On Murder Considered as One of the Fine Arts Quotes

“If once a man indulges himself in murder, very soon he comes to think little of robbing; and from robbing he comes next to drinking and Sabbath-breaking, and from that to incivility and procrastination.”
― Thomas de Quincey, On Murder

“The subject chosen ought to be in good health: for it is absolutely barbarous to murder a sick person, who is usually quite unable to bear it. On this principle, no Cockney ought to be chosen who is above twenty-five, for after that age he is sure to be dyspeptic.”
― Thomas de Quincey, On Murder Considered as One of the Fine Arts

“Awkward disturbances will arise; people will not submit to have their throats cut quietly; they will run, they will kick, they will bite; and, whilst the portrait painter often has to complain of too much torpor in his subject, the artist, in our line, is generally embarrassed by too much animation.”
― Thomas de Quincey, On Murder Considered as One of the Fine Arts

“Hobbes, but why, or on what principle, I never could understand, was not murdered. This was a capital oversight of the professional men in the seventeenth century; because in every light he was a fine subject for murder, except, indeed, that he was lean and skinny;”
― Thomas de Quincey, On Murder Considered as One of the Fine Arts

“People begin to see that something more goes to the composition of a fine murder than two blockheads to kill and be killed – a knife – a purse – and a dark lane. Design, gentlemen, grouping, light and shade, poetry, sentiment, are now deemed indispensable to attempts of this nature.”
― Thomas de Quincey, On Murder Considered as One of the Fine Arts

“Fie on these dealers in poison, say I: can they not keep to the old honest way of cutting throats, without introducing such abominable innovations from Italy?”
― Thomas de Quincey, On Murder Considered as One of the Fine Arts

“opinionum commenta delet dies, naturae judicia confirmat ['Time erases the fictions of opinion, but it confirms the judgement of nature'].”
― thomas de quincey, On Murder Considered as One of the Fine Arts

“the truth is, that, however objectionable per say, yet, relatively to others of their class, both a thief and an ulcer may have infinite degrees of merit. They are both imperfections, it is true; but to be imperfect
being their essence, the very greatness of their imperfection becomes their perfection”
― Thomas de Quincey, On Murder Considered as One of the Fine Arts

“God bless my soul, gentlemen, what is it that people mean? I am for morality, and always shall be, and for virtue and all that; and I do affirm, and always shall, (let what will come of it,) that murder is an improper line of conduct, highly improper; and I do not stick to assert, that any man who deals in murder, must have very incorrect ways of
thinking, and truly inaccurate principles;”
― Thomas de Quincey, On Murder Considered as One of the Fine Arts