Punishment

"Punishment tames the man, but does not make him “better.”"

"Some have been beaten till they know What wood a cudgel's of by th' blow: Some kick'd until they can feel whether A shoe be Spanish or neat's leather."

"By punishing the criminal the moral man hopes to dissuade the evil imprisoned in his own breast from escaping. Fear of self is projected in hatred of the immoral other."

"Cavendum est ne major pœna quam culpa sit; et ne iisdem de causis alii plectantur, alii ne appellentur quidem."

"Guide the people by law, subdue them by punishment; they may shun crime, but will be void of shame. Guide them by example, subdue them by courtesy; they will learn shame, and come to be good."

"Hail, hieroglyphic State machine, Contrived to punish fancy in; Men that are men in thee can feel no pain, And all thy insignificance disdain!"

"My object all sublime I shall achieve in time — To let the punishment fit the crime — The punishment fit the crime; And make each prisoner pent Unwillingly represent A source of innocent merriment."

"Something lingering with boiling oil in it…. something humorous but lingering—with either boiling oil or melted lead."

"The wolf must die in his own skin."

"Alas, one so easily becomes so habituated in life, in habit’s dull round of association with others, to the point of almost abandoning oneself while one plays with platitudes. But even one as pitiably spoiled as that, when speaking responsibly and admonishingly to a child, a youth, a young girl, speaks with a sense of shame. There is a beautiful like-for-like here: the youth approaches an older person with a sense of shame, and when the older person speaks admonishingly to a youth he always speaks with a sense of shame. Would to God that everyone who has the opportunity to speak admonishingly to the youth would himself also have some benefit from the shame of admonition!"

"It is a question of whether, when we break a murderer on the wheel, we do not fall into the error a child makes when he hits the chair he has bumped into."

"There is no chastisement that does not purify; there is no disorder that ETERNAL LOVE does not turn against the principle of evil."

"All pain is a punishment, and every punishment is inflicted for love as much as for justice."

"Unrespited, unpitied, unrepriev'd."

"Our torments also may in length of time Become our elements."

"Back to thy punishment, False fugitive and to thy speed add wings."

"It is better for a leader to make a mistake in forgiving than to make a mistake in punishing."

"People produce example after example of the alleged relationship between cause and effect between guilt and punishment, confirm it as well founded and strengthen their faith … All, however, are at one in the wholly crude, unscientific character of their activity. … Popular medicine and popular morality belong together and ought not to be evaluated differently as they still are: both are the most dangerous pseudosciences."

"Men of application and goodwill, assist in this one work: to take the concept of punishment which has overrun the whole world and root it out! There exists no more noxious weed!"

"Mistrust all in whom the impulse to punish is powerful."

"Wherever responsibilities are sought, it is usually the instinct of wanting to judge and punish which is at work. Becoming has been deprived of its innocence when any being-such-and-such is traced back to will, to purposes, to acts of responsibility: the doctrine of the will has been invented essentially for the purpose of punishment, that is, because one wanted to impute guilt. The entire old psychology, the psychology of will, was conditioned by the fact that its originators, the priests at the head of ancient communities, wanted to create for themselves the right to punish—or wanted to create this right for God … Men were considered “free” so that they might be judged and punished—so that they might become guilty: consequently, every act had to be considered as willed, and the origin of every act had to be considered as lying within the consciousness."

"No one would instruct, no one would rebuke, or be angry with those whose calamities they suppose to be due to nature or chance; they do not try to punish or to prevent them from being what they are; they do but pity them. Who is so foolish as to chastise or instruct the ugly, or the diminutive, or the feeble? And for this reason. Because he knows that good and evil of this kind is the work of nature and of chance; whereas if a man is wanting in those good qualities which are attained by study and exercise and teaching, and has only the contrary evil qualities, other men are angry with him, and punish and reprove him—of these evil qualities one is impiety, another injustice, and they may be described generally as the very opposite of political virtue. In such cases any man will be angry with another, and reprimand him,—clearly because he thinks that by study and learning, the virtue in which the other is deficient may be acquired."

"If you will think, Socrates, of the nature of punishment, you will see at once that in the opinion of mankind virtue may be acquired; no one punishes the evil-doer under the notion, or for the reason, that he has done wrong,—only the unreasonable fury of a beast acts in that manner. But he who desires to inflict rational punishment does not retaliate for a past wrong which cannot be undone; he has regard to the future, and is desirous that the man who is punished, and he who sees him punished, may be deterred from doing wrong again. He punishes for the sake of prevention, thereby clearly implying that virtue is capable of being taught."

"And if God were to punish men for what they have earned, He would not leave a single living creature to be spared. But He delays them to a predetermined time, then surely God is ever Seer of His servants."

"Nor was thy Lord the one to annihilate a population until He had sent among them an messenger, rehearsing to them Our Warnings; nor are We going to destroy a population except when its members practice iniquity."

"Whenever we feel sympathy would weaken us, we are a little closer to the torturer."

"I am not part of the human race. Humanity has rejected me. The females of the human species have never wanted to mate with me, so how could I possibly consider myself part of humanity? Humanity has never accepted me among them, and now I know why. I am more than human. I am superior to them all. I am Elliot Rodger... Magnificent, glorious, supreme, eminent... Divine! I am the closest thing there is to a living god. Humanity is a disgusting, depraved, and evil species. It is my purpose to punish them all. I will purify the world of everything that is wrong with it. On the Day of Retribution, I will truly be a powerful god, punishing everyone I deem to be impure and depraved."

"Once people are given the right to punish or to threaten punishment by the state, they are no longer required to interrogate themselves and can fall back on convenient dehumanized views of the people they want to hurt."

"It has never been shown that punishment works. Punishment, denouncing, excluding, threatening, and shunning often create a worse society. It divides people, causes great pain, compromises individual integrity, and obscures truths in the name of falsely shoring up group reputation. Similarly, there is no correlation between having the ability to punish and being right. More often than not, the wrong people get punished. And the punishers use their power to keep from being accountable. So creating new classes of people who can threaten someone with the state, or who can call the police, does not produce more justice, and is more likely to produce more injustice."

"It is our moral obligation as human beings who share this time and this place to not punish, but rather to remain calm, to open up communication, and to place our hands gently on each other’s shoulders and say, “Think twice.”"

"Punishment, as we know, rarely does anything but produce more pain."

"Cruelties are practised in accordance with acts of senate and popular assembly, and the public is bidden to do that which is forbidden to the individual. Deeds that would be punished by loss of life when committed in secret, are praised by us because uniformed generals have carried them out."

"Thou shalt be whipp'd with wire, and stew'd in brine, Smarting in ling'ring pickle."

"Vex not his ghost: Oh; let him pass! he hates him, That would upon the rack of this tough world Stretch him out longer."

"Some of us will smart for it."

"Off with his head! so much for Buckingham!"

"A testy babe will scratch the nurse, And presently all humbled kiss the rod."

"If he is infinitely good, what reason should we have to fear him? If he is infinitely wise, why should we have doubts concerning our future? If he knows all, why warn him of our needs and fatigue him with our prayers? If he is everywhere, why erect temples to him? If he is just, why fear that he will punish the creatures that he has filled with weaknesses?"

"It is folly to punish your neighbour by fire when you live next door."

"Christ says, "Do not resist evil." The sole object of courts of law is – to resist evil. Christ enjoins us to return good for evil. Courts of law return evil for evil. Christ says, "Make no distinction between the just and the unjust." Courts of law do nothing else. Christ says, "Forgive all. Forgive not once, not seven times, but forgive without end." "Love your enemies." "Do good to those who hate you." Courts of law do not forgive, but they punish; they do not do good, but evil, to those whom they call the enemies of society. So, the true sense of the doctrine is that Christ forbids all courts of law."

"A person has done evil, so another person, or a group of people, in order to fight this evil, cannot think of anything better than to create another evil, which they call punishment."

"Everything about our present system of punishments and about all criminal law will be thought of by future generations in the same way that we think of cannibalism or human sacrifice to the pagan gods. “How did they not see the uselessness and cruelty of those things which they did?” our descendants will say about us."

"The strongest proof that in the name of “science” we pursue unworthy and sometimes even harmful things is the existence of a science of punishment."

"A community is infinitely more brutalized by the habitual employment of punishment than … by the occasional occurrence of crime."

"The power of punishment is to silence, not to confute."

"See they suffer death, But in their deaths remember they are men, Strain not the laws to make their tortures grievous."

"Let them stew in their own grease (or juice)."

"Frieth in his own grease."

"Noxiæ pœna par esto."

"Do not hurry over punishments and do not be pleased and do not be proud of your power to punish."