The bigger the telescopes aperture is, the fainter the objects it can see. This has to do with how sensetive to light it will be.
The human eye is a good example. The eye has a pupil which allows more light in to your eye or less light as conditions demand. Do you notice that when you first wake up in the morning, you are highly sensetive to bright lights? This is because your eyes are used to being in the dark, and so your eyes are used to letting in more light so that you can see in the dark. After a few minutes, your eyes adjust of course and you can see just fine. But, you will also notice that if you turn out the lights like you did before, the room looks very dark you cannot see many of the things you were able to see before you turned the light on the first time. This is because your eyes adjusted to having more light.
The eye adjusts by letting in more or less light as conditions demand. The inside of the eye has what is called an IRIS - it is basically a hole which can be made larger or smaller to let in more or less light as you need. When you turned the lights on, the Iris closed up so that less light gets to the optic nerve (the cell that creates the image your brain sees). When your eyes are adjusting to night-time or a dark room, the iris opens so that more light can be let into the eye.
The same basic principal - that the amount of light being let in determines how faint an object can be seen, applies to any optical system from cameras, to microscopes, and of course, telescopes. Thus, the bigger the telescopes aperture: that is the size of it's primary or front lense in refractors, or the mirror in a reflector, determines how faint an object it can see in ideal circumstances - that is, interfearance from other light sources, ect.
If you are looking in someone's window from long distance, then you might want to look for something with descent grasp, like say a 70mm refractor. If you are trying to look into a dark alley you might want something bigger like a 100mm.