The work of eradicating crimes is not by making punishment familiar, but formidable.
—Oliver Goldsmith (1730–74) Irish Novelist, Playwright, Poet
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.
—Victor Hugo (1802–85) French Novelist
Instruction does much, but encouragement does everything.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) German Poet
The very worst use to which you can put a man, says Wilkes, is to hang him; but the hanging is not to make the man useful, but to punish his crime and protect society.
—Charles Simmons (1924–2017) American Editor, Novelist
The exposition of future punishment in God’s word is not to be regarded as a threat, but as a merciful declaration.—If in the ocean of life, over which we are bound to eternity, there are these rocks and shoals, it is no cruelty to chart them down; it is an eminent and prominent mercy.
—Henry Ward Beecher (1813–87) American Clergyman, Writer
In its function, the power to punish is not essentially different from that of curing or educating.
—Michel Foucault (1926–84) French Philosopher, Critic, Historian
I’m all for bringing back the birch, but only between consenting adults.
—Gore Vidal (1925–48) American Novelist, Essayist, Journalist, Playwright
Let wickedness escape, as it may at the bar, it never fails of doing justice upon itself; for every guilty person is his own hangman.
—Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca) (c.4 BCE–65 CE) Roman Stoic Philosopher, Statesman, Tragedian
Why not whip the teacher when the pupil misbehaves?
—Diogenes Laertius (f.3rd Century CE) Biographer of the Greek Philosophers
The object of punishment is three fold: for just retribution; for the protection of society; for the reformation of the offender.
—Tryon Edwards American Theologian
It is hard, but it is excellent, to find the right knowledge of when correction is necessary, and when grace doth most avail.
—Philip Sidney (1554–86) English Soldier Poet, Courtier
If your buttocks burn, you know you have done wrong.
—African Proverb
Hold you there, neither a strange hand nor my own, neither heavy nor light shall touch my bum.
—Miguel de Cervantes (1547–1616) Spanish Novelist
Capital punishment would be more effective as a preventive measure if it were administered prior to the crime.
—Woody Allen (b.1935) American Film Actor, Director
God is on the side of virtue; for whoever dreads punishment suffers it, and whoever deserves it dreads it.
—Charles Caleb Colton (c.1780–1832) English Clergyman, Aphorist
All in all, punishment hardens and renders people more insensible; it concentrates; it increases the feeling of estrangement; it strengthens the power of resistance.
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German Philosopher, Scholar, Writer
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.
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron) (1788–1824) English Romantic Poet
Let the punishment be proportionate to the offense.
—Cicero (106BCE–43BCE) Roman Philosopher, Orator, Politician, Lawyer
It is as expedient that a wicked man be punished as that a sick man be cured by a physician; for all chastisement is a kind of medicine.
—Plato (428 BCE–347 BCE) Ancient Greek Philosopher, Mathematician, Educator
Faults of the head are punished in this world; those of the heart in another; but as most of our vices are compound, so is their punishment.
—Charles Caleb Colton (c.1780–1832) English Clergyman, Aphorist
If punishment makes not the will supple it hardens the offender.
—John Locke (1632–1704) English Philosopher, Physician
It is the crime not the scaffold which is the disgrace.
—Pierre Corneille (1606–84) French Poet, Dramatist
The whole of life and experience goes to show, that right or wrong doing, whether as to the physical or the spiritual nature, is sure in the end to meet its appropriate reward or punishment.—Penalties may be delayed, but they are sure to come.
—Henry Ward Beecher (1813–87) American Clergyman, Writer
Correction does much, but encouragement does more. Encouragement after censure is as the sun after a shower.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) German Poet
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.
—Marquis de Sade (1740–1814) French Political leader, Revolutionary, Novelist, Poet, Critic
Even legal punishments lose all appearance of justice, when too strictly inflicted on men compelled by the last extremity of distress to incur them.
—Junius Unidentified English Writer
As one reads history, not in the expurgated editions written for schoolboys and passmen, but in the original authorities of each time, one is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed, but by the punishments that the good have inflicted; and a community is infinitely more brutalised by the habitual employment of punishment than it is by the occasional occurrence of crime.
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish Poet, Playwright
Punishment is the last and the least effective instrument in the hands of the legislator for the prevention of crime.
—John Ruskin (1819–1900) English Writer, Art Critic
Men are not hanged for stealing horses, but that horses may not be stolen.
—E. F. L. Wood, 1st Earl of Halifax (1881–1959) British Politician, Political leader
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 (384BCE–322BCE) Ancient Greek Philosopher, Scholar
We will not punish a man because he hath offended, but that he may offend no more; nor does punishment ever look to the past, but to the future; for it is not the result of passion, but that the same thing may be guarded against in time to come.
—Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca) (c.4 BCE–65 CE) Roman Stoic Philosopher, Statesman, Tragedian
Punishment is lame, but it comes.
—George Herbert (1593–1633) Welsh Anglican Poet, Orator, Clergyman
Whipping and abuse are like laudanum; you have to double the dose as the sensibilities decline.
—Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811–96) American Abolitionist, Author
One should not lift the rod against our enemies upon the private information of another.
—The Hitopadesha Indian Collection of Fables
Prisons are built with stones of Law. Brothels with the bricks of religion.
—William Blake (1757–1827) English Poet, Painter, Printmaker
Take away the danger and remove the restraint, and wayward nature runs free.
—Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus) (65–8 BCE) Roman Poet
The object of punishment is the prevention of evil; it can never be made impulsive to good.
—Horace Mann (1796–1859) American Educator, Politician, Educationalist
Don’t let us rejoice in punishment, even when the hand of God alone inflicts it. The best of us are but poor wretches just saved from shipwreck. Can we feel anything but awe and pity when we see a fellow passenger swallowed by the waves?
—George Eliot (Mary Anne Evans) (1819–80) English Novelist
When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love has always won. There have been tyrants and murderers and for a time they seem invincible but in the end, they always fall—think of it, always.
—Mohandas K. Gandhi (1869–1948) Indian Hindu Political leader
There is no greater punishment than that of being abandoned to one’s self.
—Pasquier Quesnel (1634–1719) French Jansenist Theologian
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.
—Thomas Szasz (1920–2012) Hungarian-American Psychiatrist, Psychoanalyst
Jails and prisons are the complement of schools; so many less as you have of the latter, so many more you must have of the former.
—Horace Mann (1796–1859) American Educator, Politician, Educationalist
Distrust everyone in whom the impulse to punish is powerful!
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German Philosopher, Scholar, Writer
The public has more interest in the punishment of an injury than the one who receives it.
—Charles Caleb Colton (c.1780–1832) English Clergyman, Aphorist
To make punishments efficacious, two things are necessary; they must never be disproportioned to the offence, and they must be certain.
—William Gilmore Simms (1806–70) American Poet, Novelist, Historian
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.
—Claude Levi-Strauss (1908–2009) French Social Anthropologist, Philosopher
Wickedness, when properly punished, is disgraceful only to the offender; unpunished, it is disgraceful to the whole community.
—Charles Simmons (1924–2017) American Editor, Novelist
Thwackum was for doing justice, and leaving mercy to Heaven.
—Henry Fielding (1707–54) English Novelist, Dramatist
The first and greatest punishment of the sinner is the conscience of sin.
—Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca) (c.4 BCE–65 CE) Roman Stoic Philosopher, Statesman, Tragedian
The seeds of our punishment are sown at the same time we commit the sin.
—Hesiod (f.700 BCE) Greek Poet