Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Comment on this quote Share via Email Print this Page [21-40] of 42 Punishment quotesPunishment QuotesPunishment Previous 20 quotes Next 20 quotes It is not only vain, but wicked, in a legislature to frame laws in opposition to the laws of nature, and to arm them with the terrors of death. This is truly creating crimes in order to punish them.~ Thomas Jefferson Those who have sought the most in gun control have sought the least in the punishment of criminals.~ Robert J. Kukla The burning of an author’s books, imprisonment for opinion’s sake, has always been the tribute that an ignorant age pays to the genius of its time.~ Joseph Lewis Now all acts of legislature apparently contrary to natural right and justice, are, in our laws, and must be in the nature of things, considered as void. The laws of nature are the laws of God: A legislature must not obstruct our obedience to him from whose punishments they cannot protect us. All human constitutions which contradict His laws, we are in conscience bound to disobey. Such have been the adjudications of our courts of justice.~ George Mason We need criminals to identify ourselves with, to secretly envy and to stoutly punish. They do for us the forbidden, illegal things we wish to.~ Karl A. Menninger People who are brutally honest get more satisfaction out of the brutality than out of the honesty.~ Richard J. Needham Distrust everyone in whom the impulse to punish is powerful.~ Friedrich Nietzsche 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.~ Thomas Paine Some writers have so confounded society with government, as to leave little or no distinction between them; whereas they are not only different, but have different origins. Society is produced by our wants, and government by wickedness; the former promotes our happiness positively by uniting our affections, the latter negatively by restraining our vices. The one encourages intercourse, the other creates distinctions. The first is a patron, the last a punisher. Society in every state is a blessing, but government even in its best state is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one ...~ Thomas Paine Most of the harm in the world is done by good people, and not by accident, lapse, or omission. It is the result of their deliberate actions, long persevered in, which they hold to be motivated by high ideals toward virtuous ends.~ Isabel Paterson Next to enjoying ourselves, the next greatest pleasure consists in preventing others from enjoying themselves, or, more generally, in the acquisition of power. Consequently those who live under the dominion of Puritanism become exceedingly desirous of power. Now love of power does far more harm than love of drink or any of the other vices against which Puritans protest. Of course, in virtuous people love of power camouflages itself as love of doing good, but this makes very little difference to its social effects. It merely means that we punish our victims for being wicked, instead of for being our enemies. In either case, tyranny and war result. Moral indignation is one of the most harmful forces in the modern world, the more so as it can always be diverted to sinister uses by those who control propaganda.~ Bertrand Russell It is clear that thought is not free if the profession of certain opinions make it impossible to earn a living.~ Bertrand Russell The laws in question can, therefore, only be justified by the theory of vindictive punishment, which holds that certain sins, though they may not injure anyone except the sinner, are so heinous as to make it our duty to inflict pain upon the delinquent. This point of view, under the influence of Benthamism, lost its hold during the nineteenth century. But in recent years, with the general decay of Liberalism, it has regained lost ground, and has begun to threaten a new tyranny as oppressive as any in the Middle Ages.~ Bertrand Russell If the prisoner should ask the judge whether he would be content to be hanged, were he in his case, he would answer no. Then, says the prisoner, do as you would be done to.~ John Selden It is the deed that teaches, not the name we give it. Murder and capital punishment are not opposites that cancel one another, but similars that breed their own kind.~ George Bernard Shaw For a government to declare a vice to be a crime, and to punish it as such, is an attempt to falsify the very nature of things. It is as absurd as it would be to declare truth to be a falsehood, or falsehood a truth.~ Lysander Spooner I consider marijuana the worst of all narcotics, far worse than the use of morphine or cocaine. Under its influence men become beasts... Marijuana destroys life itself. I have no sympathy with those who sell this weed. The government is going to enforce this new law to the letter.~ Judge John Foster Symes Welfare mostly subsidizes people in poverty, helping few escape from it. In their hearts, most people who are poor would like to be rich, or at least self-sustaining, but this president never talks about how they might achieve that goal. Instead, he criticizes those who made the right choices and now enjoy the fruits of their labor. Rather than use successful people as examples for the poor to follow, the president seeks to punish the rich with higher taxes and more regulations on their businesses.~ Cal Thomas The executive branch of this government never has, nor will suffer, while I preside, any improper conduct of its officers to escape with impunity.~ George Washington In Europe, when tobacco was first introduced, it was immediately banned. In Turkey, if you got caught with tobacco, you had your nose slit. China and Russia imposed the death penalty for possession of tobacco.~ Andrew Weil, MD Previous 20 quotes Next 20 quotes Share on Facebook Tweet Email Print