Al Capone

I have spent the best years of my life giving people the lighter pleasures, helping them have a good time, and all I get is abuse, the existence of a hunted man.

Alphonse Gabriel Capone (17 January 1899 – 25 January 1947), popularly known as Al "Scarface" Capone, was an American gangster active in the 1920s and 1930s.

Quotes

Do I do business with Canadian racketeers? I don't even know what street Canada is on.

This American system of ours ... call it Americanism, call it capitalism, call it what you like, gives to each and every one of us a great opportunity if we only seize it with both hands and make the most of it.

• I have spent the best years of my life giving people the lighter pleasures, helping them have a good time, and all I get is abuse, the existence of a hunted man.
  • As quoted in How to Win Friends and Influence People (1936) by Dale Carnegie,

• Do I do business with Canadian racketeers? I don't even know what street Canada is on.
  • As quoted in Iced: The Story of Organized Crime in Canada (2009) by Stephen Schneider, chapter Five, p. 206

• Don't get the idea that I'm one of these goddamn radicals. Don't get the idea that I'm knocking the American system.
  • As quoted in In Time of Trouble (1956) by Claud Cockburn

• This is virgin territory out here for whorehouses.
  • Referring to suburban Chicago, as quoted in The Bootleggers and Their Era (1961) by Kenneth Alsop

• This American system of ours ... call it Americanism, call it capitalism, call it what you like, gives to each and every one of us a great opportunity if we only seize it with both hands and make the most of it.
  • Interview with Claud Cockburn, as quoted in “Mr. Capone, Philosopher,” Cockburn Sums Up (1981)

• I've been accused of every death except the casualty list of the World War.
  • The Bootleggers

Disputed

• You can get much farther with a kind word and a gun than you can with a kind word alone.
  • Misquoted in Forbes (October 6, 1986), actually attributed to humorist Professor Irwin Corey (1953)

About Al Capone

• And by the way, I've been indicted more times than Alphonse Capone. He's the most vicious of all gangsters. If he took you to dinner and if you didn't look proper, if you laughed a little bit, he might think you're laughing at him, it's dangerous to laugh – he'd kill you immediately. He was indicted one time. I was indicted four times.
  • Donald Trump "Fact check: Trump keeps saying he’s been indicted more than Al Capone. It’s not true", CNN (November 20, 2023)
  • Capone, according to CNN, was indicted at least six times.

External links

• Encyclopedic article on Al Capone on Wikipedia
• Media related to Al Capone on Wikimedia Commons