Quotes about punishment

"Capital punishment would be more effective as a preventive measure if it were administered prior to the crime."

Allen, Woody on punishment
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"The generality of men are naturally apt to be swayed by fear rather than reverence, and to refrain from evil rather because of the punishment that it brings than because of its own foulness."

Aristotle on punishment   

"Punishment is justice for the unjust."

Augustine, St. on punishment   

"Prisons are built with stones of Law. Brothels with the bricks of religion."

Blake, William on punishment   

"Prisons don't rehabilitate, they don't punish, they don't protect, so what the hell do they do?"

Brown, Jerry on punishment   

"Hanging is too good for him said Mr. Cruelty."

Bunyan, John on punishment   

"Then spare the rod and spoil the child."

Butler, Samuel on punishment   

"I should be very willing to redress men wrongs, and rather check than punish crimes, had not Cervantes, in that all too true tale of Quixote, shown how all such efforts fail."

Byron, Lord on punishment   

"Retaliation is related to nature and instinct, not to law. Law, by definition, cannot obey the same rules as nature."

Camus, Albert on punishment   

"Hold you there, neither a strange hand nor my own, neither heavy nor light shall touch my bum."

Cervantes, Miguel De on punishment   

"Let the punishment be proportionate to the offense."

Cicero, Marcus T. on punishment   

"It is the crime not the scaffold which is the disgrace."

Corneille, Pierre on punishment   

"Why not whip the teacher when the pupil misbehaves?"

Diogenes of Sinope on punishment   

"Thwackum was for doing justice, and leaving mercy to Heaven."

Fielding, Henry on punishment   

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"In its function, the power to punish is not essentially different from that of curing or educating."

Foucault, Michel on punishment   

"Well, there's no one at all, they do be saying, but is deserving of some punishment from the very minute of his birth."

Gregory, Lady on punishment   

"Men are not hanged for stealing horses, but that horses may not be stolen."

Halifax, Edward F. on punishment   

"One should not lift the rod against our enemies upon the private information of another."

Hitopadesa on punishment   

"Take away the danger and remove the restraint, and wayward nature runs free."

Horace on punishment   

"Let us have compassion for those under chastisement. Alas, who are we ourselves? Who am I and who are you? Whence do we come and is it quite certain that we did nothing before we were born? This earth is not without some resemblance to a gaol. Who knows but that man is a victim of divine justice? Look closely at life. It is so constituted that one senses punishment everywhere."

Hugo, Victor on punishment   

"Corporal punishment is as humiliating for him who gives it as for him who receives it; it is ineffective besides. Neither shame nor physical pain have any other effect than a hardening one."

Key, Ellen on punishment   

"Our system is the height of absurdity, since we treat the culprit both as a child, so as to have the right to punish him, and as an adult, in order to deny him consolation."

Levi-Strauss, Claude on punishment   

"Then I despair... I remember that all through history, the way of truth and love has always won. There have been murderers and tyrants, and for a time they can seem invincible. But in the end they always fall. Think of it always."

Malraux, Andre on punishment   

"No one provokes me with impunity."

Mary Queen Of Scots on punishment   

"All in all, punishment hardens and renders people more insensible; it concentrates; it increases the feeling of estrangement; it strengthens the power of resistance."

Nietzsche, Friedrich on punishment   

"Distrust everyone in whom the impulse to punish is powerful!"

Nietzsche, Friedrich on punishment
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"When God punishes a land, he deprives it leaders of wisdom."

Proverb, Italian on punishment   

"If your buttocks burn, you know you have done wrong."

Proverb, South African on punishment   

"Many without punishment, none without sin."

Ray, John on punishment   

"Punishment is the last and the least effective instrument in the hands of the legislator for the prevention of crime."

Ruskin, John on punishment   

"Any punishment that does not correct, that can merely rouse rebellion in whoever has to endure it, is a piece of gratuitous infamy which makes those who impose it more guilty in the eyes of humanity, good sense and reason, nay a hundred times more guilty than the victim on whom the punishment is inflicted."

Sade, Marquis De on punishment   

"The first and greatest punishment of the sinner is the conscience of sin."

Seneca on punishment   

"Every guilty person is his own hangman."

Seneca on punishment   

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"There is no person so severely punished, as those who subject themselves to the whip of their own remorse."

Seneca on punishment   

"And where the offence is, let the great axe fall."

Shakespeare, William on punishment   

"Whipping and abuse are like laudanum: you have to double the dose as the sensibilities decline."

Stowe, Harriet Beecher on punishment   

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"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."

Szasz, Thomas on punishment   

"We have found that morals are not, like bacon, to be cured by hanging; nor, like wine, to be improved by sea voyages; nor, like honey, to be preserved in cells."

Taylor, William Cooke on punishment   

"He must have known me if he had seen me as he was wont to see me, for he was in the habit of flogging me constantly. Perhaps he did not recognize me by my face."

Trollope, Anthony on punishment   

"Next to the prosperity of a good person, I am best pleased with the confusion of a rascal."

Unknown, Source on punishment