Hoyt & Roberts, comps. Hoyt’s New Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations. 1922.
Guilt
In ipsa dubitatione facinus inest, etiamsi ad id non pervenerint.
Guilt is present in the very hesitation, even though the deed be not committed.
Cicero—De Officiis. III. 8.
Let no guilty man escape, if it can be avoided. No personal consideration should stand in the way of performing a public duty.
Ulysses S. Grant—Indorsement of a Letter relating to the Whiskey Ring, July 29, 1875.
What we call real estate—the solid ground to build a house on—is the broad foundation on which nearly all the guilt of this world rests.
Hawthorne—The House of the Seven Gables. The Flight of Two Owls.
How guilt once harbour’d in the conscious breast,
Intimidates the brave, degrades the great.
Samuel Johnson—Irene. Act IV. Sc. 8.
The gods
Grow angry with your patience. ’Tis their care,
And must be yours, that guilty men escape not:
As crimes do grow, justice should rouse itself.
Ben Jonson—Catiline. Act III. Sc. 5.
Exemplo quodcumque malo committitur, ipsi
Displicet auctori. Prima est hæc ultio, quod se
Judice nemo nocens absolvitur.
Whatever guilt is perpetrated by some evil prompting, is grievous to the author of the crime. This is the first punishment of guilt that no one who is guilty is acquitted at the judgment seat of his own conscience.
Juvenal—Satires. XIII. 1.
Ingenia humana sunt ad suam cuique levandam culpam nimio plus facunda.
Men’s minds are too ingenious in palliating guilt in themselves.
Livy—Annales. XXVIII. 25.
Facinus quos inquinat æquat.
Those whom guilt stains it equals.
Lucan—Pharsalia. V. 290.
Nulla manus belli, mutato judice, pura est.
Neither side is guiltless if its adversary is appointed judge.
Lucan—Pharsalia. VII. 263.
These false pretexts and varnished colours failing,
Rare in thy guilt how foul must thou appear.
Milton—Samson Agonistes. L. 901.
Heu! quam difficile est crimen non prodere vultu.
Alas! how difficult it is to prevent the countenance from betraying guilt.
Ovid—Metamorphoses. II. 447.
Dum ne ob male facta peream, parvi æstimo.
I esteem death a trifle, if not caused by guilt.
Plautus—Captivi. III. 5. 24.
Nihil est miserius quam animus hominis conscius.
Nothing is more wretched than the mind of a man conscious of guilt.
Plautus—Mostellaria. Act III. 1. 13.
How glowing guilt exalts the keen delight!
Pope—Eloisa to Abelard. L. 230.
Haste, holy Friar,
Haste, ere the sinner shall expire!
Of all his guilt let him be shriven,
And smooth his path from earth to heaven!
Scott—Lay of the Last Minstrel. Canto V. St. 22.
Haud est nocens, quicumque non sponte est nocens.
He is not guilty who is not guilty of his own free will.
Seneca—Hercules Œtæus. 886.
Multa trepidus solet
Detegere vultus.
The fearful face usually betrays great guilt.
Seneca—Thyestes. CCCXXX.
And then it started like a guilty thing
Upon a fearful summons.
Hamlet. Act I. Sc. 1. L. 148.
O, she is fallen
Into a pit of ink, that the wide sea
Hath drops too few to wash her clean again.
Much Ado About Nothing. Act IV. Sc. 1. L. 141.
Fatetur facinus is qui judicium fugit.
He who flees from trial confesses his guilt.
Syrus—Maxims.
Let guilty men remember, their black deeds
Do lean on crutches made of slender reeds.
John Webster—The White Devil; or, Vittoria Corombona. Act V. Sc. 6.
A land of levity is a land of guilt.
Young—Night Thoughts. Night VII. Preface.