I was a kid I used to pray every night for a new bicycle. Then I realized that the Lord doesn't work that way, so I stole one and asked for forgiveness.

—Emo Philips

forgiveness prayer theft stealing

Immature artists imitate. Mature artists steal.

—Lionel Trilling

art theft imitation stealing

The first person you fell in love with stole your heart. The first person you made love with stole your soul. And if these were one and the same, you were doomed.

—Jodi Picoult in Mercy

love soul heart theft

Indeed, I thought, slipping the silver into my purse, it is remarkable, remembering the bitterness of those days, what a change of temper a fixed income will bring about.

—Virginia Woolf

money theft income silver

I studiously avoided all so-called holy men. I did so because I had to make do with my own truth, not accept from others what I could not attain on my own. I would have felt it as a theft had I attempted to learn from the holy men and to accept their truth for myself. Neither in Europe can I make any borrowings from the East, but must shape my life out of myself—out of what my inner being tells me, or what nature brings to me.

—Carl Jung

truth religion nature theft holy men

History

11 Jul 2015 Added
26 Oct 2026 Wording changed

Previous wording

It's universally wrong to steal from your neighbor, but once you get beyond this one-to-one level and pit the individual against the multinational conglomerate, the federal bureaucracy, . . . or the utility company, it becomes strictly a value judgment to decide who exactly is stealing from whom. One person's crime is another person's profit.