Capital Punishment Quotes - Page 5

• Muslims consider the honor of the Prophet Muhammad to be dearer to them than that of their parents or even themselves. To defend it is considered to be an obligation upon them. The strict punishment if found guilty of this crime under sharia, the Islamic law, is capital punishment implementable by an Islamic State. This is because the Messenger Muhammad said, ‘Whoever insults a Prophet, kill him.’

  Anjem Choudary

  Islamic, Punishment, Law

  "Anjem Choudary says woman who organised Muhammed cartoon contest should face death penalty under Sharia Law" by Christopher Bucktin, www.mirror.co.uk. May 7, 2015.

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• Banning capital punishment takes us to a higher state of consciousness.

  Jerry Brown

  Punishment, Consciousness, States

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• But once a culture develops sufficiently to become skeptical, the idea of censorship becomes less attractive. To suppress a book or a picture or a sculpture or a play or a film is a terrible act of aggression against the artist who created it. This is a miming of capital punishment; it destroys the life that has been emanated by a life.

  Rebecca West

  Book, Artist, Punishment

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• The ability of so many people to live comfortably with the idea of capital punishment is perhaps a clue to how so many Europeans were able to live with the idea of the Holocaust: Once you accept the notion that the state has the right to kill someone and the right to define what is a capital crime, aren't you halfway there?

  Roger Ebert

  Halfway There, Punishment, Ideas

  Roger Ebert (2009). “Roger Ebert's Four Star Reviews--1967-2007”, p.516, Andrews McMeel Publishing

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• I want to think that there are better ways of obviating murder than to resort to capital punishment, but I realise that this may be wishful thinking on my part.

  Torbjorn Tannsjo

  Thinking, Punishment, May

  Source: www.3ammagazine.com

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• The national laws of the five regions of India prescribe no cangue, beatings or prison. Those who are guilty are fined in accordance with the degree of the offence committed. There is no capital punishment.

  Hyecho

  Law, Punishment, India

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• Any assassination is an assassination. It's cold, it's terrible. I'm against any capital punishment. Only the Lord has the right to take away life because he's the giver of life. And assassination stands against democracy, against civilization, against a civilized life of people. Alas, the situation in Lebanon is very chaotic and many innocent people lost their lives because they have a state within a state, an army within an army and the respect for life is not high enough.

  Shimon Peres

  Army, Punishment, Civilization

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• When in Gregg v. Georgia the Supreme Court gave its seal of approval to capital punishment, this endorsement was premised on the promise that capital punishment would be administered with fairness and justice. Instead, the promise has become a cruel and empty mockery. If not remedied, the scandalous state of our present system of capital punishment will cast a pall of shame over our society for years to come. We cannot let it continue.

  Thurgood Marshall

  Years, Punishment, Justice

  Thurgood Marshall (2001). “Thurgood Marshall: His Speeches, Writings, Arguments, Opinions, and Reminiscences”, Chicago Review Press

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• Of all parties I now see only one party- The Anarchist- which respects human life, and loudly insists upon the abolition of capital punishment, prison torture and punishment of man by man altogether.

  Peter Kropotkin

  Party, Men, Prison

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• The second item in the liberal creed, after self-righteousness, is unaccountability. Liberals have invented whole college majors--psychology, sociology, women's studies--to prove that nothing is anybody's fault. No one is fond of taking responsibility for his actions, but consider how much you'd have to hate free will to come up with a political platform that advocates killing unborn babies but not convicted murderers. A callous pragmatist might favor abortion and capital punishment. A devout Christian would sanction neither. But it takes years of therapy to arrive at the liberal view.

  P. J. O'Rourke

  Christian, Baby, Hate

  P. J. O'Rourke (2007). “Give War a Chance: Eyewitness Accounts of Mankind's Struggle Against Tyranny, Injustice, and Alcohol-Free Beer”, p.21, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

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• Any man knows when he is justified, and all the wits in the world cannot enlighten him on that point. The murderer always knows that he is justly punished; but when a government takes the life of a man without the consent of his conscience, it is an audacious government, and is taking a step towards its own dissolution.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Men, Steps, World

  Henry David Thoreau (2014). “Citizen Thoreau: Walden, Civil Disobedience, Life Without Principle, Slavery in Massachusetts, A Plea for Captain John Brown”, p.252, Graphic Arts Books

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• Those subject to capital punishment are real human beings, with their own backgrounds and narratives. By contrast, those whose lives are or might be saved by virtue of capital punishment are mere 'statistical people.' They are both nameless and faceless, and their deaths are far less likely to be considered in moral deliberations.

  Cass Sunstein

  Real, Punishment, People

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• I think we have to have capital punishment, I think there has to be something to contain certain people. Those deterrents I think are necessary, especially in prison. You can threaten people for just so long, but they can flip you off and do what they want to; but not if they have to die. I hate it, though, the thought of the death penalty is terrible, but it's completely necessary.

  Merle Haggard

  Hate, Thinking, People

  Source: www.esquire.com

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• I'm for capital punishment. You've got to execute people. How else are they going to learn?

  Mort Sahl

  Punishment, People

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• But now inquiry is being made concerning these issues. First, can any believer enlist in the military? Second, can any soldier, even those of the rank and file or lesser grades who neither engage in pagan sacrifices nor capital punishment, be admitted into the church? No on both counts.

  Tertullian

  Military, Sacrifice, Punishment

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• The Constitution should contain a provision that every officer of the Government who should neglect or refuse to extend the protection guaranteed in the Constitution should be subject to capital punishment; and then the president of the United States would not say, "Your cause is just, but I can do nothing for you."

  Joseph Smith, Jr.

  Freedom, Punishment, America

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• As an American I wanted to explore... why are we the only first world country that still has capital punishment? Is it because we're too afraid to really examine the system, or is it because we really truly believe that this is the best way to deter future crime?

  Jodi Picoult

  Country, Believe, Punishment

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• The (capital punishment) controversy passes the anarch by. For him, the linking of death and punishment is absurd. In this respect, he is closer to the wrongdoer than to the judge, for the high-ranking culprit who is condemned to death is not prepared to acknowledge his sentence as atonement; rather, he sees his guilt in his own inadequacy. Thus, he recognizes himself not as a moral but as a tragic person.

  Ernst Junger

  Punishment, Judging, Guilt

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• A civilized society looks with horror upon the abuse and torture of children or adults. Even where capital punishment is practiced, the aim is to implement it as mercifully as possible. Are we to believe then that a holy God-our heavenly Father-is less just than the courts of men?

  Sidney Hatch

  Children, Father, Believe

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• I knew quite well, when I gave the names of our agents in the Soviet Union, that I was exposing them to the full machinery of counterespionage and the law, and then prosecution and capital punishment.

  Aldrich Ames

  Law, Punishment, Names

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• But these days, there's also a strong economic argument for doing away with capital punishment. With California facing its most severe fiscal crisis in recent memory... it would be crazy not to consider the fact that it will add as much as $1 billion over the next five years simply to keep the death penalty on the books.

  John Van de Kamp

  Strong, Memories, Crazy

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• Does capital punishment tend to the security of the people? By no means. It hardens the hearts of men, and makes the loss of life appear light to them; and it renders life insecure, inasmuch as the law holds out that property is of greater value than life.

  Elizabeth Fry

  Heart, Mean, Loss

  Quoted in Rachel E Cresswell and Katharine Fry Memoir of the Life of Elizabeth Fry (1848).

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• Capital punishment has probably been responsible for a good deal of human progress. The overwhelming majority of those executed were of the sort whose departures for bliss eternal improved the average intelligence and decency of the race.

  H. L. Mencken

  Race, Average, Punishment

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• If we could do away with death, we wouldn't object; to do away with capital punishment will be more difficult. Were that to happen, we would reinstate it from time to time.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Punishment, Difficult, Happens

  "Wilhelm Meister's Travels". Book by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1829.

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• Like cellulite creams or hair-loss tonics, capital punishment is one of those panaceas that isn't. Only it costs a whole lot more.

  Anna Quindlen

  Loss, Hair, Punishment

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