murder, n.Definitions

Murder is not the crime of criminals, but that of law-abiding citizens.

Murder is abstract: One pulls the trigger and after that one does not understand anything that happens.

Murder is an act for which one is always presumed to be innocent until proven insane.

Murder is committed by a person who is always probably somebody's old friend.

Murder is not the same thing as killing. All killing is not murder any more than all sexual intercourse is adultery.

Murder is doubtless a serious crime, but if private murder really were a major threat to our civilization it would not be relaxing to read about it.

Murder is about power and, as such, the more powerful women get the more it will change the good that they do and the bad that they do.

Murder is a horror, but an often necessary horror, never criminal, which it is essential to tolerate in a republican state. It is a barbarous logic to punish it by duplicating it by another crime.