Quotes About Punishment

Those among them that have not received our religion do not fright any from it, and use none ill that goes over to it, so that all the while I was there one man was only punished on this occasion.

An avidity to punish is always dangerous to liberty. It leads men to stretch, to misinterpret, and to misapply even the best of laws. He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates his duty he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself.

An avidity to punish is always dangerous to liberty. It leads men to stretch, to misinterpret, and to misapply even the best of laws. He that would make his own liberty secure, must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty, he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself. Thomas Paine. Paris, July, 1795.

Punishment is now unfashionable... because it creates moral distinctions among men, which, to the democratic mind, are odious. We prefer a meaningless collective guilt to a meaningful individual responsibility.

If he who breaks the law is not punished, he who obeys it is cheated. This, and this alone, is why lawbreakers ought to be punished: to authenticate as good, and to encourage as useful, law-abiding behavior. The aim of criminal law cannot be correction or deterrence; it can only be the maintenance of the legal order.

if we suppose that God, being supremely powerful, supremely wise, and supremely loving, can achieve, and will settle for nothing less than, perfect justice, then we must also suppose that he will settle for nothing less than a full atonement for sin—something that will actually make up for, or cancel out, sin; and as we have seen, punishment (in and of itself) has no power to do that.

Because punishment alone does nothing to make up for, or to cancel out the bad effects of, any crime, it seems intrinsically fitting only within a context in which real justice seems impossible to achieve; that is, only within a context in which we have to settle, or at least think we do, for the best possible alternative: a kind of partial, or even contrived, justice.

As the Augustinians see it, God opposes sin enough to punish it, but not enough to destroy it altogether; instead of destroying sin altogether, he merely confines it to a specially prepared region of his creation, a region known as hell, where he keeps it alive for an eternity. According to our alternative picture, however, God forgives sin for this very reason: in no other way could he oppose it with his entire being.

All of us have failed. One wishes to be punished. One is willing to assume all kinds of penance, but do you know, my daughter, that in love -- I scarcely dare say it -- but in love our very mistakes don't seem to be able to last long?

Tutti, tutti noi abbiamo fallito. Desideriamo tutti un castigo. Desideriamo tutti di farci carico di ogni tipo di penitenza, ma sai, figlia mia, che in amore -riesco a malapena a dirlo- ma in amore i nostri errori non sembrano durare molto a lungo".

You should punish in the same manner those who commit crimes with those who accuse falsely.

Prison is the school of the unlearned lesson.

Capital punishment: Them without the capital get the punishment.

Why should there be a different set of laws for criminals who are juveniles? As far as I am concerned there should be no reason for any leniency.

Jail ain't for nobody.

Sometimes, we get numb to the fact that people get sent away. We don't see where they are; we say they are 'doing time,' and you really don't know what that is.

You chastise children when they are bad, as my parents did me. I'm not opposed to smacking. It is to be used occasionally.

There was the old myth of divine intervention. You blasphemed, and a lightning bolt struck you. That was a little steep too. If punishment is at all proportionate to the offense, then power becomes watered. The only way you generate the proper attitude of awe and obedience is through immense and disproportionate power.

Hearn's death was happily smudged, or at least on the surface, but ever since the second ambush he had been feeling the apprehension of a man in a dream who knows he is guilty, is waiting for his punishment, and cannot remember his crime.

This business of living for eternity certainly contributed to capital punishment, brutality, and war.

A criminal will never forgive you for preventing them from committing the crime that is really in their heart.

If punishment is at all proportionate to the offense, then power becomes watered. The only way you generate the proper attitude of awe and obedience is through immense and disproportionate power.

You could easily do away with a lot of jails. They're shit. They breed, they don't deter, crime.

Capital punishment is symbolic of society's determination to enforce all of its laws. If we don't enforce the severest of our laws, the criminal mind might conclude (punishments of) other laws won't be imposed against them