They look upon fraud as a greater crime than theft, and therefore seldom fail to punish it with death; for they allege, that care and vigilance, with a very common understanding,may preserve a man's goods from thieves, but honesty has no defence against superior cunning;

and, since it is necessary that there should be a perpetual intercourse of buying and selling, and dealing upon credit, where fraud is permitted and connived at, or has no law to punish it, the honest dealer is always undone, and the knave gets the advantage.

I remember, when I was once interceding with the emperor for a criminal who had wronged his master of a great sum of money, which he had received by order and ran away with; and happening to tell his majesty, by way of extenuation, that it was only a breach of trust, the emperor thought it monstrous in me to offer as a defence the greatest aggravation of the crime; and truly I had little to say in return, farther than the common answer, that different nations had different customs; for, I confess, I was heartily ashamed.

Jonathan Swift on the laws and customs of Lilliput,

Gulliver’s Travels (1726)

Corruption, embezzlement, fraud, these are all characteristics which exist everywhere. It is regrettably the way human nature functions, whether we like it or not. What successful economies do is keep it to a minimum. No one has ever eliminated any of that stuff.

Alan Greenspan, interview on Amy Goodman's Democracy Now!,

Sept. 24, 2007

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Source: Balleisen Edward J.. Fraud: an American history from Barnum to Madoff. Princeton University Press,2017. — 496 p.. 2017

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They look upon fraud as a greater crime than theft, and therefore seldom fail to punish it with death; for they allege, that care and vigilance, with a very common understanding,may preserve a man's goods from thieves, but hon­esty has no defence against superior cunning;

More on the topic They look upon fraud as a greater crime than theft, and therefore seldom fail to punish it with death; for they allege, that care and vigilance, with a very common understanding,may preserve a man's goods from thieves, but hon­esty has no defence against superior cunning;:

They look upon fraud as a greater crime than theft, and therefore seldom fail to punish it with death; for they allege, that care and vigilance, with a very common understanding,may preserve a man's goods from thieves, but honesty has no defence against superior cunning;

More on the topic They look upon fraud as a greater crime than theft, and therefore seldom fail to punish it with death; for they allege, that care and vigilance, with a very common understanding,may preserve a man's goods from thieves, but honesty has no defence against superior cunning;: